Balázs PÁNDI & Petr VRBA + DEAD JANITOR + DRAGGES AFTER THE TENTH HOUR
Balász PÁNDI (HU) & Petr VRBA (CZ)
After last year’s premiere, when Balász Pándi and Petr Vrba joined forces with Mikołaj Trzaska and Marek Tokar for a special concert in Budapest’s Opus club, the pair of Pándi & Vrba decided to explore their sonic universes in more detail and embarked on a week-long tour.
Balázs PÁNDI (HU)
Hungarian drummer (and accordionist) Balázs Pándi is not only an active musician, improviser and passionate vinyl collector, but also a cook and journalist. He is perhaps best known for his extensive collaborations with Japanese “noisemaker” Merzbow (Masami Akita), Canadian breakcore giant Venetian Snares (Aaron Funk) and Swedish power saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. But Pandy has also played with dozens of electronic, industrial, avant-jazz and rock musicians such as Bill Laswell, Wadady Leo Smith, Roswell Rudd, Keiji Hain, KK Null, Lee Ranald, Marshell Allan, Jamie Saft, Trevor Dunn and Thurston Moor. His style is impossible to pigeonhole, ranging from free jazz and classical music to math rock and trip hop to grindcore and death metal with many different offshoots, including an original form of industrial EDM. The sound of his drums can be found on albums by bands such as Zu, Obake, To Live And Shave in L.A., Metallic Taste of Blood, Slobber Pup, Rope Cosmetology, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, etc.
“He is an extremely skilled drummer and understands everything from grindcore and heavy metal to free jazz. He’s very flexible, from fast heavy drums to improvisation he provides support, so he was very easy to work with.” (Masami Akita aka Merzbow)
Petr VRBA (CZ)
He is one of the most prominent figures of Prague experimental music and a tireless promoter of free improvisation. He plays trumpet, clarinet, synthesizers and other electronic instruments. He collaborates with filmmakers, dancers and visual artists and regularly performs with the top of the European free improvisation scene (Axel Dörner, Thomas Lehn, Xavier Charles, Franz Hautzinger…) or experimenters and sound artists such as Yan Jun, Ryu Hankil, Simon Whetham, etc. He is a founding and permanent member of the Prague Improvisation Orchestra and the groups IQ+1, Poisonous Frequencies, The MoND, Junk & the beast, NUN and others. He has performed at festivals in Australia, Europe and Asia. He has released around forty albums on labels such as Another Timbre, Mikroton, Corvo, mappa, Kandala, Polí 5, Meteorismo, Klangundkrach etc.
“As a trumpeter, Vrba explores the involvement of the trumpet in new contexts and the creation of new contexts by other means, both acoustic and electronic. In doing so, he demonstrates an admirable ingenuity driven by a fascination with the acoustic experience.” (composer and teacher Jaroslav Št’astný aka Peter Graham)
DEAD JANITOR
Dead Janitor is a project by Braň Findrik. With an arsenal of fragmented polyrhythms and melodic micro-samples, his music is a bold form of electronica that reflects the intricate nooks and crannies of IDM. He flips samples upside down, changes their structures, manipulates, restructures, creating surfaces far removed from the real world. All of this is wrapped in industrial grime.
DRILLS AFTER TEN O’CLOCK
Drills After Ten O’Clock deratomises the eardrums with a digital morass of sonic surfaces, flowing through holes drilled during a weekend evening idyll, as it should, even with the knock on.
