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March 22 2019

A twelve-year long waiting is over. Khoiba’s new album is a deep dive into the collective world of Ema Brabcová and Filip Míšek. It can evoke feelings of duality; it is exposed and covered, brutal and gentle, disturbing and calming, it contains hope and despair, it is full of distance and connection, corners and layers you can sink in. The album balances “on the edge” of multiple genres. It's not important what electronic music elements Khoiba works with. For Khoiba, it is vital that you take some feeling away with you, even if you’re not comfortable with it. That’s to say, you risk touching something really sensitive.

The lyrics describe loneliness and separation: “Where is she? Squeezed in Ed's cold helicon, all alone in her world. But she knows how to play.” (Snack) “Stuck inside, endlessly long time in a disguise and with cold hope, I'm waiting for another life.” (STF)

The key is openness to your own emotions. “Go down under those eight outstretched legs, give up your fear and ignite the fire around you,” Ema sends a message in the lyrics about working on herself. (Onion Skin) Sometimes, however, this “work” can lead you to where you did not want to go: “I went to shine the light down into the basement, but I fell through, so calm me down and do not ask me to reflect upon it somehow.” (In A Loft)

Unplanned journeys have their charm, especially those where the return is not a condition. “Come with us, you should go, two thousand steps into the miles of dark catacombs.” (Storages) Stop time with Ema and Filip, cloudy water is clean when it settles...

CD/LP [180 gram LP on amber and black vinyl] can be ordered in the online store now.

October 1st 2018

Rakovnik’s Manon Meurt took its time on its new album. The songs came into being and matured at their own pace. After thorough preparation, Manon Meurt went into the studio to record in June, with Jan P. Muchow (The Ecstacy of Saint Theresa) as producer. When it comes to the Czech scene, Manon Meurt takes its greatest inspiration from the original lineup of The Ecstacy of Saint Theresa, especially the very old Fluidtrance Centauri EP. This is material from the legendary John Peel Session, so there is a certain symbolics here or, one might say, a completion of the circle, since Jan Muchow took worked on MMXVIII, that band's second album.

Kateřina Elznicová (guitar), Vojtěch Pejša (guitar), Simona Kuchárová (bass guitar), and Jiří Bendl (drums) got together six years ago during the Coombal festival near Rakovnik. Originally, Kateřina was supposed to perfom solo with her guitar but she wanted to have a band. A year later came the watershed moment, when the band played warm up for My Bloody Valentine at their Prague concert in Divadlo Archa on June 11, 2013 as they were putting together their nameless six-song debut. Finally released in 2014, it was a limited vinyl edition and included compositions such as To Forget and In These Eyes that have defined the band's creative signature. With Simona Kuchárová now replaced by David Tichý, Manon Meurt has given a number of concerts, gained new experience, and expanded its musical scope.

On the one hand, they remain an otherworldly collective closely bound to shoegaze, but they have also taken a fresh direction towards post-rock and noise. This stylistically describes We Are, part of the band’s existing repertoire, as well as Figure It Out and Neon, the latter being one of the runners-up for the first single. The opening song, Circle, testifies to Kateřina Elznicová's vocal maturity: her ethereal voice is an outstanding feature of the performance and she also penned very peronal lyrics for songs included in MMXVIII. Lighthouse is a pensive song whose piano sections will surprise you, and the last track, Song Of The Sea, is a dark lullaby bound to become a stable part of Manon Meurt’s playlist.

Manon Meurt were recently interviewed by UK-based Drowned In Sound magazine and an exclusive stream of the new MMXVIII album is included! Give it a listen here.

CD/LP [180 gram LP on transparent pink marble and black vinyl] can be pre-ordered in the online store now. All pre-orders will be shipped on October 12th.

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Four years have come and gone since Secret Session by Zabelov Group was released. In the interim, Zabelov Group has been gathering material and striving to put together a conceptually focused album. It will finally be released October 5 with the title Eg on Minority Records in LP, CD, and digital download formats.

Eg is the fruit of two years of labour. Recording took place at several locations, with the renowned Svarov Studio serving as the centre of gravity. A number of audio sources recorded outside the studio also made it into the mix, including a church organ. Recording was overseen by audio engineers Lukáš Martínek and Matouš Godík (Hidden Orchestra, Floex), who did the final mastering. "Several tendencies have been emerging in our work. The discovery of sound options provided by modulated accordion has led us to ambient music on the one hand and strict grooves on the other. We're interested in both abstract compositions and in combining music with narrative and out-of-studio recordings. We've been discovering the options we have as musicians but also enjoying what studio postproduction has to offer. I don't know whether we’ll have the will to create such a synthesis in future recordings but hopefully we've managed to interconnect all these levels in Eg", Jan Šikl says about the origin of the album.

Zabelov Group's musical endeavour is permeated by the effort to maintain live contact with the instrument but provide the entire spectrum of club sound while performing as a duo. Their original acoustic puritanism thus gradually transformed into complex cinematic music accompanied by samples and acoustic instruments enhanced by electronics.

CD/LP [180 gram LP on black vinyl] can be pre-ordered in the online store now. All pre-orders will be shipped on October 5th.

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