February 2012
10 posts
6 tags
Forward + Rewind
Coinciding with the release of Stone Throw’s highly anticipated second volume of their Minimal Wave series, the new compilation by the Viennese collective/label Future Echo charters the minimal/wave/postpunk/industrial electronics sonic territories. In contrast to Veronica Vasicka’s compilation, however, The Future Echo Tapes mostly features contemporary projects that try to...
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Black Sea Manele-Core: Anadolchioi
Last week an interesting beat-making newcomer appeared on our radar. Coming (or supposedly coming) from the biggest Black Sea port of Constanţa, Anadolchioi is secretive about his true identity. His name is taken from the name of a Constanţa neighborhood in whose proximity he lived (Anadol is also a former Turkish car brand).
“While my neighbourhood (Tomis III) is inhabited mostly by...
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Hazy Memories - Out Of Place (self-released, 2012)
Hazy Memories is a project by a 19-year producer from Husi in Romania. His debut EP Out Of Place is an exquisite entrée onto the Romanian beat scene, where a young generation of producers like Montgomery Clunk, Minus, Polochord or ViLLΛGE further explores the sonic territories of glitch/hip hop, wonky, bass and club-oriented electronica.
Out Of Place is a relaxing, soulful EP whose hazy...
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dAdA ACTa - Czechoslovakia unites against ACTA
Remember Czechoslovakia ? The small country once part of the Communist Ost Block? The country that, after its Velvet Revolution and playwright-cum-president Václav Havel, broke apart into Czech Republic and Slovakia ? Well, now it’s united again.
The events of January 18th and #OpMegaupload have spawned not only the first generation of the Czechoslovak Anonymous hivemind, that...
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Fuka Lata and their Saturn Melancholia
The high priestess of sonic melancholia Lee DVD and Mito Day have delivered their “romantic space songs” on a new record fittingly entitled Saturn Melancholia. Last year, the duo appeared on the Krakow-based label Audiotong with an EP Other Sides. Thus, comparisons are on on hand. The new album reflects their burgeoning live shows. More buoyant (beats) and in a way also...
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Sangoplasmo is back with 4 new tapes (incl....
The great Polish label Sangoplasmo is one the most interesting imprints to emerge from this region over the past few years, having released the likes of Aranos but also several oddly beautiful albums by the likes of Lutto Lento or Katapulto. It’s 2012 release schedule starts off with a bang - with no less than 4 tapes.
Aside from Burial Hex and Felicia Atkinson who has yearning, hypnotic...
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January shizz
Another installment of our monthly podcasts, this time chartering the first month of the year (usually a pretty dead period in terms of releases), but there’s still good stuff released. From Dark Side of Pop compilation by Poland’s Cowshed Records, to the 90s sonic tribute Crni Pek to Romanian hommage to a Czech composer. Sound-wise it’s dark and gloomy and cold, not dissimilar...
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Darkness descends: Lasariage and their R■n■sans
Poland has been no novice to witch-influenced tunes (courtesy of Cowshed Records), but lately there have been projects appearing on the scene that even though utilising some of the aesthetics of the once popular microgenre, create their own sonic language.
Lasariage is a project of Jakub Wojciechowski who was also featured on Cowshed’s compilation Side Effects last year. His influences...
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Zmikeo and his Stem Cell
Zmikeo! came into our attention whilst frantically searching for Serbia’s up-and-coming musical hidden gems before heading there at the tail end of last summer. We came across the mysterious Zmikeo! (aka Milos Petrovic) - whom we digged so much we put up his first live gig in Pancevo near Belgrade, in September. His dark, uncanny music has blossomed over the time as evident from his latest...
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Dark Side of Pop
Compilations have increasingly become a medium of choice for many labels these days, a quick and easy way how to put up loads of tracks by loads of producers without a need to release separate EPs (we’ve been part of the game too we admit with a new comp coming out in next couple of weeks:). But eventually the more good music gets exposed, the better.
The fledgling Polish netlabel...
January 2012
13 posts
5 tags
V.A. - Dvořák Remastered [LCLR02]
Remember about the call to submit re-edits of Dvorak´s ouevre that we posted a little while ago? The resulting audio versions, which oscillates between ambient, beats and “a random trippy deconstruction of Dvorak” courtesy of Romanian but also Czech producers /Sky to Speak/ can be checked out here.
The Local Records selection, an alternative version of the competition results found...
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∑B❍L▲ ▲P∑'s Lovesong
The mysterious Sopot based producer caught our attention a few month ago (read the article here), and since then he has kept in touch with the wide world via a steady stream of videos and tracks. His latest endeavour is a remix of Husband’s Lovesong accompanied by an old anime video. Below is another of his visual messages about a medical experience.
