May 2013
5 posts
9 tags
Last Foundation podcast + interview
Last Foundation is a relatively new imprint curated by Gábor Lázár, operating from the burgeoning Budapest electronic music scene. Though you wouldn’t even know it, since their roster includes stars of the international noise and experimental scene including Ekoplekz or Russell Haswell, which they release on tapes, usually as split releases with their local affiliated producers. Aside from...
6 tags
Binmatu: Sound sounds, it isn't.
Sound that is perceived per se, with all its physical features and emotional effect on the listener, who perceives it as something subliminal, that goes under one’s skin without the need to rely on melody or harmony. Binmatu “is a ‘priest of sound’, delivering complex air pressure modulations towards ears, presenting certain degree of divine experience - connection with...
6 tags
12z - playful sonic adventures
12z is an improvisational project from Budapest, whose regular weekly sessions in their Buda flat overlooking a park and the famous Gellert hill, have lead to a full-fledged album, recorded not in Budapest, but in a countryside hut. 12z’s Marci Kristof has told me that he doesn’t think music that is aimed at live contexts, should be statified on record. This has, nevertheless,...
3 tags
KataRzia - Bratislava's cosmic accident
The inherent lofi quality of bedroom-pop is often an alluring even if unwanted side-effect of the production process. This is also the enthralling aspect about the music of the young Slovak songwriter Katarina Kubošiová. She releases her stripped-down and bare skeletons of songs on Soundcloud under the moniker KataRzia. I asked her a few questions.
How did you start writing songs ?
I...
7 tags
From the vaults of the Czechoslovak underground -...
CS Industrial has recently started as a Facebook page digging out Czech and Slovak industrial and EBM tinged videos and tracks from the period between 1982 and 2010, in a way effectively creating an online archive documenting the birth of Czech and Slovak electronic scene, which considering the political and societal conditions at the time this music was made, is also an expression of the then...
April 2013
6 posts
6 tags
WatchIt’s almost exactly three years since we started this, our Eastern adventures, sonic explorations, meeting amazing people, listening to great musics, climbing up the Soviet monument in Varna with Жълти Стъклa, to visiting cold wave musician and artist Wojciech Bąkowski in his flat in Poznan, chatting to animal activist and artist Penka Popova in Plovdiv, and impromptu broadcasting from the...
7 tags
The chimerical techno of RSS Boys remixed by Pawel...
RSS Boys linger in secret, though they recently appeared on the Wire Tapper CD, their identity or whereabouts remain cloaked in a veil of mystery, aside from the fact that they release their prolific output /their latest album proper appeared in March/ on the acclaimed Mik Musik! and are part of their Secret Editions, alongside artists like Pawel Pesel /whose great release Ekscentryzm was...
4 tags
Slovak sampledelic - Samčo, brat dážďoviek -...
Samčo, brat dážďoviek is a peculiar phenomen on the Slovak sonic scene, an epitome of weirdness that is not a try-hard, but rather a genuine expression of artistic intention. His March EP, entitled Európske hlavné épéčko kultúry /European Capital EP of Culture/ is a pun on the increasingly controversial European capital of culture project in the eastern Slovakian city of Košice. Brimming with...
5 tags
Makunouchi Bento: The Guardians of Rare Pieces
The Timisoara-based duo Makunouchi Bento make soundtracks for their imaginary movies. At times opulent, adventurous sonic textures are woven into a tapestry of imagination, transporting the listener into non-descript moments in time, a gentle, fragile odyssey that is peculiarly haunting, playful and dreamlike. It’s not a placid lullaby throughout though, there are more uptempo songs in...
7 tags
Polish theory of relativity - podcast
Polish theory of relativity by Easterndaze on Mixcloud
A special podcast prepared by Jacek Plewicki from the great music magazine Glissando. Here, he highlights some personal highlights, unreleased material as well as forthcoming gems, picks and special tracks sourced from the vaults of contemporary Polish sonic underground.
