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 the duo, there are also remixes by our Polish friend Dana Dramowicz, head of the Concrete Cut staple (her remix starting off with in an IDMish vein but with enough floor-shaking bass later on), here under her moniker Artfruit, DJ Sliink, Quime or Dryman.
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 the highlight for you in Macedonia’s music scene?
Last year was a key one in many ways, as well as music wise. There were many projects, events and artists worth mentioning and many that I was involved with:
- 20 years of existence of Kanal103, the radio that I have worked at for already 14 years. It is the most important music/culture media in Macedonia, responsible for the shape and existence of the contemporary music scene as we know it today, in charge of promoting most of the good artists that are still working on the scene today. It is behind most of the good events in Skopje and beyond. We celebrated this anniversary with a few events and festivals presenting the cream of the Macedonian music scene. Listen to us!
- I celebrated 10 years of existence of my radio show Post Global with a couple of events presenting local and international artists, culminating with the festival VICE VERSE which consisted of workshops, exhibitions, video screenings and live performances/dj sets by American, Serbian and local audio/video/visual artists. Plus the 1 year of existence of Music and Politics, another radio program that I’m involved in.
- Have to mention the label Greenfields that released 10 releases last year with international and local artists and diverse sounds. Last spring we did a tour through Macedonia presenting the artists and their work.
- Music and Politics started collaborating with the regional webzine BTurn.com and launched a series of events presenting regional and local artists. At the first party, Belgarade DJ lady Tijana T was promoted with her dj set as well as a local project Jerton. Second party in on the way with Jan Nemecek and Dimitar Dodovski, one of the best upcoming regional artists.
What is the low point for you in Macedonia’s music scene?
- Lowpoints are things that we have to deal with locally so I’m not sure if I want to talk about this and ‘promote’ them internationally. But if you insist the first thing I have to mention is the lack of communication and collaboration between the artists on the scene. Because in my opinion, the definition of the term scene is: SCENE = COMMUNICATION and COLLABORATION. Which does not exist here in the sense of consisting and building.
- Another low point is the lack of clubs. There are no clubs, that means there are no events, that means there is no audience, that means there is no scene! The scene is a live organism, each thing pulls another.
- The mass existence of cover bands is the result of the other already mentioned points. These bands have been playing the same 15 songs in each of the five clubs in the city for years already, but recently they became the only thing that is going on in the club scene. Same people have been going to the same places each day, listening to the same 15 songs every day for years already, and they are fine with it! That’s really sick and that’s not what we want our scene to look like. Of course, here I don’t want to mention the flood of Serbian rock/pop/turbofolk artists playing massive concerts in Skopje.
- The indolence of the audience. If you don’t have clubs and events, the audience is becoming indolent and they are rarely going to events, if at all. Usually they go to mainstream events with big commercial djs and pop concerts or where young people are at – cover bands gigs. Unfortunately that happened here, slowly killing the real artistic scene.
Discovery-new artist of the year /in Macedonia/?
- I will have to highlight Dimitar Dodovski, an artist that has released a couple of tracks and remixes on well known net labels in the dub techno scene like Tropic, Inuoki, Yuki Yaki, Greenfields and even Neo Ouiija, with a release planned for the Japanese label Lantern (Martin Shulte, Arctic Hospital, Taylor Deupree). His sound is deep and beat oriented with variations in minimal dub, dubtech, techno and house. Last year he had great live performance with a drummer. Really mighty experimental dubby but still dancey show.
- Herzel is one of the local artists signed on Greenfields worth mentioning. He also releases on another hard working label Filter. He has released a couple of releases on Greenfields and Filter getting worldwide attention with his experimental post dubstep sound. His upcoming vinyl release will be out soon on Other Heights.
- Disphilharmonia. The most exciting experimental live audio/video project. A laptop quartet with 3 boys and a girl. They also have really successful solo projects.
Autemu is the girl in the project. She already had a few releases on international labels.
