With the ATOPIA collaborative residency, Rokolectiv Festival brought together Ukrainian musician Maryana Klochko and Bucharest producers Ion D and Inana to work on new music outputs. On this occasion, we caught up with Future Nuggets’ Ion D and Inana to talk about the Romanian music scene, pop, TikTok, and speculative philosophy.
Published July, 2023
Somnoroase Pasarele. The birds that left the cage.
Published February, 2016
Bartosz Zaskórski is a Polish illustrator and occasional musician. According to his own words, he likes to draw “ trash-like things the most”.
Published July, 2015
Decay, decomposition, destruction. Kh'lulu is a fledgling 20-year old musician based between Moscow and Belgrade.
Published February, 2015
The effect of music is various, to entertain, provide an escape from everyday mundanity, incite, excite, sedate, inspire or bore. Then there is music that evokes certain moods and vibes, that hovers somewhere between reality and dream, between conscious states and the subliminal.
Published June, 2014
Although the activities of the Prague based Klangundkrach collective seem to have been put on a halt as of late, the legacy of this post-noise label/collective, which was quite an extraordinary achievement in Central Europe (check out our podcast about this scene here), remains. From the fertile sonic soil of this relatively small group the increasingly successful Lightning Glove, now signed to Tesla Tapes, has emerged.
Published March, 2014
The Budapest scene of the last few years has garnered attention, because of its cross-pollinatory nature, specific sound revolving around the Farbwechsel label. Lo-fi house, analogue electronics, vintage techno have become staples of sonic map of the Hungarian capital.
Published February, 2014
There is music and sound that without any ornamentation or sycophantic tropes manages to evoke specific almost synaesthetic evocations. It is almost as if it didn’t need a particular source or origin, it is acousmatic, as if it existed alone, emitted into urban decay, those areas abandoned by the well-to-do and successful.
Published January, 2014
Pavel Niakhayeu is a Belarusian electronic musician (Pavel Ambiont, Nieviadomy Artyst) whose recent releases include Pagan & Urban (2013), Dare To Know (2014). He also runs the Force Carriers label and is a lecturer of ‘Contemporary Music Culture’ and ‘Creative Industries’ at EHU - Belarusian university in Vilnius, LT.
Published January, 2014
The internet made it possible for every user to distribute his or hers music in quite a democratic way, while the development of mobile phones, computers and all of those cross-overs made it possible for everyone to make his or hers own musical recording - even if it’s recorded with poor microphones on a cellphone by someone who doesn’t know shit about music. Take these two things together, and what you have is a sort of minor music revolution.
Published November, 2013
Field recordings have been used and abused in music and sonic art forever, but it’s the method of processing and juxtaposition, which causes the effect. Syria is by default a rewarding sonic source for any zealous field recorder, buzzing with sounds and boasting with an enviable musical history.
Published October, 2013
12z sessionz Podcast by Easterndaze on Mixcloud The 12z sessionz started as a weekly rehearsal in 2012 for practicing purposes on free electroacoustic improvisation in a Budapest flat. As the project developed, 12z members started to invite friends to join the weekly improvisations, to get inspirations from very different styles and record the jamming.
Published October, 2013
The Exterritory compilation series strives to present the best up-and-coming music from Central Europe - Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, aka the V4. It is the third installment of the annual sonic list, focusing mostly on electronics and new forms of the aural underground.
Published September, 2013
In spite of the increasingly weird political situation of Hungary, the absurd new laws and changes in constitution, nationalism and other xenophobias, its underground music scene has been blooming, largely unaffected by the cuts in arts funding. Plenty of new ensembles, projects and labels have come out in the last two or three years, most notably imprints and crews surrounding them, like Farbwechsel and Last Foundation.
Published July, 2013
Another mysterious project appeared on the roster of Budapest’s prolific synth label Farbwechsel. The latest addition to the imprint is called A i w A, a producer with hidden identity yet strong artistic concept.
Published July, 2013
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.
Published May, 2013
The Timisoara-based duo Makunouchi Bento make soundtracks for their imaginary movies. At times opulent, adventurous sonic textures are woven into a tapestry of imagination, transporting the listener into non-descript moments in time, a gentle, fragile odyssey that is peculiarly haunting, playful and dreamlike.
Published April, 2013
Gloryhole is a Hungarian indie garage/pop band, whose songs are perfectly accessible and radio friendly in The Smiths kind of way, even your mum would like them. Enter “Heavenly Remixes”, a collection of beat-driven remixes, mostly by local producers, which have ended up completely recontextualising the original, turning it into at times harrowing, menacing offering.
Published March, 2013
When I moved here from Brno in May 2012, I was shocked when I saw my new hood. In contrast with nice, though little abandoned, but still cozy and almost 150-year-old flat I lived in before, here I was facing the grim reality of my post-communist borough, packed with cars, Nazis and other disliked aspects of my life.
Published February, 2013
Ondřej Hlaváč, a music journalist and a blogger, has put together a compilation, a mix that documents the current state of idiosyncratic Czech underground music, merging varius subcultures and communities, which is downloadable from his blog Freakshow. From cosmic compositions, through Suicide-sounding desolate atmospherics, doom pop and beyond.
Published January, 2013
Nikola Vitkovic is one of Serbia’s prime underground music evangelists, an advocate of the beautiful outsiders whose work often remains in obscurity. “There are dozens of undiscovered experimental gems from that era, but I was specifically interested in escapist projects outside of any scene, people who nurtured their private ‘one man scenes’ in isolation,” he told us in an interview about the compilation Crni Pek that he released last year.
Published December, 2012
November is a good month to make paranoid, haunting music. The liminal, doom-mongering are prone to merge with the greying skies, winter melancholy and mild seasonal depression.