5 tags
Route 8 - Mental Murder, and his lofi house
Route 8 emerged from the sprawling Hungarian lofi scene that mostly encompassed guitar-driven and quirky electronic acts. Route 8’s sonic trajectory verged towards the dancefloor, the dancefloor of slow, hypnotic tunes made on analogue hardware. This was already apparent during his live set we put on for him in Budapest a year ago, and comes more pronounced on his latest EP, out on the...
March 2013
6 posts
7 tags
RSS Boys - TH T00TH 0F TH FTR
RSS Boys, the enigmatic project emerged last year as part of Mik Musik’s Secret Editions series. Their quirky techno has already caught our ears with their debut release, and recently, their track appeared on a Wire Tapper CD. They revel in cryptic song titles, whilst the music follows in a rhythmic, technoid trajectory to trance-enducing psychotropic effect.
F0G by RSS B0YS
The...
10 tags
Reclaiming rave: Lightning Glove - Fantasmagorie...
Lightning Glove is a Czech project that emerged from the murky circles of the Prague noise/psychedelic collective Klangundkrach. A trio, accompanied by a visualist, Lightning Glove strive to resurrect rave from its sad sold-out existence, as they told us in an interview: The music has inherent allusions to the likes of Excepter or Suicide, with a dash of Coil or Throbbing Gristle for a good...
7 tags
Gloryhole: Heavenly Remixes
Gloryhole is a Hungarian indie garage/pop band, whose songs are perfectly accessible and radio friendly in The Smiths kind of way, even your mum would like them. Enter “Heavenly Remixes”, a collection of beat-driven remixes, mostly by local producers, which have ended up completely recontextualising the original, turning it into at times harrowing, menacing offering. Highlights...
11 tags
MANASYt – Hailing from the Otherside
It may seem ironic. Finding a Bulgarian producer can be an easier task if you choose to look outside, rather than within the borders of our country. They seem to be thriving out there, unburdened by our homeland’s troublesome past, absurd present and ever so uncertain future. One such producer is MANASYt – one of the most accomplished Eastern European industrial electro producers in the last...
7 tags
SFA005 - Zelený Antoin
Recorded at our Easterndaze event in Brno in 2011, and in summer 2013 at Bratislava’s FUGA, a psychedelic, post-punky noise-driven journey into disquieting sonic realms, is now being released as a free download by the Czech netlabel Signals from Arkaim. The audio instantly brings recollections of the dinghy environs of the Boro club, where Antoin unleashed his psychedelic voyage, on a...
5 tags
VooDooMan - the sonic sorcerer from Bratislava
The Slovak sonic sorcerer VooDooMan, based in Bratislava, one of the firm personas of the local noise/audio scene, revels in hypnotic aural fissures, disorienting journeys through mangled synapses, created in his own custom-built software. His prolific output counts numerous tracks, from 3 second to 80 minutes long, an endless stream of aural conscioussness. Some of his recent output can be...
February 2013
6 posts
5 tags
Zomblaze - New Age (2013, Chi Recordings)
We featured the Hungarian beatsmith Zomblaze on our first compilation back in 2011. His sample and bass-heavy abstract hiphop was released by Chi Recordings last year. Now he is back with 6 more tracks.
New Age EP presents a more mellow side of Zomblaze’s production, with lush, almost jazzy vocals on the first track Breath Deep, followed by smooth and deep grooves of the cinematic...
10 tags
Wilhelm Bras - Wordless Songs by the Electric Fire...
Mik Musik has revamped itself last year with a slew of releases, mysteriously titled, and following in a gritty, psychedelic danceable vein. Mostly part of its super secret anonymous edition, acts like RSS Boys, Mangrove Mangrave or PAWEL PESEL, have pursued a wonky, exploratory techno direction, without utilising many of the usual genre tropes.
The new installment of Mik’s new sonic...
7 tags
B.ATL - SKTCH EP /aka a glitchy disorientation,...
When we visited Macedonia’s capital Skopje, the punkish Kanal 103 radio, located in the socialist remnant of a building surrounded by a police station and a hooker strip, it seemed like the place where anyone making anything worthwile sonically, congregated. Running their own shows, playing concerts, etc.
