Drums in the Spirit Swamp; Amphibian Records’ Metamorphosis 

Published June, 2025
by Freddie Hudson

When looking at any instance of in vivo nightlife culture, it’s interesting to see which of the following comes first: the rave, or the music; the physical manifestation of culture which precedes music, or the music’s cultural markers re-invoked. At the time I relocated to Prague, in late 2020, the city’s nightlife was going through a period of rapid growth, but it felt largely led by the spate of free parties, compared with the label-forward approach I felt I experienced as a student in Bristol, chasing neon orange Hotline emblems about Stokes Croft and going to fortnightly record release events in Idle Hands.  

Later, I moved to London and got caught up in the going-out and club life there. I was star-struck by just how many amazing acts could come through a city, on a single weekend, even a single night, and yet, four years and a fairly exploratory club resume later, I found myself missing the local, the scene-thing; even as a fly-on-the-wall, soaking up the music and buying the records and merch, it was infinitely more real to see the same acts over and over, and the growth of those acts and their new combinations, than it was to see a cherry-picked international lineup of supposed superstars for one night only (until the next time). 

A desire to see something smaller and less airbrushed, less airily detached than London’s offerings was a big part of the reason I relocated to Prague, and ever since, I’ve had my time cut out acquainting myself with the numerous strands of the local music scene. Plenty of labels and groups exist in Czechia that are very much worth talking about: the Harmony Rec collective, which has gradiated its repertoire from deep tech(no) and house to faster, bubblier contemporary shapes shelled out by the likes of Roza Terenzi; Harmless Youth (RIP(?)) made an early impression with varied releases from Formally Unknown and, slightly staggeringly for me, a dubstepper-out-of-water in EU techno wunderland, Horsepower Productions; XION, eschewing the lures of temporary trends and taste, remains the port of call for anyone chasing the most underground strains of Prague’s experimental electronic scene, with occasional toe-dips into club territory often by way of remixes.  

However, opposed to the mythologically binding and insular “sounds” of the city-based music communities I knew growing up—Bristol, Glasgow or Manchester—Prague’s “sound” has, at times, felt more of a devotion towards Berlin, Amsterdam, fabled Detroit, or otherwise the rootless experience associated with the immaterial domains of the internet. That’s not a critique per se, and it’s operating on an extremely essentialist boiling-down which I myself don’t wholly adhere to; for starters, it’s a misdirection to talk as if any city at all has a singular sound. Nonetheless, it has been hard to identify a cohesive group of original producers who are all making a certain style of club music that faces inwards, largely unconcerned with what other people are doing in other places. 

That has gradually been changing and, of Czechia’s emergent dance music labels, Amphibian Records have been distinguishing themselves with their approach to label curation and running events. In fact, even as I have tried to limit the scope within this article to talk only about the club music released here, Amphibian twist out of that constraint through the release of an album from Abdullah Miniawy & Carl Gari Trio, or numerous experimental tracks through their continuing series of charity compilations for Palestine and Lebanon. 

However, something was made evident over the course of Amphibian’s Quadraphonic Soundsystem event at Archa+ in January of 2025, a new mapping of exciting developments in Prague’s club music scene; bound together by a common thread, but unique to themselves, it felt like the first words spoken in a new voice. Like most things, that’s not wholly true: the night’s opening live acts, guests invited by the collective, are by no means ‘support’ or new voices on the scene. Mudaki, Ancestral Vision and Oblaka (fka Exhausted Modern) are all well-known here for both live and DJ sets, in sound-niches of their own careful making.

As a principal mover of pieces in the Usti nad Labem collective Phonon~, Mudaki explores sound art, spatialized audio, traditional or devotional inspired music, and, generally, quite austere compositions for deep listening states. As a DJ and member of the Amphibian crew, she wraps contemporary UK hardcore and jungle around a tekno bat and beats you several shades darker. Life’s a balancing act, they say. Regretfully, I was on time to catch only the absolute last lingering note of her live performance, but later, in the ambient room curated by Phonon~, Mudaki and a friend were serving loose-leaf teas all night long. 

As I arrived, Archa’s large downstairs hall was bustling. Crystal-sharpened synths sawed their way out of the opposing pairs of speaker stacks; I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Oblaka live many times, and each time the artist’s image is brought into greater clarity. ‘Clarity’ itself might be an apt word to describe the ultimate heart of Oblaka’s sound, which is carefully obscured by smoke; radiant stabs accentuate the dramatic peaks of his percussion, bright as white mountains. The set took fractured glimpses of his recent self-released EP and spread them thinly among a bristling stack of new production, all tearaway whirlwinds of perfect sonic images. Frantic breakbeat one second, the next thundering bass; images flashed vividly in the mind’s eye before crumbling away into its successor, fire chewing dry leaves to ash.

