Orbitale Trio - Improv Series Zzaj -1996- (Tape, Setola Di Maiale), Italy

Orbitale Trio was one out of many bands and projects under the umbrella of the Italian independent cult label for improvisation and free-jazz Setola Di Maiale which was created by multi-instrumentalist Stefano Giust in Pordenone. He started out with the legendary improvisational, punk and experimental band Le Bambine. A completely underrated band that to me still stands out as one of the greatest musical projects of the Italian alternative autoproduzioni scene that was bridging the 80's and 90's.

During the 90's Giust produced a great amount of releases with Setola Di Maiale and the musical output became more jazz oriented in combination with a few excursions into techno, turntablism and such. All projects on the Setola Di Maiale label were played mostly by the same musicians. None of the output was aiming for commercial success and the label was very clear in communicating this as you can read on the cover of this tape.

Orbitale Trio consisted of Stefano Giust, Ivan Pilat and Paolo De Piaggi. Improv Series Zzaj shows their playful repetitive free jazz sounds. It has a real open approach of do-what-you-want improvisation that results in nice tracks which they gave lovely absurdistic titles. One of the tracks on this tape is called Valzer Per Mikols Chadima which is clearly a tribute to Czech multi-instrumentalist Mikoláš Chadima who is the founder of Czech experimental underground groups like Elektrobus, Extempore and later the MCH Band. The music of Orbitale Trio is quite reminiscent of the Italian group Arigret that followed a similar approach with their Italo Calvino inspired album "Se Una Notte D'Inverno Un Viaggiatore..." which I posted some time ago.

I suggest that you dig deeper into the vast Setola Di Maiale catalogue to find the releases you like the most yourself. There is a lot to be discovered and most of the material is freely accessible. Maybe I will post some more music of the label later on.

Get it HERE

Carwashtagnacht - Distance -1996- (Cassette, Self-Released), Hungary

Carwashtagnacht was a Hungarian industrial metal band from the small city of Békéscaba in the south-east of Hungary formed by Kiss Balázs (guitar), Knyihár Pál (bass guitar) and Sörös Gergö (vocals and programming). They played a Godflesh inspired style in which long-lasting repetitive metal riffs were combined with drum machine patterns with in this case gloomy distorted vocals in Hungarian and English. A band like Godflesh has had a lot of influence in Eastern Europe after the change of the political system in the 90's. Because of the lack of musical extremes in dominant music culture in socialist countries like Hungary before the 90's, many people were inspired by metal and punk bands.

Those type of foreign alternative bands were also some of the first to tour the smaller cities in Eastern Europe. At first many of these unclassifiable alternative experimental metal bands came from Italy for example, but eventually even bands from Latin America came to play. Eastern Europe became a new fertile domain after it had previously been closed for tours of such bands. This development also had its influence on locals that in turn started bands with a similar sound. I think it's also a reason why metal and alternative rock styles are still big in Eastern Europe. But aside from that: the 90's was just an insane decade for the development of any genre really. More than end results and completion, potential ruled the musical output.

In the late 90's Carwashtagnacht published a CD on the legendary Trottel Records in Hungary that together with the label Bahia was responsible for the output of alternative and experimental bands in Hungary. The label revolved around the alter-rock band Trottel that started out in the early 80's as a punk band and later evolved into an ethno-experimental-space-band.

This particular cassette of Carwashtagnacht seems to be some sort of demo tape that was self-released a long time before their official album. The musical style is somewhat different to what usually finds itself to the blog, but it's important to keep extending genres and to shed light on the Hungarian underground of the 90's that is totally overlooked and that I happen to have an access to. The term rare doesn't even qualify anymore for a cassette like this. Specially since the band comes from the countryside and not from the capital Budapest.

More obscure Hungarian tapes will be gradually uploaded to the blog.

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Druga Liga Prvo Kolo -1995- (CD, Helidon), Slovenia/Croatia

Druga Liga Prvo Kolo -Second League First Round - is an essential cornerstone compilation from post-Yugo 90's Slovenia. It compiles both Slovenian and Croatian bands that were active in the early and mid-90's in their respective underground scene. Eastern European underground bands from this time were very weird and unclassifiable, playing a combination of both unskilled punk and hyper-complex rock in opposition drenched in a healthy amount of absurdism while existing within a genuine alternative culture based on communal uplifting activisim and desperate local divertissement. Also don't forget that the decade of the 90's in former Yugoslavia and the Balkans was heavily loaded with political tensions and war sentiments that needed an explosive creative output in one way or the other.

Slovenian bands in general, also before the fall of the iron curtain and the disbanding of Yugoslavia, were always very intriguingly weird. With Laibach as main national music reference you know you're in for a blast when digging into the Slovenian musical underground. Other great alternative bands from Slovenia I can think of are Miladojka Youneed, Begnagrad, Lolita, Strelnikoff or the later Pinja Dzazna (who has those files for me!?)

The Slovenian bands on this compilation are experimental group Mamojebac (of which their whole and only existing tape from 1995 Tko Je Ovdje Kome Guzica? is present), strange punk band Absent Minded and the great avantgarde art-rock band Žoambo Žoet Workestrao. 

The Croatian groups present on Druga Liga are the demented HC-punk group Why Stakla (of which almost their whole cassette Daj, Dođi! from 1995 is compiled) and the free punk no jazz band from Rijeka Plod Mirže (I'm curious if more of their music exists). These bands also remind me of the Croatian band SexA.

Essential uneasy listening of post-Yugo punk-noise-insanity from the underground!

Get it HERE

Před Vaším Letopočtem - Same -1991- (LP, Primus), Czech Republic

Although obviously there are many exceptions, the musical decade of the nineties in Eastern Europe (or the former socialist countries in Europe, as you wish) is largely the equivalent of underground music in the seventies and eighties in the west. Not only was it after the fall of the iron curtain that previously unknown and "illegal" bands were able to finally publish their music, also their influence trickled down into fresh bands of the beginning and mid-nineties. Because of a certain creativity that was mediated by or against political inlfuences as well as certain underground music traditions from before the communist system collapsed, the music was not always based on trying to be western or something hype. People understood how they related to their own national underground. Due to a slight delay in getting familiar with new genres and contemporary music finding its way randomly to Eastern Europe in the early nineties (and also before) the music there developed fragmented. Nevertheless, in result it was often taken a lot less shallow by the people than in western countries where there was a constant musical (production) overload combined with a constant competitiveness of setting the new tone. The nineties in Eastern Europe were musically an open field field of creativity, an explosion of freedom. It was a moment of hope, change and seizing the moment to harvest full creative potential.

Před Vaším Letopočtem was a Czech trio from Prague that consisted of Vlastislav Matoušek on bass and vocals, František Janče on guitar and vocals and Jan Jeřábek on keyboards and vocals. Musically they play a quite simplistic and repetitive rock music that thrives on wave-y patterns and occasional experiments encompanied by lyrics in Czech. Obviously they stand on that verge of the change of pollitical systems sharing some of their sounds with peer-bands like Půlnoc, Máma Bubo or Onkel Zbynda’s Winterrock (O.Z.W.). It also hints a bit to Czech synth band Betula Pendula (that made an album not really worth to listen to) and even to the Greek group Chapter 24.

It's not as groundbreaking as some of the stuff I am about to post from Eastern Europe the coming year on the blog, but it's definitely nice unclassifiable underground stuff that carries a free spirit and shows the Czech Underground in full effect. Před Vaším Letopočtem also released another cassette in the same period. If anyone could share that one I'd be very grateful!

Get it HERE