Easterndaze 2014 mixtape
Published December, 2014
by Easterndaze
2014 has been great for music. Many new musicians, albums, labels came to life, presenting adventurous and uncompromising music. We have visited the Baltics in autumn, travelling from Vilnius to Riga to Tallinn in 10 days, talking to musicians and tireless music activists – from the talented Martins Rokis, who hasn’t only caught our attention, but also Lee Gamble’s, to the black metal influenced, super stylish Mihkel Kleis aka Ratkiller (read our review of his record here), to the precocious Without Letters.
The electronic scene of Budapest has been flourishing for a couple of yeas now, largely under the umbrella of the Farbwechsel imprint (listen to their podcast for us here), run by Martin Mikolai (S Olbricht) and Bálint Zalkai (Alpár), whose latest release is the excellent split of the newcomers Kokum & SZO (read our review here). Gábor Lázár (our review of his The Death of Rave EP is here) works in a slightly different sonic realm – his abstract digital compositions can be placed within a context of the likes of Mark Fell, EVOL or Lorenzo Senni.
Poland’s music scene has been perennially thriving. This year, numerous imprints and musicians have released highly regarded releases, from new additions on the underground topography, such as Jasien or Dunno!, to the already established ones like BDTA, Bocian, Mik Musik!, Wounded Knife, Instant Classic, Pawlacz Perski (read more about Polish underground labels here). The Slovak scene, is largely concentrated in its capital Bratislava, but also has other, often bizarre, peripheral manifestations (read more about it here), LOM is an imprint which focuses on those types of musicians that do not hesitate to push boundaries and explore various forms of sonic expression – be it the insect phonetics of Amen Tma or field recordings from India courtesy of Daniel Kordík and Tobiáš Potočný (reviewed here). Few hundred kilometres to the West, in Prague, the tape label Red For Colour Blind (a year ago, they did one of the best podcast ever) and its affiliates have been making waves – the likes of Sister Body with their psych dub (their excellent album Lucifer Efekt reviewed here), out on the brilliant Gnod-run Tesla Tapes, prominent is also the art/music crossover, as heard and seen on the records of the duos Space Love or Lo/ve (so much love in Bohemia). And we almost forgot our own Baba Vanga and Laura Luna’s well-received dream-like Isolarios.
Several noteworthy releases have arrived from the Balkans, too. From the hypnotic Putopisi, a solo project of the highly active Nikola Vitkovic (the compilation of Yugoslav outsider music from nineties is also one of his many deeds – more on it here), through lo-fi, raw and abrasive post-punk of Aranka Mákos i plaćene daviteljke and Dedice, to brazen recontextualisations of manele and turbofolk courtesy of Bucharest’s Raze de Soare or Belgrade/Rome’s Yva & The Toy George.
Listen & download our mixtape, featuring most of the aforementioned artists, below.
Tracklist:
Lo/ve – Hey Mother
Space Love – Raven´s Voice
Laura Luna – Oxytocin
Sister Body – Evol of Lluf
Ratkiller – Must Be Love
Martins Rokis – Split
Without Letters – Arch
Budapest Mixtape
S Olbricht & Carla Under Water – Birds
Kokum – Not Social Demons
Gábor Lázár – EP6
Daniel Kordík – Crossroads
Amen Tma – Oculolinctus
Shibuya Motors – Usiku
Dunno Sampler – Heroiny
( AN ) EeL – Holly Erotic Massage – Revitalize
Putopisi – Potop 3
Dedice – Dedice i dame
Aranka Mákos i plaćene daviteljke – Dzinovsko Oko
Raze de Soare – Vis implinit
Yva & Toy George – Crni Dijamanti
Picture: Space Love