After followed Ancestral Vision, another name I’d come to know as a sign of quality thanks to the label he co-runs, UNIZONE, which releases music that complements his own: bold in sound and structure, highly aesthetic textural club music that draws sustenance from genre genre-fields like hard drum and post-club. The adjectives “sharp” and “bright” leap once again to mind, but where Oblaka’s set that evening married club textures to an almost sound art performance, Ancestral Vision coupled sound art flavours to full-throttle club and bass music. Both muddied the waters, and pressed drama and intrigue deeply into the mold.

Veering from perky Latin-esque beats zapped with 10,000 volts and licked by neon paint to full-frontal contemporary bass music, Ancestral Vision’s set upped the pulse and stabilised the tempo, a lamplit highway race with a hair’s breadth between first and last place, after-traces scoring the retinas—all this electric exhilaration was quenched by roaring applause and an emergent drone: NUHNUHNAHNAH’s (aka Inger Illel & Shooting Break) hybrid live set opened with sprawling deep ambient layers, textural, procedural and methodical. 

The duo, Amphibian’s first homegrown act of the night, have a track record in quality psychedelic techno/trance symbiotes. Working the ambient potential of the quadraphonic system, stirring tension slowly, the chance to breathe was given. I escaped for my second tea, and some of the homemade curry on-menu in the ambient room, and, refuelled, recharged, and more sober than I’ve been at a party in years, returned to the floor below. 

Something in the space’s energy had altered; the hall seemed larger, more vaulted, and strobe-spots crashed down in bright pillars, glancing off the frame of the hermetic-geometric sculpture hanging above the performers, brief light trapped in crystal forms. No longer ambient by any yardstick, the room throbbed with a racing pulse that raised even further as I stalked the perimeter, hunting the ever-shifting sweet spot for the sound. This was, for me, techno done properly, unbound from cliquey aesthetic tropes: thick drums push your body with sound, and it’s necessary to dance, not least to stay on your feet. Pressing at the limits of the genre’s definition, the pair slid the tempo ever higher, until the crowd tripped in half-time shuffles to fully saturated gales of bass. It was only at this point that I realised how significant the shift in pace had been!   

Throats choked in a miasma of sweat, adrenaline, ecstasy, DDAT took the reins. Another Amphibian duo, Atch22 & Kobayashi Maru, this project was a likely instigating reason for the night’s existence. Taking their name from their first collaborative track—a hot-wired trance thunderbolt—the two refracted that studio energy and made it a live act in time for this event. I was unprepared for the quality of finish of what followed. I’d known for a while that the pair were quite indebted to A Strange Wedding as a source of inspiration, and that influence was definitely present in what they played, but gratefully, it was just as clear they weren’t going to be a mimic act: the pair cycled through genre influences—dubstep, trance, psychic bass music—without speaking in another’s tongue. Crescendos finished in flourishing double-tapped drops that hijacked the nervous system, setting feet in motion. Each section was a twisted rampage, a thundering dance music experience. Just as it was starting to feel a little too serious, a flash-bang sample—“Everybody Dance Now!”—and the rejoining beat smacked grins onto beaming faces rolling beneath syncopated drums.

DDAT tapped the brakes very little in their breakneck set, and the final live debut of the evening, Mu’taism and glaucus_A, unleashed club tech at moments even more wild and roughshod, upping the supersaws and psychedelic atmospherics to unhinged levels. It sounded excellent, but at 3 am, sober and exhausted, I had just enough energy remaining to scope out the quadraphonic experience properly, before carrying myself home by foot, mulling over the question of why the event felt so full of spirit and promise. 

Was it the sound? It was clear as glass, but not the reason for me: the sound didn’t hit the spiritual levels of depth I’ve felt under certain dub systems, but all I really want from a rig is to forget my name as my eyes rattle in their sockets. What I took most from the event was the pursuit of inventive new sounds happening in Prague. It’s definitely not just the individuals named here, nor only this event; there is a spirit that exists in many communities here, especially those outside the club domains, but on this night, there were a few moments where a rare surge of excitement ran electric down my spine. There was something happening in the room which could only be experienced right there, right now, out of all the places on Earth; the product of serendipity. 

In the several months since, there have been no events from the collective. Instead, they’ve committed to their first vinyl, a collaboration between DDAT’s Kobayashi Maru and Prague night-Lifer Silhouette / Vision of 1994; just recently Maru’s solo follow-up, his ‘Induction Texture’ EP, has been announced, with remixes from Abo Abo and Maru’s inspirational figure A Strange Wedding. Meanwhile, DDAT have taken the live show to London, and two quality releases sit on the mantle. The dials all show good readings; how much this will contribute towards something of a “sound” or an enduring and evolving “scene” will become clear in time, but for now, Amphibian are clearly making a tangible mark on what club music Prague dances to. 

Text Freddie Hudson
Photos Amphibian Rec’s, Jonáš Verešpej

This article is brought to you as part of the EM GUIDE project – an initiative dedicated to empowering independent music magazines and strengthen the underground music scene in Europe. Read more about the project at emgui.de.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.