#exitab

Ako sa nestratiť v mestskom labyrinte alebo ako nájsť cestu do jeho stredu.

Uplynulé mesiace v Bratislave ponúkli niekoľko možností vytvoriť si celkom aktuálny a hlavne autentický obraz „menej“ viditeľnej hudobnej scény , ktorú dlhodobo spája záujem o experiment a s ním súvisiace hľadanie iných zvukových riešení. Spojenie „menej“ viditeľná využívam z prostého dôvodu, ktorý je do istej miery charakteristický pre slovenskú povahu a to všeobecný nezáujem a zakrývanie si očí pred niečím čo vybočuje z jasne  vymedzených hraníc, čo nie je možné charakterizovať, ohodnotiť a zaškatuľkovať na prvé počutie.  Popri tom hlavným znakom danej scény je pestrofarebný eklektizmus, teda spájanie rôznych myšlienok, prvkov a žánrov, na základe ktorých nie sú škatuľky vôbec potrebné. Práve táto spätosť a súdržnosť bratislavského hudobného podhubia okolo priestorov A4 a Fuga, vydavateľstiev Exitab, Proto Sites, LOM či Forum Absurdum ho odlišuje od toho pražského či budapeštianskeho.

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pokračovanie......

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Brniansky producent Tatratank, bohužiaľ u nás nepatrí medzi známych umelcov, no kvalitou sa plnohodnotne môže zaradiť medzi slovenských elektronických producentov ako EGA (s ktorým je dlhoročný kamarát už od detstva), Ink Midget, Casi Cada Minuto či skvelých maďarských Route 8 alebo Imre Kiss.

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If you take a look on the album notes, you will find out that some excerpts of this release were recorded in 2009 already. And that is actually not the time when Tatratank started to make music. Together with his old friend EGA they established probably the first netlabel in Slovakia, badrecords.eu, in the small Slovak city of Ružomberok. So we are talking ancient history here, things that probably took place around 2005. Shockingly, Tatratank’s first officialy proper release only happens now, ten years later 2015.

0xAM | EXTB060 by TATRATANK

0xAM is basically a musical journey through everything that has happened in the world of music over the last 10 years. Glitchy sounds, complex soundscapes, most importantly, the juke oriented rhythms, which give the entire album dat urban feel. As Tatratank’s name would suggest some brutal and massive sound exorcism, let me stop you there and tell you not. Andrej’s tracks are maybe frenetic and full of ideas, but it is far from rough or dark techno. Still, album borrows aspects from the aforementioned genres and treats them in a nice way. Also, the amount of ideas used here is impressive. Less impressive, however, is the way how Tatratank handles them, his approach reminds me of an ADHD kid that with a short attention span. You have a short and catchy motif that ends after a minute without any further development, which is a shame. Around 25 minutes of the material are loaded with ideas, but maybe it would help if there were fewer motifs, which then could stretch themselves into their own, smaller narratives with more complex and built-up compositions. If this release is supposed to represent the hectic days in which we live now, let it be. Tatratank is undoubtly a skilled producer and some more narrow focus would help him produce a more solid release. 

0xAM | EXTB060 by TATRATANK

Mix, ktorý mapuje 6 rokov vydavateľstva Exitab

Exitab je slovenské nezávislé vydavateľstvo, ktoré objavuje a vydáva najmä zaujímavú a inovatívnu elektronickú hudbu strednej Európy, no spolupracuje aj s umelcami zo zahraničia vrátane Londýna. Hudbu vydáva digitálne, na platniach, ale aj na kazetách. Pred pár dňami vydali pre Fluid Radio mix mapujúci 6 rokov svojej existencie. A je z čoho vyberať. Posúďte sami.

[soundcloud…

Not so long ago the Slovak Publishing Exitab launched into his world and a well hidden secret child born in silence, from one day to the next. Its sublabel Proto Sites adopted almost naturally a status of a platform aiming at a more abstract position of electronic music, the area that is open for far horizons, and in which it is possible to repeatedly spend time. This clearly indicates the direction for the future, accruing similar projects, atmosphere, space in a single nebula with a unique sound and artwork. As a fitting manifest or zero point appears the EP of EGA, followed up by the project Foundling courtesy of Jonathan Fox, working between the UK and Bratislava. The album titled Wake up in Bits is a re-release with a bonus track I Crawled the Earth. In the context of Proto Sites it is a step to get the March seed of Exitab to a place where its poetics would be much more pronounced and at the same time reinforcing the concept of the emerging label. Already from the initial track Unformer, it is possible to feel the path of intuition in its purest form, which Foundling prefers to pre-designated concept. The exploratory nature of the listener gives way to a blind following of waves and horizontally shifting structures. The listener can foretell where it will all lead, what is in the beginning, what comes after the last tone. That would be a fatal mistake, however, missing the gradually amplifying details which can be omitted during a shallow listen.