Published November, 2012
It’s hard to imagine a better initial encounter with a band than a half secret gig taking place on a beach late early summer’s night. At that time (21th May 2012, around midnight) Ch-ch-ching’s music created the sonic backdrop to an event focused on constructing Chinese lanterns and sending them to the sky.
Published October, 2012
The beginning of a song can preclude whether it will be carved into my sonic memory or whether my musical consciousness will bin the said tones forever. 5 seconds is a minuscule amount of time for a composition to unleash, a nano teaser of what is to come, or not.
Published April, 2012
Illl & .irma.
Published April, 2012
The burgeoning Prague-based label Landmine Alert has just released the debut LP of its most idiosyncratic band to date - Vložte Kočku. The LP titled Táta is composed of 7 songs that incorporate elements of postrock, hard-core, electronica, hiphop and spoken word into a very perplexing and multifacetted sound (using electronic violin instead of a guitar), that is at the same time utterly unique in the Czech scene and also very typical in some respect (considering the vocal delivery style common for a plethora of Czech bands).
Published March, 2012
Last week an interesting beat-making newcomer appeared on our radar. Coming (or supposedly coming) from the biggest Black Sea port of Constanţa, Anadolchioi is secretive about his true identity.
Published February, 2012
Remember Czechoslovakia ? The small country once part of the Communist Ost Block? The country that, after its Velvet Revolution and playwright-cum-president Václav Havel, broke apart into Czech Republic and Slovakia ? Well, now it’s united again. The events of January 18th and #OpMegaupload have spawned not only the first generation of the Czechoslovak Anonymous hivemind, that has DDOSed government agencies under the banner of #czsk ever since.
Published February, 2012
A new compilation put together by Nikola Vitkovic (as his independent endeavour) strives to highlight the buoyoant music scene of the troublesome period of Serbia’s history - the 1990s. It seems that the old maxim about art thriving in the age of general gloom is at play in this case as well.
Published January, 2012
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.
Published January, 2012
Another of our 2011 recaps this time with acclaimed Czech journalist and writer Karel Veselý, author and editor of books including Hudba ohně (Fire Music: Radical Black Music From Jazz to Hip Hop and Beyond) and Kmeny. What’s the highlight for you in Czech Republic’s music scene?It’s nice to see people doing their own thing without the support from the big labels and also defying expectations from their fans.
Published January, 2012
A view of Belgrade from the top floor hallway of one of the East Gate towers Our affinity for the Balkans started more than a year ago when we first set out to explore the music scene of this for us totally unfamiliar country - at least until then (in spite of the fact that half of Lucia’s family lives there). Serbia is perhaps the most economically and politically disadvantaged, dealing with the legacy of its past and relative isolation in European terms.
Published December, 2011
What is the relevance of local scenes in a globalised culture? I would argue that it´s increasingly important. A similar conviction is probably held by the guys behind Local Records, a Bucharest based record label which also functions as a promoter of Romanian independent artists.
Published December, 2011
Another in our supposedly regular monthly podcasts presenting the best music we could come across in the given period (geographically attuned to our focus of course:). This installment turned out slightly deranged with lot of spoken word, psychedelia and twisted electronics.
Published December, 2011
Our new collaborateur, the mysterious Andrej K., has penned his first article for us, a review of Concrete Cut’s latest offering.
Published November, 2011
Czech Rep.’s favourite art pranksters and northern Moravia heroes I Love 69 Popgeju have a new remix album out.
Published October, 2011
Killorgiveup EP album - sideproject of Laura (Spice Mouse) - for free download Estonian songstress Spice Mouse from the recently launched Prague label alice mange son coeur has a new side project and a free EP out.
Published August, 2011
The Slovak artist Martina Slovaková, a student at the Bratislava-based Academy of Fine Arts and Design, has dealt with the national conscioussness and identity in her work for some time (and not only because of her surname - Slovak:) Her latest project, her BA graduation work, entitled Slovak National Remix touches upon the controversial patriotism bill courtesy of the Slovak National Party, which required all schools to play the national athem. Slováková´s project creates an alternative sound bank with various versions of the Slovak anthem, which were created by several Slovak producers (Teapot, Foolk, The Uniques, Isobutane, stroon, Kasioboy).
Published May, 2011
The Prague-based Sperm Festival is an annual showcase of electronic music. Since 2006 it has brought the likes of Dan Deacon or Mouse on Mars to the Czech Republic.
Published April, 2011
(Napszyklat’s studio in GalleriaON) When we visited Poznan, the guys from the electronic hip-hop project Napszyklat were just in the midst of recording a new LP. It’s already mastered and very soon to be out on Ampersand Records.
Published April, 2011
Bratislava’s “advanced music” festival NEXT is starting in a couple of days. The 11th edition of NEXT is going to present artists such as FM Einheit, The Thing, Tarek Atoui, Mira Calix and others.
Published November, 2010
Leaving Bucharest by train to Cluj we had almost 10 hours to read through the project 100 TO WATCH that we briefly mentioned in a former post, and which included in its jury/creative team the journalist and dj Tom Wilson and designer Milos Jovanovic. Being the “directory of 100 most talented artists in Romania today” it was published in October 2009 and should be taken as a insider guide for everyone interested in young and contemporary Romanian arts scene.
Published July, 2010
Leizaboy is a DJ and producer from Timisoara. His first EP was out in July 2009 on High Definition and contains the track Alarm Serenade.
Published July, 2010
Whilst speaking to Victor Popescu aka Brazda lui Novac and Daniel Stanciu known as Minus, they both dropped the name Selfmademusic of Arad. Listen to this collaboration with Makounochi Bento, two guys whom we will hopefully meet in a few days in Timisoara: makunouchi bento - nukekubi (feat.
Published July, 2010