One of the guys who works there is B.ATL, part of the Disphilharmonia collective,...
6 tags
WTF is SWAG presents: Foggy Mountain EP
After the brilliant EAT DESSERT FIRST compilation that highlighted the end of last summer, the WTF is SWAGbrigade are back on track to hit us with a fresh dose of bass-heavy vibes.
Foggy Mountain EP is a split project between two talented young producers – Bulgarian Lenard and Hungarian oneone, including 4 original tracks and 5 remixes.
Opening “Foggy Morning” and “All to you” reveal the...
12 tags
Bratislava annual report 12-13
When I moved here from Brno in May 2012, I was shocked when I saw my new hood. In contrast with nice, though little abandoned, but still cozy and almost 150-year-old flat I lived in before, here I was facing the grim reality of my post-communist borough, packed with cars, Nazis and other disliked aspects of my life. Bratislava’s underground electronic scene, though, is surprisingly strong and...
13 tags
Střed Světa podcast
A psychedelic journey into the musical mind of Střed Světa, whose cassette appeared on our affiliated Baba Vanga rec at the end of January. A lysergic techno for psychedelic minds is how we dubbed it /in a particularly uninventive spark of logorhea/. His podcast, as part of our Mixcloud series, is a similarly mind-altering drive through varied musical territories. Starting off with his...
January 2013
12 posts
8 tags
Stratasoul – Hip Hop from Heaven
Listening to the Slovak producer Stratasoul is like a hot air balloon ride – floating and sinking into a magic aural stratosphere, bumping into a chunk of beats here, catching on a string of clinks and clanks there…so easy and carefree.
“I remember feeling fascinated when I first heared a sampled amen loop on an Atari ST computer,a gift from granddad. Without any musical knowledge or...
Alley Catss: a rather nihilistic approach
The moniker Alley Catss does not hide bike messengers from New York, nor a power pop band from Russia or Japan, but a 14 year old electronic music producer from Hungary, Máté Janky. He released his sophomore record (II) on Sewage Tapes. We caught up with the fresh-faced producer to find out more.
You have several projects, can you introduce them?
I have many projects but mainly work on Alley...
9 tags
!CZECH: exploration of adventurous Bohemian sounds
Ondřej Hlaváč, a music journalist and a blogger, has put together a compilation, a mix that documents the current state of idiosyncratic Czech underground music, merging varius subcultures and communities, which is downloadable from his blog Freakshow. From cosmic compositions, through Suicide-sounding desolate atmospherics, doom pop and beyond.
What motivated you to make the mix? I’ve...
6 tags
Střed Světa - Střed Světa /Baba Vanga, 2013/
After having travelled half of /the eastern/ part of Europe over the last two or three years, and meeting and discovering amazing music, we have decided we want to make it heard, loud and physical. Thus, we are delving into the label game, with a simple aim - expose music that somehow stands out through idiosyncratic existence. After last year’s visit to Bulgaria, when our first release...
5 tags
New Mangrove Mangrave/RSS Boys videos
Two new videos have arrived via the reliably ace Mik Musik contingent, for their brilliant Secret Editions series. One of my last year’s favourites, Mangrove Mangrave, and RSS Boys - who are releasing an album at the end of February, steeped in some woozy technoid outerspace, menacing, claustrophobic, but utterly grooving.
Mangrove Mangrave - Looker Fight - Bella Bliss
RSS Boys - 0MG
12 tags
Toni Dimitrov on Macedonian music scene 12/13
1. What’s the highlight for you in the Macedonian music scene in 2012?
More than 50 albums and many singles/EPs were released within the alternative/rock/punk/dance scene last year in Macedonia. Most of them were just a repetition of the 80s/90s sound, though. Still there were lots of artists and releases that caught my attention or were played at my radio programs and/or DJ sets, like the...
7 tags
Norwell’s bittersweet synth psychedelia
Budapest-based producer Balázs Semsei aka Norwell makes his debut with his psychedelic electronica project on Shabu Recordings. The Farbwechsel co-founder is the third man connected to the fledgling label we featured earlier. Influenced by krautrock, house and electronica, Norwell’s ’I Kissed The Sun’ conveys a bittersweet nostalgia coated by melancholic synth melodies. Listen to it below.
