Author: Easterndaze

“The myth that you can make a living from playing underground music is still very much alive” – An interview with Sándor Kispál, programme organiser at Gólya

Most people have heard of Sándor Kispál aka “Saskó,” through his electronic music programming at Gólya, the PÉNZ collective, or his DJ alter ego, csinovnyik. Last year marked the 5th anniversary of Orczy Street’s Gólya, and PÉNZ turns 10 this year, Saskó has gathered quite a lot of experience about, let’s say, the music industry – so that’s what we asked him about.

Published July, 2025

Between transformation and apathy – the dynamics of the independent scene in Sofia

We’ve sat on this article for too long because it’s hard to be objective and unbiased about something we’ve spent many years of our lives trying to be an active part of, and improve. It’s even harder to admit we’re not certain what the actual state of our scene is anymore, because we feel disconnected and irrelevant. What we think we observe does not seem homogeneous enough, or it is not headed towards a state that we can understand, explain, or predict.

Published July, 2025

“The past not gone, refusing to leave” – An interview with GAJEK

In March 2025 Gajek released his latest and critically acclaimed album, Cutting Together Apart (stroom.tv).

Published July, 2025

“Love cannot tolerate laziness” – Interview with Sándor Vály

Sándor Vály moved to Finland in 1990 and has gradually turned to audiovisual art over the last three decades. We talked about his beginnings, his musical development, personal and collective art.

Published July, 2025

Shopsh: Circassian Vocal Tradition of Zhiu

As the sun rises on 21 May, marking the Day of Remembrance for the Circassian Genocide, we invite you to listen beyond the silence that often surrounds the wounds of colonialism. In the following article, Bulat Khalilov, co-founder of Ored Recordings – a label dedicated to traditional and post-traditional music from the North Caucasus – reflects on a paradox within Circassian music today: how a culture with rich vocal traditions has, in a sense, sidelined its most distinctive feature, the polyphonic vocal technique of zhiu?In conjunction with today's commemorations, Ored Recordings is releasing a compilation, Shopsh: Circassian Vocal Tradition of Zhiu, which highlights the vocal tradition of zhiu as both a form of remembrance and a possibility.

Published June, 2025

EM GUIDE FEST: Music, resistance and the power of listening

EM GUIDE is a network of independent music magazines that focus on stories often found on the margins: in DIY venues, local experimental music scenes, community radio stations, listening rooms, art university studios and grassroots communities whose voices are all too frequently drowned out by the mainstream narratives.

Published May, 2025

The pain of not sharing a language

When Adela Mede, Marta Forsberg and Nindya Nareswari met up for this interview in late January, there was relief, happiness and exhaustion in the air: it was the day after their first collaboration, a site-specific music and light piece for CTM festival at the Kuppelhalle. Their performance was built on songs by Slovak vocalist and composer Adela Mede, who combines in her lyrics the three languages she grew up with – Slovak, Hungarian (her parents’ mother tongue) and English.

Published April, 2025

Adam the World: Humanity doesn’t need hierarchy

Adam the World is a rapper and alternative R'n'B artist from Kremnica in Slovakia, currently living in Prague. His explosively diverse, syncretic work is characterized by elements of neosoul and alternative R'n'B.

Published April, 2025

The voices that wait

This essay explores my encounter with the archive of Chile al día, a broadcast transmitted from Radio Berlin International in the GDR between 1973 and 1990, during the same period as Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. I visited the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv in Babelsberg, where this archive resides, six times between 28 August and 18 October 2024. Those visits involved me with it on different levels, whereas my listening practice was affected as I opened myself up to an aesthetic of resonance.

Published February, 2025

Not that kind of era…

Ever since it exploded into public consciousness, the punk subculture has been subject to a discourse that questions its legitimacy, its credibility, and sometimes even its existence. Beyond stylistic limits and posers, the subculture is simultaneously facing expectations of creating a utopia while being dismissed as noisy but powerless infantilism.

Published January, 2025