Amalgam - 1978-1981 -1991- (Cassette, Black Point), Czech Republic

Amalgam 1978-1981 features the recordings of a series of concerts of this project led by the Czech drummer and percussionist Vlastimil Marek, along with a variety of guests that range from renowned Czech progressive rock musicians and ethnomusicologists active in the country’s underground scene to a rare participation at that time of an international guest like Mohan Lal.

The recording on the A-side of the tape stems from Amalgam’s participation at the Prague Jazz Days festival held at the Lucerna concert hall on the 19th may 1978. The occasion brought together Marek’s orientally inclined percussive music with the members of the progressive rock band Švehlík, which included Pavel Richter, Luboš Fidler and Alexandr Hajdovský along with the participation of the Indian tabla player Mohan Lal, one of the first foreign guests to play the festival. This first part depicts the inclination towards non-western musical traditions, in this case by Marek and its fusion with avant-garde rock bands like Švehlík, a style at that time already popularized in "the West" by musicians like John McLaughlin or bands like Tri Atma and Embryo for example. In a sense, such music is representative of a legacy of occidental musicians prone to experiment with oriental modes and percussion in order to escape from the constraining aspects of western music towards free and varied forms of music incorporating a clear tendency towards improvisation.

The first half of the B-side was recorded at the sports hall Na Folimance in Prague a year later featuring Czech music-ethnologist and multi-instrumentalist Jiří Mazánekon on acoustic guitar and voice, and Milan Valenta on the violin. The second half was recorded at Baráčnická Rychta also in Prague and the liner notes only name Vlastimil Marek’s use of tapes and percussion along the participation of a series of unknown guests.

While working on his solo percussion projects, Marek has also played with well known rock in opposition bands like MCH Band, Švehlík and Extempore, all of which have included Pavel Richter as a member. In this sense we may appreciate the diverse network of musicians of different genres which participated in the country’s underground scene, resulting in the creation of a fertile terrain for the development of non-conventional approaches towards a free music conception despite the ungoing political repression of the country at that time.

The first side of this tape was released as the second half of the CD Švehlík & Amalgam – Lucerna 19. Května 1978 in 2017 by Galén, a book publisher and record label from Prague.

 By Juan Vacas - RNR 

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Various Artists - The Meridian Crossings -1995- (CD, Hermit Foundation), Czech Republic

This is a CD only compilation around the music and arts symposium The Meridian Crossings that took place in Plzeň, Czech Republic in 1995. It is a varied release containing Czech folk musician Pavel Fajt, a.o. known of the amazing Czech group Dunaj, Cellist Vojtěch Havel who also did many ethereal folk and avant-garde world music soundscapes with his wife Irena Havlová and also many more improvisation musicians from the country I know less about.

Then present on here is English Rock In Opposition hero Tim Hodgkinson, known ofcourse as member of the pioneering RIO band Henry Cow. Also Dutch and Scandinavian artists are compiled (like Ad van Buuren) with art-installation sounds and improvisation pieces. Drummer Jim Meneses is also featured on the compilation, who played in the Berlin based band Stan Red Fox which I posted before on the blog. Lastly present here is Australian sound-art poetess Amanda Stewart.

The Meridian Crossings is a nice historical sound document of a manifestation of experimental music. A moment in which people from different countries exchanged musical talent in a post-socialist country that always had a very strong experimental underground scene in which music played a pivotal role. Within Eastern Europe, Czech Republic was always musically ahead with legendary groups like The Plastic People of The Universe, DG307 or Extempore. Their sounds concealed critical politics, poetry, art and philosophy in a context of the darker realms of folk and progressive rock experimentation to fight repression and to share state-forbidden information in order to uplift generations of people who were fighting to change the system. On The Meridian Crossings we can hear a new time that is still rooted in this past, but already merging with a global contemporary art-world representing a new transnational unity through the serious but also light-hearted musical avant-garde.

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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!

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Jana Koubková - Bosa -1985- (LP, Supraphon), Czech Republic

Somehow there always existed a relation with Brazilian Bossa Nova in Eastern Europe. Specially in times when coffee places behind the Iron Curtain flourished and nightly neon lights were flirting with western titles creating a concealed idea of a vibrant night life throughout all of the Eastern European capitals. Latin American tunes were played by jazz bands of the fifties and sixties and the particular feeling lived on all the way to the revival of the retro lounge movement around the change of the millenium, reminiscing the geometrical design imagery and nightly recreation created during the socialist times. It was a strange daily life counterpart to a political system that on the other hand ofcourse was looked upon as a system of repression and terror in many ways. Nevertheless exploring  the artists, designers and architects from the time one notices that this culture also contained something unique and refined. Besides that it coincidentally and not so coincidentally had a lot in common with modernism in Latin America.

Jana Koubková is a Czech Jazz singer that was active from the seventies in many Jazz groups like C&K Vokal and Jazz Fragment Prague. In 1985 she created her first solo album Bosa that can be viewed as a unique Czech deconstructed experimental avant-garde Bossa Nova album. Apart from the rhythms that are used, it's mainly a voice and scat album with weird overdubs, free jazz explosions and experimental repetitions. Actually it fits quite well next to the Brazilian contemporary music from the mid eighties that used traditional rhythm and melody with new experiments and unconventional instruments like Andréa Daltro or Cinema.

Bosa examplifies Jana Koubková's creativity and progressive spirit and totally exceeds a mere jazz album. This is true singing talent molded into avant-garde voice experiment art comparable to the amazing work of Russian singer Valentina Ponomareva (or for that matter).

Another one for this summer (letní)!

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