...
3 tags
Piotr Kurek & Moduli TV new video
Piotr Kurek, not least since his acclaimed release on the Foxy Digitalis imprint, has been steadily releasing quality work, either solo /under his own name or the Pietnastka moniker/ or as a collaboration /Suaves Figures with Sylvia Monnier/, primarily for the brilliant Polish tape label Sangoplasmo.
Check out his latest video for his new solo release Edena by the Canadian collective Moduli TV...
5 tags
Nikola Vitkovic on Serbian sonics 2012
1. What’s the highlight for you in the Serbian music scene of 2012? insane eyes’ anthology “tautau - colourful mp69s, mostly violet’, released on my label nauk.rs. It shows just a microscopic piece of a 20-year private discography. insane eyes is a pop hitmaker with a nerdy attitude of a self-unaware genius. He makes a heroic example of a musician who is not bothered about...
4 tags
Szilvia & Áron
water of chaos water of the art water of the styx spring water water of blood water of talc water of life leafy water heavy water
8 tags
András G. Varga on Hungarian underground music...
1. What’s the highlight for you in Hungary’s music scene?
Budapest had an eventful year in 2012. If lo-fi was what pervaded throughout 2011 then the focus in 2012 evidently shifted to the electronic fields of Hungary’s leftfield underground music. While the local media intended to carefully cover entire cross-sectional view of the local scenes we better go for a recap of our best...
10 tags
Snezhana Bezus on Bulgarian music scene 2012/13
1. What’s the highlight for you in your countries music scene?
People seem to start waking up. There is a general feel of curiosity towards more varied and unconventional music and engagement with local artists beyond the circle of closest friends.
We had a physical release of almost 100% Bulgarian production (the WTF is SWAG cassette) that caused a lot of hype and somehow stirred the...
December 2012
7 posts
13 tags
Raketa Mixtape 001 / Č! WYSZUKANA KOMPILACJA
Do artists who live in one geographical area have more in common than those across borders but with stylistic affinities, especially at times when anything confined to the national level seems obsolete? This is the question we also have asked numerous times during our travels. Two compilations are trying to prove that there is still place to highlight local productions, especially if there are...
9 tags
Electric Post-Yugoslavia /Zmikeo, Insane Eyes,...
Nikola Vitkovic is one of Serbia’s prime underground music evangelists, an advocate of the beautiful outsiders whose work often remains in obscurity. “There are dozens of undiscovered experimental gems from that era, but I was specifically interested in escapist projects outside of any scene, people who nurtured their private ‘one man scenes’ in isolation,” he told...
5 tags
Jonáš Gruska: Nocturnal oscillations for one
Jonáš Gruska is the man behind the fledgling LOM imprint, a platform for all kinds of outthere sounds, digital noise and unhindered experimentation. Following their split release /read our review here/, a “high-frequency” trading music, Jonáš delivers his “Nočné oscilácie pre jedného” /”Nocturnal oscillations for one”/, a mellow analogue journey conducted in...
6 tags
The synths of SILF
The Budapest-based duo of Silf is a new project by experimental electronic producer Martin Mikolai aka Stephan Olbricht and his Farbwechsel co-founder and label boss Bálint Zalkai aka Alpár, exploring leftfield territories of acid, Chicago and Detroit house, with a blend of Eastern melancholia, tropic daze and vintage nostalgia. Their self-titled first EP premiers here today /insert smug smile/,...
15 tags
Stroon, Mrkva/Bolka, Poo - Bratislava sonics' new...
Night-time Bratislava - Kamenné Námestie
We’ve already given praise to Bratislava’s electronic scene in the past and the truth is, the good things are still going on. Be sure to check this triple combo of excellent releases from Slovakia’s capital Bratislava.
Stroon - Triple Farewell (Exitab, 2012)
Not much has been written about the third solo EP of Bratislava’s...