“This shocking documentary...
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Crni Pek: Serbia's thriving outsider music of the...
A new compilation put together by Nikola Vitkovic (as his independent endeavour) strives to highlight the buoyoant music scene of the troublesome period of Serbia’s history - the 1990s. It seems that the old maxim about art thriving in the age of general gloom is at play in this case as well. Nikola was, however, not interested in the country’s strong alternative indie scene...
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How does the Dark Side of the Sun sound like (by...
Jakub Nox Ambroziak is a prolific producer with several releases under his belt. His latest offering, released on the label Seventeen Bricks, is called Dark Side of the Sun and consists of dark samples, synths and tells a story about the dark side of the most brightest planets, the hole in the sun and strange noises.
Jakub Nox Ambroziak - Dark Side of the Sun by seventeenbricks
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Piernikowski&Etamski: twisting brain wires &...
Two noteworthy albums of twisted, fucked-up, spaced out beats have come out in Poland this week. Each approaching beats in their own way - the first more twisted and stretched, the second more straightforward but still somehow eerie way.
First is a live album by Robert Piernikowski from the Polish “hip hop” act Napszyklat and another local producer Etamski, a melee of improvised...
6 tags
Meanbucket's bass Massage
A bass-heavy offering from the Meanbucket contingent, the ambassadors of modern urban dance styles from juke to bass via dub-inflected accelerated bpm. The Prague based label has been getting increasingly prolific, one of their most recent offerings is by Chicago legend Traxman from Dance Mania records.
Their upcoming release is by the Czech Trusty&Freezer. Aside from the original track by...
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2011 in Macedonian music by Toni Dimitrov
Toni Dimitrov is a mainstay in the Macedonian independent scene. He’s been a part of the brilliant Kanal 103 radio station (which we gatecrashed in autumn, more on that soon) for astonishing 14 years. He’s also a creator himself (tweaking field recordings collected during his many expeditions into Macedonia’s nature), and a curator (through his new label Post Global).
What’s...
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Analogue synth lovers Reverend Dick have a new...
Reverend Dick from Prague love their vintage analogue synths and a certain almost innocuously and ironically dark atmosphere which they translate into their sound and visual aesthetics (since they are also visual artists, members of the activist art collective Guma Guar). Find out more in our interview and our audio interview for easterndaze’s Radio Wave show.
Here is their new video for...
12 tags
2011 in Slovak music by Filip Drábek and BWO
Another of our yearly recaps this time with not one but two perspectives on the Slovak music scene. First Filip Drábek from the Exitab label, one of the most active imprints in Slovakia in terms of independent music at the moment and second one is a collective answer from the BWO collective, purveyors of urban dance music in the country.
What’s the highlight for you in Slovakia’s music scene?...
10 tags
2k11 in music
The December selection of tracks is a special look back at the last year in music of Eastern Europe. Originally produced as a Xmass Special for the Czech national radio channel 4 - Radio Wave, we offer you the show without words, to enjoy one more look back at 2k11. From synthy sonic voyages to Hungarian lofi, to modern Slovak dance, to Polish urban sonics, to Czech “witch house”, to...
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2011 in Romanian music by Tom Wilson
Tom Wilson is a British Bucharest based journalist, BBC radio correspondent and DJ and one of our connections in the city while we were there on our exploration journey in 2010.
What’s the highlight for you in Romania’s music scene? The highlight of my year had to be either the Rokolectiv festival or Romania’s continuing global take-over of the charts with Europop artists like Inna, Radio...
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2011 in Serbian music by Vuksa Velickovic
Vuksa Velickovic is a writer, UCL alumni, editor of the Bturn magazine focused on promoting the music, culture and style of the Balkans and a general man about town. Here he divulges what rocked his world in ‘11 and what has 2012 got in store for him.
What’s the highlight for you in Serbia’s music scene?
It’s hard to talk of a “music scene” in Serbia, but there are some...
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2011 in Czech music by Karel Veselý
Another of our 2011 recaps this time with acclaimed Czech journalist and writer Karel Veselý, author and editor of books including Hudba ohně (Fire Music: Radical Black Music From Jazz to Hip Hop and Beyond) and Kmeny.
What’s the highlight for you in Czech Republic’s music scene? It’s nice to see people doing their own thing without the support from the big labels and also...
December 2011
11 posts
8 tags
2011 - Hungarian music according to András Rónai
The end of the year is nigh, and thus we have decided to - surprise, surprise - compile a list of Best of from the countries we have been exploring over the last two years. And since our knowledge is limited, we have asked those living, working and creating in those particular countries to tell us about the music happenings in their country.
