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 higher powers. Compared with regular priests, BINMATU uses visuals and sound - direct touch on a distance.” 

BINMATU @ NEXT festival 2012 from Jonas Gruska on Vimeo.

The project of Slovak sound artist Jonáš Gruska, who studies at the Institute of Sonology in the Haague, rather relies on the physical and mental experience of the sonic, its transforming powers and properties. It is an audiovisual project, which is best experienced in a live context, augmented by visuals and volume. The sound is strong and confident, a fluid medium, which defies stasis, and is never the same, simply “sound sounds, it isn’t”.

Crystylys is out now on Ukrainian label Kvitnu.

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 study film scriptwriting, but since I’m still unable to write a script, I started to write music. From my early teens I have been writing poems, terrible poems mostly about unhappy loves, and rarely about the happy ones. My songs are about the same thing though, with slight variations – about how I fuck up a romance, or someone else dumps me.

KataRziа’s texts revolve around little personal topics, part poetry and part almost childishly sincere snapshots of her day to day life, loves and relationships.

“The songs are snapshots, but I tend to work on each of them at least for a couple of days. The best moments to write are those when I suffer from outbursts of self-pity. Or when I’m in a café feeling alive after eating a huge chocolate candy. I might be childish, that’s why the texts are like that, but I’ve also been an adult for a long time, and my texts are adult too. Actually, I hate immaturity.”

What comes first ? Text or music ? How do you compose music ?

Text is always the first thing. Music is created separately. Later on I somehow merge them, rewrite the text to be sung and try to learn to play the song. I record it into my mac’s garage band through the shitty mic which is more suited for skype calls then music. I records several takes because one can’t understand a word from what I sing. I lost the ability to look objectively at my music. I believe it must sound horrible. Nevertheless it is the only thing I do that brings me joy (apart from ingesting carbohydrates). Especially when I play live. Those are the moments when I feel so much alive.

The attractivness of KataRzia’s music lies not only in her song and text-writing talents, but also in the imperfection of her sound. Reverb and layering of vocals are not meant as aesthetic devices but rather serve to camouflage the low quality and errors in the sound. Apart from using her guitar she also plays a transverse flute “it is hard to do harmonies with it and its hard work, it is too fragile and its perfection bothers me” and owns a violin “I tried to master it for two or three years, but only because I tried to seduce a folk violinist”. However, KataRzia’s live shows are just about vocals and the guitar.

“I play live only with a guitar and my voice because I do not own any mixer or looper. I dont even have a microphone cable or any amplifier. One day I get a looper though. But I’m in no hurry. If I would have the skills, I would write nu jazz or fusion jazz, but I’m dumb, and that’s why I do music like that. In a transcendental way it fills me up.”

What are your plans for the future ? Are you preparing a debut ?

I’m in the process of producing a record, but I don’t want to speak about it yet. I’m not writing music to get famous, or to earn money. I just wish that people who listen to it feel something and laugh, and understand they are not facing life alone. My problems are so banal against the real trouble. I think people might not be interested in listening to emotional outpours of some teenage girl anyway. However since there’s no war here and there are still some chocolate candies at hand, I write about Love, that cunning bitch.

In the future I want to seize and use the hidden comedy I feel inside me. To use it constructively to make people happy and not depressed. Tracks from last year are mostly sad, as it was a sad period, but it is getting better and the record will feature also “happy” songs. Jokingly I call them “hits”, but I do hope that at least some of them will be, because it has no big sense to do anything if not for the people. That’s how it is with any art, even though I don’t consider myself an artist. The fact that i do music is just a cosmic coincidence.

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 zeitgeist. The industrial electronic scene, with its guttural alienated atmospheres and paranoid undercurrents in Czechoslovakia has always been strong.

CS Industrial in a step that is only natural, has just brought out its first bandcamp release by Quarantaine, a project that has caught my ear as soon as they posted it on FB. The original project “was ephemerous collaboration between Jaroslav Palat and Slavek Kwi, active in early 80ties in Prague, former Czechoslovakia.” Their album Lichtempfindlich was recorded in Prague in 1984 and self-published on cassette in 1985, is a manifesto of this “ephemeral” collaboration, which even after 30 years, stands the test of time. In a way, it reminds me of Smersh’s proto primitive electro/post punk experiments, with their rough around the edges, but maximally charming compositions, recorded every Monday and never replayed.

The Quarantaine album is a free download, so make sure to get it, while it’s there.

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 various field recordings, recorded in various locations, including Brno “ghettos”, Košice streets, samples and whatnot, it drawing parallels from Negativland and People Like Us mash up sonic activism.

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 checked via his podcast page, with a proper release expected in the near future.

Here are his descriptions:

This track is based on Acidmilk’s work. He did samples that are in the background. I used it to generate the sound. I concatenated 7 Acidmilk’s samples together, while the first is at the end of the song again, therfore the word “mix” in the name of the song. I used 128-bit float precision in rendering process. You can notice that 2 effect structures are in a lag compared to the samples, this is because there is longer buffer for counting average frequency of Acidmilk’s work that the effects mimic. Random-like clicks are caused by intentional imperferfection of schmitt trigger gate that is responsible for turning on and off the constant-frequency oscillator.

I’d like to mention this track is not about growing old, but about particular momentary state of your mind rather. Like you had stopped the timewatch and took a snapshot, though the picture is still in movement in your mind. I chosed name ‘freewheeler’ since the generator structure of the original sound that passed through was actually adjusting itself like a freewheeling system. I would like to dedicate this song to neutrinos, since I feel the colors of the resulting sounds in this song are like the neutrinos are penetrating the matter withouth (mostly) affecting it, or interacting with it.

Listen to our radio interview with VooDooMan here /in Slovak/.