5 tags
1000names – A Minute a Day LP
Bulgaria is closer to Space than you might think. Apart from the space food production trivia and the fact that a Bulgarian folklore song is travelling the Universe as a message to other intelligent lifeforms, our country has spawned another intergalactic curiosity – 1000names.
Local beatsmith legends and alien boogie shamans released their brand new LP via French label Eklektik Records.
“A...
6 tags
Jacques Kustod podcast - Chaos Space Magick
In this installment of our podcast series, Bratislava-based producer Jacques Kustod (a review of his debut EP is here) delivers a disquieting mix composed of his own production with a dash of acid /Phuture Tracks/, krautrock /Neu!/, even The Beatles. An uncanny walk through a sonic chamber of disembodied voices, echoing spheres and scant melodies coated in an icy December haze. A psychedelic...
November 2012
5 posts
7 tags
Mangrove Mangrave - the end is the beginning is...
November is a good month to make paranoid, haunting music. The liminal, doom-mongering are prone to merge with the greying skies, winter melancholy and mild seasonal depression. Somehow, Mangrove Mangrave do not seem to be exploiting this omnipresent sonic fashion for all things dark in a commercial, teleological way /at least I hope so/.
CUTS TOO by MANGROVE MANGRAVE
There is inner hope, of...
3 tags
SYNUS0006 - B6NXX5 FOREST REMIXES 1
You just cannot complain about the amount of good quality techno releases these days. And Panel Trax/B4CK6ROUNDNO1SE are doing their share too. Since 2009, this Budapest-based label has given birth to a handful of releases supporting artists not just from Hungary. In the past, we have reviewed one of the albums of the label founder Synus0006, a dirty, straightforward and raw techno affair with a...
7 tags
Sangoplasmo's Autumn Tapes /Lutto Lento, Suaves...
Short Introduction on Synthesizers Today
After experiencing such records as Lunar Miasma’s Impermanent Nature, Negative Fascination by Silent Servant, Ghostrider’s Voices or batch of Panabrite’s releases it’s getting clear that 2012 is a year of synthesizers. They’ve become an excellent substitution for guitars – they aren’t kitschy anymore, they transformed...
7 tags
Farbwechsel label podcast
The newly established Budapest-based label Farbwechsel champions the more plaintive house territories, verging on Chicago, Detroit and acid. Their first release, by label boss and multi-facetted musician operating under the moniker S Olbricht in this case, is out now. We asked the busy collective to cook us a sonic meal with their own ingredients. Here is what they delivered - an epic journey...
7 tags
PAWEŁ PESEL - EKSCENTRYZM /Mik Musik!/ - Exclusive...
The revamped label Mik Musik! have been going from strength to strength with several noteworthy releases as of late /check out our review of their previous ace release by the mysterious RSS Boys here/, navigating in the experimental dance territory, techno for the twisted minds and adventurous souls, we could call it.
Its latest record is by PAWEŁ PESEL, a pseudonym whose real identity shall...
October 2012
5 posts
10 tags
Maria Stankova – The Mystery of a Bulgarian Voice
What is music? For most people, it is something more confined within boundaries than we ever realize. We’re so used to the common conception that in order for it to be considered music, any sequence of sounds should have, for example, a beginning and an end, some clear pattern or structure, discernible rhythm, melody, etc., that we find it difficult to think of music on a more abstract level,...
8 tags
Ch-ch-ching – Dom EP - dance music for kill-joys
It’s hard to imagine a better initial encounter with a band than a half secret gig taking place on a beach late early summer’s night. At that time (21th May 2012, around midnight) Ch-ch-ching’s music created the sonic backdrop to an event focused on constructing Chinese lanterns and sending them to the sky. There was a large table full of synthetizers, cables and blinking...
6 tags
Coughy: Psychedelic Salad from the Carpathian...
A sample from ”Cânta un matelot la prora”, an old hit by the Romanian songstress Doina Badea, emits from the speakers. A noise sequence travels through the air to catch up with a flourishing of melancholic synths. A haunted and incomprehensible voice, passed through guitar effects, sticks in your ear. It’s a soundscape you can lose yourself in. This music breathes unique air into Romania’s...