-Delta M45. Two guys are behind this project: Dragoljub Curcic from Serbia (Subotica) and Goce Gligurovski from Macedonia (Bitola) making what is the true meaning of what we call kosmische musik. The perfect album for travelling, no matter if it is in the woods or in outer space. You can listen to it while sleeping and dreaming. Was created last summer during a live session. Coming up in early 2012 on my new label Post Global recordings!
The album of Delta M45 is definitely one of the tips and wishes as well as exact plans. I’m launching my new label Post Global recordings with their album Space Probe as a first release. Can’t wait! Followed by a collaboration release between my project sound_00 and Norwegian artist Iversen. Also got a great new electroacoustic/drone material for this collaboration. We collaborated here for the second time after the first self titled 7” released on Dirty Demos in UK.
After five years of hiatus, we have got together again on our new material, which consisted of drone/ambient pieces. The base of the material are field recordings made in untouched nature in the Macedonian mountains and villages during my trips/climbing, which were edited subsequently in a collaboration process between two artists coming from two different parts of the world. Part of this material will be released on Dirty Demos on a tape format and another part on the label I usually collaborate with Panospria in Canada. After that I’m planning releases from Sebastian Zangar and a re-release of Normal Music, which originally appeared on my first label Acid Fake.
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.
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? Following the relatively turbulent year 2010 when quite a lot of interesting projects emerged, at least in my opinion, the “scene” experienced a sort of hiatus when it comes to new names. On the other hand, a lot of projects from the previous year delivered their proper debut releases: Pjoni & Ink Midget’s album, Gwerkova’s record as well asJelly Belly’s EP. The opening of the new cultural space Nástupiště 1-12 in Topoľčany is also one of the highlights, connecting music, arts and film with the public space of a bus station exposing passers-by to indenpendent culture.
Gwerkova - NADA by gwerkova What is the low point for you in Slovakia’s music scene? The strange circumstances surrounding the loss of the independent collective A4’s Bratislava space. Interestingly, their theatre performances will take place in the premises of the Polish Institute in January. The fact that the Polish provide asylum to Slovak artists in Slovakia’s capital is nice, but sad at the same time.
The Tabačka independent cultural centre in Košice in the east of the country had some funding problems in the beginning of the year and the situation surrounding the European City of Culture 2013 project in the same town is also appalling. The dissolution of the Bratislava-based band Hvozd was also one of the low points of the year for me.
Discovery-new artist of the year /in Slovakia/? The biggest current discovery is not Slovak, but Bratislava-based English producer Aches who brilliantly merges his woozy guitar strings with beats in an abstract-shoegazy way. The audiovisual project Lowii is also promising. Finally, I’ve managed to check out the Žilina sludge duo Möbius who together with Prešov-based Dawn To Come have managed to lay the foundations of this type of music in Slovakia over the past few months. I also liked some of the releases of the Senica-based hip hop label Tvoja Matka Rekorc, such as 31’s debut EP.
Personal tips and wishes and plans for 2012? I would be glad if our label managed to maintain the busy release schedule of the last year. It would be also great if other labels started to be more active or new ones appeared. I would appreciate if A4 could find a new space and Tabačka and Stanica in Žilina would keep up their good work and people would stop being scared of going to gigs to the Obluda club in Bratislava.
I’m looking forward to the electroacoustic solo LP of Pjoni and the debut EP by Dawn To Come and hope that Teapotand Herzog Herzog will manage to finish their albums, too. It would be nice if I would know about a Slovak release that I couldn’t wait to hear but wouldn’t be on our label. Youcocoperhaps?
BWO
What’s the highlight for you in Slovakia’s music scene? Lot of parties with music, which a few years ago were in a minority in Bratislava (urban/dubstep, post-xy, dance music in general). Also, the increasing number of collectives around various genres, pop-up events at off spaces (studios, bars, flats), interesting and globally listenable local digital releases.
What is the low point for you in Slovakia’s music scene? Lack of venues, overabundance of similar events (see above), events clashing on the same dates, less people going to events, the ratio of attending guests on social networks vs the real attendance in clubs (more FB attendees than actual party-goers)
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 Serbian electro and beyond. Take a ride.