Wake up in Bits | PS002 by Foundling

With its almost 60 releases spanning over a period of five years over a continuum of formats physical and digital, the Slovak label Exitab has become an influential platform for local producers of mostly accessible, beat-oriented electronica. With its sublabel Proto Sites it ventures into more abstract and dreamy, synthy territories as manifest on its first release.

Northward, the debut EP of the Slovak producer EGA is true to its title. Its tracks project an image of a joyously adventurous sonic expedition: synth melodies move over ruptures and breakages, all framed in glitches, beeps and static. From the first seconds of Northward we are confronted with a stripped rhytmical whirr of sparse loops of samples, that suddenly expand into almost Boards of Canada-esque synth athmospheres, only to climax later in a sonic mashup of feedbacks, broken rhythms and vocals-over-radio-static samples of number stations.

Wintermute, the third track of the EP, starts with a damaged synth melody on the verge of falling apart. We hear it as if it was submerged underwater, with layers of sonic debris scattered everywhere. The sound of the track is romantically dark, paranoid. Yet through all of its uncertain fuzziness, and cyberpunk references, it still maintains a fragile, almost film music-like atmosphere making it the climax of the EP.

Produced between Ableton and a modular synthetizer, the modular "DNA" of the sound gives Northward a lush, warm and triumphantly adventurous feel. The EP has little to offer in terms of unpleasant sounds or unpredictable structures. Even the glitches and noise that frame each track, as an incessant Instagram filter, sound organic and pleasant to the ear. This adventure, in all its boyish sincerity, will end well, riding The Wave into the outer reaches of the cosmos.

The Blank Stare is a “project focused on mapping the Slovak experimental music scene through series of documentary movies”. Technically, the second episode easily beats the first one. While the first episode (starring Urbanfailure, András Cséfalvay, Triple Sun and Jacques Kustod) was drowned in dialogue, this time it follows a simple plot - three live concerts of three experimental music projects, and after each concert a short interview with the musicians follows. All three gigs were shot in one evening in Cvernovka, an industrial hall in Bratislava, formerly a textile factory, now an artist space which hosts artists studios and a gallery, even rehearsal rooms in the past. It is also a historical industrial monument facing a pending demolition.

The first slot of the new edition is dedicated to Jonáš Gruska, a Bratislava-based sound artist, known for making his own electronic instruments (such as the Elektrosluch, a device allowing to listen to electromagnetic fields), site-specific compositions (like his compositions for ventilation pipes or bells in streets of Bratislava) and running his own experimental music label LOM. In this movie, you can see him operating a pair of ventilators dynamically controlled by electronic circuits, or a tape echo made from old reel tape recorder. His concert with all those modular synths, blinking LEDs, cosmic bleeps and half-ambient buzz reminds of operating a spacecraft panel or a science lab.

The second concert is provided by the experimental duo БРАДА (“beard”). The first member of the project is Boris Sirka, born in Snina (east Slovakia), known mainly as a visual artist, also the former member of the audio-visual project BIOS combining noise, black metal and medieval aesthetics. Nenad Branković was born in Serbia, but since he studied visual arts in Bratislava, he now lives in Slovakia, and is mostly known as a visual artist and graphic designer. The two got together because of their common interest in dark music (even black metal, for instance), and their name points to their common orthodox Christian background (beard like symbol of orthodox pop, but also because “the beard never stops, it always grows”). Despite their visual arts background, this time they don’t use any visuals. Their show consists of slow, dark drones with a slight post-metal atmosphere using a tape player, gramophone, bow-played guitar, synths or processed vocals, preferring analogue sounds to digital.

The next concert stands in sharp contrast to БРАДА’s gig, and definitely is the most accessible one for the uninitiated listener - Sky To Speak provides us with steady rhythms, in a more optimistic vein and dreamy atmospherics, a sort of cross between minimal techno, dub and shoegaze with a bit of psychedelia. Sky To Speak is in fact a two-member audio-visual project, but this time we get to see only the “audio” part of the project, personified by Matěj Kotouček concentrating on his laptop and a few synths or controllers. Though he is originally from the Czech Republic, he moved to Bratislava because of his connections with the experimental scene in this town. He has also released an EP on Exitab label, a Slovak label focusing on experimental electronics or experimental rock releases.

by Samčo, brat Dážďoviek