As first, we are glad to present the answers of...
9 tags
Serbia - an audio travelogue (Resonance FM)
A view of Belgrade from the top floor hallway of one of the East Gate towers
Our affinity for the Balkans started more than a year ago when we first set out to explore the music scene of this for us totally unfamiliar country - at least until then (in spite of the fact that half of Lucia’s family lives there).
Serbia is perhaps the most economically and politically disadvantaged, dealing...
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Romanian scene '11 - free compilation
What is the relevance of local scenes in a globalised culture? I would argue that it´s increasingly important. A similar conviction is probably held by the guys behind Local Records, a Bucharest based record label which also functions as a promoter of Romanian independent artists. We have met Bogdan at Local Rec. whilst in Bucharest in 2010 and his vision of Local seemed enthusiastic. After...
3 tags
Svet je davno zakovrno - a sonic diary
A sonic tapestry of everyday life, confessions of drug addicts, mentally disturbed and alcoholics, of cafes and factories, streets or religion of and related to Serbia. Svet je davno zakovrno is a project by the Pančevo-based Mileta Mijatovic and his several contributors, including our friend Vladimir Lenhart, who supply him with sonic ephemera, excavated from tapes, vinyls or recorded on...
3 tags
Remixing Dvořák
Refashioning classical music by contemporary, often electronic producers, seems to be quite popular these days, with varying results. Austria has done a similar project with recontextualisations of Haydn or Schwanensee and this time, it’s a mutual collaboration between Romania and the Czech Republic. An open call for remixes of the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák invites young or established...
6 tags
1000names - Invisible Architect (Project...
“It’s a mystery where the music comes from and why it sounds the way it does. We look for the answer in the garden of the invisible architect – and try just to be…“
To make electronic music today is quite simple. Every day new faces appear on the scene, the internet is full of projects, and unfortunately loads of them sound the same. Worshiping the big names, then checking tutorials how to make...
7 tags
October + November Shizz
Another in our supposedly regular monthly podcasts presenting the best music we could come across in the given period (geographically attuned to our focus of course:). This installment turned out slightly deranged with lot of spoken word, psychedelia and twisted electronics.
The brilliant label Sangoplasmo features heavily, as does Polish music with Grobbing Thristle’s reworked album Other...
5 tags
∆K†I◯N †4 --- MIX†∆PE
∆K†I◯N †4 - MIX†∆PE from Mateusz Ezra Altman on Vimeo.
The Polish witchhouse scene is obviously on the rise. Check out this massive mini-mixtape by ∆K†I◯N †4, with tracks taken from his new release ◯ out on 30. November.
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Zombie Girlfriend - Music For Porn (self-released,...
When Benedek Szabó, the mastermind behind the Hungarian project Zombie Girlfriend asked us to be the international platform through which the project’s second LP will be announced, we couldn’t say no. First of all we love Benedek’s musical humour, as manifested in the laid-back surfpop killer Jesus Stole My Zombie Girlfriend released as a part of the seminal Hungarian Lo-fi...
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The flesh is rotting down the bone - Hungary's...
It has been an age-old assumption that when the times are shit - politically and/or economically, the art thrives (punk or the NY-based no wave and new wave scenes as a case in point). Hungary currently is not in the best state both politically and economically. A thriving bedroom lofi scene has been bubbling underneath in Budapest (read our feature about this with an interview with Ádám Lang who...
6 tags
Ela Orleans delves into the Polish past
If we were not from this region, we would also probably throw in together Ela Orleans, a Polish lofi chanteuse informed by post-punk and Maria Minerva, the Eurotrash and dance music inspired Estonian producer with a penchant for retro as in “Eastern European lofi girls making it in West” (as has been recently inadvertently done by one NFOP writer).
Ela has been inspired by the rich...
November 2011
10 posts
8 tags
0311 - The Experience EP (Concrete Cut, 2011)
Our new collaborateur, the mysterious Andrej K., has penned his first article for us, a review of Concrete Cut’s latest offering.
Polish club scene, although still globally unknown, is a place where lot of interesting things are happening on an underground level. The label Concrete Cut is one example showing that sounds and beats made in Poland can sound ‘global’ - something...
4 tags
Grobbing Thristle's Other
It interesting how this geographical sonic mapping works. Now it seems to be focused on Poland somehow - at least in the last three articles that is:) The case in point today is the ‘new’ record by Poznan based psychedelic wyrd freaks Grobbing Thristle whom we also had on our compilation which you can still download for free here. Anyway, I digress. Grobbing Thristle released a...
