Neden ~ s/t (2014)

I get all sorts of submissions. Mostly Hip Hop, Dance, Hard Rock. I guess my e-mail landed in some promo-submission-power-tool. These submissions get a powerful spamfilter treatment in my mailbox.

Usually, the "Kosmische" or "Berliner Schule" tag doesn't grab my attention, since most recordings these days are more like cosmic boredome. I don't see how this genre evolves when they use the same synthies like in the seventies, with the same sequencer patterns. It's retro thing. Maybe I am just ignorant, because I know how easy it is to plug some synthies together and send the stuff through some Phaser/Analoge Delay/Spring Reverb units, get stoned and turn a knob once in a while and tape the whole session. Then cut the pieces together and try to impress a girl.
Didn't work for me. I am biased, sorry.

The reason why I gave Neden a spin was, because they are from the Czech Republic. While it's easy to get hours of Kosmische Musik out of German or American home studios I don't see so much music from Czech or Poland making their way into the international market. Not even into the "Indie" or DIY market.

I live near the Czech border. I love Prague. I grew up with Czech fairytale movies. Their sub culture brought up some really phantastic and weird stuff like Svankmajer, Tichy, Jaromil Jire, Věra Chytilová, not even mentioning Kafka.

That's why I was curious about a musical project from Czech.

The duo Neden creates a very cinematic kind of music. Less ambient, more the minimal synth like stuff of the early eighties (EMAK etc.), with straight drumbox and sequencer lines. It could be the soundtrack to a space fairytale.

Sometimes it's getting a bit uneven and I wonder if they just hit the wrong button or if it was on purpose, but I would expect a carefully recorded album when it's going to end up on a limited edition of 100 vinyl LPs.

The artwork by Frantisek Hudecek fits pretty well into the whole presentation.
Act fast and get your copy or at least give it a try!

This is more or less related: László Benkő solo, from the Hungarian prog rock group Omega. He pulled out some really rad synth jams! At least Lexicon I is pretty neat.