It’s only fitting that this record has come out on the Estonian label Eesti Pops - not shying away from pop, without necessarily having to rely on its emptied out tropes too much. What is pop anyway these days? Far from being a dark and occult paean to Crowley’s magick, this “Magick” freely shifts between ambient/drone/post/dance/synth/kraut/pop/vocal experiments.
Published November, 2015
Molly’s debut on the Czech DIY label Stoned To Death Records is a bona fide journey into the world of synthetic sounds - with plenty of noodling, twisting and tweaking, filtering and arpeggio(ing). No wonder one of the tags on his Bandcamp album page is John Carpenter, the legendary synthaholic.
Published October, 2015
Visionaries & Vagabonds is a long album. Over one hour long, which is really ambitious considering that many artists are not able to show consistent results over such a length.
Published March, 2015
A shimmering coating envelopes the buoyant beats, that retain an inherent nostalgia, not in a sentimental sense, but in a sense of extatic retro bonvivant atmosphere. No wonder one of his unwitting influences was Hieroglyphic Being, notable for his idiosyncratic approach to dance music.
Published January, 2015
Brno, the second city of Czech Republic, has seen a gradual upsurge in underground sonic activities, aided by its ample student populace - both at the art and technical universities - resulting in a very interesting mix where art and technology come to each other’s service. The crew behind the DIY Arduino-based instrument Standuino is based there, now busy with the increasingly successful Bastl Instruments, who, coincidentally, also lent its support to the latest Brno electronic export - the label Bukko Tapes.
Published June, 2014
Prague has had a fairly thriving minimal/synth wave scene in the last couple of years, mirroring the upsurge of interest in forgotten obscurities created on primitive equipment in Western European countries such as Germany, Belgium or France in the 1980s, packed and polished for 21st century listeners by labels like Minimal Wave. Jan Jiskra aka Moduretik has made music since 2001.
Published April, 2014
For tracklist click here: Tracklist:Superskin - Suspicious Minds Superskin - Drown Superskin - Descent Somnoroase Paserele - 18_01 Somnoroase Paserele - 18_08 Somnoroase Paserele - 17_04 Střed Světa - Ozvena Zmackana Opodal Střed Světa - Travinou Obkliceni Střed Světa - untitled, unreleased Střed Světa - Tvorem v tíží země (Basic House Rub) Lightning Glove - Dream On (Ketamine God) - unreleased Sister Body - Secret Turned to Revulsion Heroiny S Olbricht & Carla Under Water - No Message (The Key) S Olbricht & Carla Under Water - Birds Nightmare Carpet - untitled Shamnelism - Shamnelism Plevna - Imperios Future Nuggets Střed Světa - Tvorem pod sluncem S Olbricht - III1 Synus006 - Dist_Black Jonáš Gruska - Lunars
Published March, 2014
Budapest-based producer Balázs Semsei aka Norwell makes his debut with his psychedelic electronica project on Shabu Recordings. The Farbwechsel co-founder is the third man connected to the fledgling label we featured earlier.
Published January, 2013
Do artists who live in one geographical area have more in common than those across borders but with stylistic affinities, especially at times when anything confined to the national level seems obsolete? This is the question we also have asked numerous times during our travels. Two compilations are trying to prove that there is still place to highlight local productions, especially if there are certain parallels in their sonic output and a shared physical interaction and context.
Published December, 2012
The Budapest-based duo of Silf is a new project by experimental electronic producer Martin Mikolai aka Stephan Olbricht and his Farbwechsel co-founder and label boss Bálint Zalkai aka Alpár, exploring leftfield territories of acid, Chicago and Detroit house, with a blend of Eastern melancholia, tropic daze and vintage nostalgia. Their self-titled first EP premiers here today /insert smug smile/, stream the record in its entirety before it will be released on 1st of January 2013 via Farbwechsel.
Published December, 2012
Bulgaria is closer to Space than you might think. Apart from the space food production trivia and the fact that a Bulgarian folklore song is travelling the Universe as a message to other intelligent lifeforms, our country has spawned another intergalactic curiosity – 1000names.
Published December, 2012
Short Introduction on Synthesizers Today After experiencing such records as Lunar Miasma’s Impermanent Nature, Negative Fascination by Silent Servant, Ghostrider’s Voices or batch of Panabrite’s releases it’s getting clear that 2012 is a year of synthesizers. They’ve become an excellent substitution for guitars – they aren’t kitschy anymore, they transformed from nerdy toys into tools of romanticism, poetry or even mysticism.
Published November, 2012
Slavo Herman has been part of the Bratislava scene for a while, most of the time involved in activities of the collective Noize Konspiracy, an ever changing group of individuals in love with extreme and alternative forms of music. But Slavo’s stuff has always been different, unravelling the more deep, abstract and softer side of the musical region which contrasted with the brutal and lo-fi noise experiments of projects like Gule Tvojho Fotra or Žebrota, and also keeping himself more distanced from the social activities of the core group.
Published October, 2012
If you need a summer soundtrack, here is one. Bangeliz, the new Vangeliz, has a brand new mixtape out on Mik Musik.
Published August, 2012
Fat Kid Beny and Hyphy in Belgrade, 2k11 FAT KID BENY, the founding member of Belgrade’s “domestic rap” posse RAP CAT$ has gone solo. With the release of his latest batch of synth&dirty tracks and raw beats that Beny and his friends call “rap music” we asked him for an interview.
Published July, 2012
Following his mesmerizing debut last year, the now Bratislava-based Jacques Kustod returns with a synth-driven triple journey into various sonic cosmic territories. We asked Jacques to shed some light on the inspiration and process of creation of his latest EP Trois Visages, which you can download for free.
Published May, 2012
Route 8 has dropped his first EP Never Ending Stories just two months ago - we also featured his 4-track debut a while ago - and for now he’s working hard on his live set debut at the release party for the imminent second compilation of Easterndaze on 11th of May in Budapest’s Roham Bar. We’re eagerly looking forward to seeing his ‘synthpop-house’ tunes live.
Published April, 2012
The mysterious Sopot based producer caught our attention a few month ago (read the article here), and since then he has kept in touch with the wide world via a steady stream of videos and tracks. His latest endeavour is a remix of Husband’s Lovesong accompanied by an old anime video.
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
Introducing Zmikeo! - the repetitive, synth and bass-heavy production of the 24 years old Milos Petrovic from Serbia, our latest obsession. Zmikeo-Empty recycle bin by ZMIKEO! Zmikeo!’s tracks have the lo-fi angry and unpolished quality that could be ascribed to grime, it’s only that Milos comes from Belgrade and not a suburb in London.
Published September, 2011