4 tags
∑B❍L▲ ▲P∑ straight outta Congo/Gdansk
Somehow I’m becoming prejudiced against projects with too many “ungooglable” symbols in their names, but let’s forgive the fledgling producer in this instance. Hailing from Gdansk in northern Poland, ∑B❍L▲ ▲P∑ creates music on stolen laptop. Remaining very uncanny, his music could be described as post-witch house (even if this category seems totally ludicrous) or slightly...
4 tags
b.aTL: Gentle Mind EP
The title of b.aTL’s new record is slightly misleading, although for those in love with fucked up broken structures, twisted beats, squelches and squeaks, there’s no denying of this sonic quality. Released on the Macedonian label Greenfields, an online platform for music, photography, graphic design, illustration or new media, Aleksandar Baldazarski’s latest release reaffirms...
4 tags
The om of Omm
High exposure to the Omm sound might lead to elevated states of consciousness - the fuzz drone trance. A new solo release by the Košice-based graphic designer and member of the audiovisual project BIOS, sees him delve into noise-ridden soundscapes, already explored with his aforementioned project, with his guitar as his mantra. Whereas in BIOS, he would take up mainly the role of the visualist...
4 tags
Sangoplasmo embraces the weird and dance
The ever brilliant Polish label Sangoplasmo focuses on the outthere spectrum of electronic music, mostly drone and ambient and wyrd electronica, but its recent releases demonstrate a direction into more rhythm-based genres such as “techno” and percussion. Although in their guise, its more the weird, grainy, cosmic kind. Enough to make you dream and dance at the same time. As...
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8 tags
Few things we forgot
Czech project Sky to Speak consists of Matej Kotoucek, in charge of the music, and Ondrej Synacek, who takes care of the visuals. They create their almost sentimental sound from sampling old and obscure videotapes and artists’ records and visuals. Their new album Film is out on Brno-based posse Chernobyl Kolektiv.
<a...
7 tags
Fuka Lata live at Easterndaze@Moonride Festival
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September Shizz
Another of our monthly new music series of mixes/podcasts this time also inspired by our September journey to the Balkans. Featuring techno, bass, dub step, garage, ambient or noise, this is a sonic travel through diverse rhythmic territories.
September Shizz by Easterndaze on Mixcloud
October 2011
12 posts
5 tags
I Love 69 Popgeju get a facelift
Czech Rep.’s favourite art pranksters and northern Moravia heroes I Love 69 Popgeju have a new remix album out. Refashioned by arguably the best that Czech music has got to offer these days, LET’S DECADANCE AND CELEBRATE OUR LIVES UNTIL WE’RE DEAD is out now and follows their lp Let’s Gold Corridor. From hi-octane electronics of We Are...
3 tags
Zelený Antoin live at Easterndaze
Another live set recorded at Easterndaze vs. Uši & Vitr night at Boro club in Brno that we did on 6 October, 2011. Expect a noisy tour-de-force with enough rhythm to carry it through. Check out other Antoin’s releases here.
Zeleny Antoin live at Easterndaze by easterndaze
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Moduretik - Fantas
Few months after his previous release Komplex (read our feature here), the Prague-based Moduretik is back with an album called Fantas. On his latest release, he further delves into minimal-wave territory with his bleak atmospherics and cold-blooded electronic music. The 80s synthwave has had a good few years recently (even though both Minimal Wave and Wierd have championed this sound for some...
12 tags
Vychodiska @ Radio Wave (czech 4th national...
One of our radio outputs apart from ocasional shows for Habitat.fm and even more sporadic production-in-the-making for Resonance FM is the weekly feature Vychodiska at the czech Radio Wave.
The feature is broadcast every Wednesday at 11:20 and 16:20 in the czech/slovak language mutation, you can however listen to the english mutations either from the Radio Wave archive or from our Soundcloud.
...
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Easterndaze heads to the Moon
We are returning east to Slovakia’s most eastern metropole - Košice after almost a year. This time we are curating the Thursday evening (20 October 2011) at the Moonride festival there.
We’re taking along the Polish psychedelic, avant-pop, drone and electronics friendly duo Fuka Lata who also played a show at our gig in Brno few weeks earlier. Expect abundance of psychedelia,...
7 tags
Fuka Lata - Waterfal live at Easterndaze vs Uši...
A live rendition of Waterfal a track by our friends Fuka Lata from Warsaw, as recorded at our Easterndaze meets Uši a Vítr gig at the Boro Club in Brno, Czech Republic on 6 October 2011.
Fuka Lata - Waterfal live at Easterndaze by easterndaze