Thirty-first music presentation session for the blind and visually handicapped took place this time in two locations.  Prague: 21st of September 2021 in the presentation room of Czech agency SONS (Czech Blind United) and Ostrava: 29th of September 2021 in Stará aréna Ostrava theatre. You can find the background of this story in an article about the first session here.

Prague: Congratulations to Tash Sultana, Minyo Cumbiero and God Is An Astronaut.

Ostrava: Congratulations to Tash Sultana, God Is An Astronaut and Mansur Brown.

Prague setlist:

Irish post rockers God Is An Astronaut are a definition of a cool and especially stable post rock/metal band to me. I know them for ages, love returning to their music and every time there si a chance to see them live, I don’t hesitate. I saw them a few times in Prague, but I will always remember the time I saw them during my marketing master studies in Barcelona. They actually played in a venue, right next to my university! We also did an interview before the show and I just love how down to earth they were. They were enjoying their fast food dinner, while we were talking about their latest music and band’s progress. I was so glad to see this live footage they made during a pandemic. They are aging, same as all of us, but they still have a drive, taste and epic sound when they play live. Check their ninth studio album Ghost Tapes #10, especially the track Adrift and other live footages from this series. Hope to see them in Czech Republic soon.

I am surrounded by jazz every day lately, as I joined a team at Czech radio – Český rozhlas Jazz. I take care of their Facebook profile, but I also do interviews with local musicians and prepare one hour profiles about crucial international players. One of them was recently Japanese trumpet player Takuya Kuroda. I know him for some time, especially through his cooperation with London based drummer Richard Spaven. When I do a profile about somebody, I do my best to check everything the musician ever did. We even did an interview for Czech magazine Harmonie, from which I used a couple of quotes for the profile. One of my most favorite tracks including him was a track called Hope by a project called 44^th Move including Richard Spaven and also amazing piano player Alfa Mist, who is one of the main reasons, I am listening to jazz for the past couple of years. Takuya’s guest trumpet solo is simply breathtaking.

One hour profile about Takuya in Czech here

If I had to name a guitar player, which fascinates me the most for the past couple of years, it would be London based talent Mansur Brown. I first discovered him through Alfa Mist and their track Love Is The Message, where they were joined by Rocco Palladino on the bass and a drummer Yussef Dayes, with whom Mansur was also frequently cooperating. Mansur’s sound and lightness in his playing is phenomenal. He can play with an incredible speed, as well as create meditative spiritual atmosphere. Mansur is very religious, which you can easily recognize on his social media profiles, where he includes every post with “God Bless” and also in his latest video My Prayer. Offer your mind a rest with this amazing piece of art.

Next to ambient metal, jazz and world music, I do appreciate an intelligent pop. Very soon I realized the tastes in the audience are so versatile and therefore I don’t mind keeping the genre spectrum so broad. Partially thanks to modern jazz, Spotify started to offer me some smooth r’n’b music and I must say, I saved many awesome tracks. Anderson .Paak’s tracks are some of them, but I was really surprised when this guy was recommended to me even by me metal friends. Plus, I must honestly say, his cooperation with Bruno Mars – Silk Sonic is a pop, I really don’t mind hearing on the mainstream radio. His soul taste and skills within song arrangement are truly a positive input to the mainstream music. But my primary motivation to include a live version track called Jet Black, was to offer my audience an artist, I could easily imagine on the main stage of the biggest Czech music festival – Colours Of Ostrava.

About a year ago, I was offered by my friends in Prague’s venue Studio Paměť to help them organize listening sessions from vinyls. As the pandemic was truly limiting everything, we decided to record these presentations. I do an introduction and then an interview with a guest. We are keeping the genre spectrum quite broad and we had a presentation on Czech 60’s jazz, intelligent country/folk, European covers or 90’s r’n’b. However, if I had to pick one presentation, I enjoyed the most, it would be the one on Colombian music. Therefore it was really hard to pick just a single song, but I went for Cumbia del Monte Fuji, which is a modern cover of a traditional song, done by a Japanese crew Minyo Cumbiero.

Check the presentation on Colombian music in English on our channel Stop, Look & Listen here

Audience choice #1

As the first choice from an audience, in Prague my good friend and a student of Serbian Lucia picked a song called Not An Addict by K’s Choice. At first, she was afraid, it would be too alternative and it she thought, it would fit only her specific mind setting. But the song was well accepted. In Ostrava, the choice was done by my good friend Jakub, who recently discovered he has Balkan roots after his mother did a DNA test. Plus we had a great time, as a group in Croatia. He started to enjoy a number of Balkan songs, but this one specially. It’s called Jugo, Jugo by Nervozni Poštar. It’s incredibly funny, plus they uploaded this track with a funny video.

Ostrava playlist:

After The Break

During the last presentation, I included shoegaze band Deafheaven in the playlist and this time I went for another name from Sargent House label. I respect them very much and regularly check their artists, as I am a huge fan of Emma Ruth Rundle and Chelsea Wolfe among many others. Alexis Marshall, a frontman of Daughters is a figure, many of my colleagues respect, but there are also many afraid of him to some extent. They often said, it’s hard to talk to him and he can easily get the other side of out of balance. Same goes for Daughters shows, where Alexis would be crowdsurfing, getting undressed in the past or induce vomiting. I wanted to give his new solo album and talking to him a chance. House of Lull . House of When has very specific industrial sound and takes time to get to it. Luckily, we connected during the interview very fast. I like to keep chats informal and on a personal level. We spoke about acquiring gear for the album, addictions in our families and also about talking to people, we haven’t seen for years, after cutting down the dangerous lifestyle. I gladly recommended the album to the audience, but I played my most favorite Daughters track Satan In The Wait. Very strong live version, insane interaction with the audience, including a guy with The Black Queen t-shirt which means a world to me.

6:29

During a preparation for an interview with Alexis, I read he is a big fan of Scott Walker. I checked some of his albums and I must say, album IV is incredible. Scott was active since the sixties and bloody impressive, but not well known, as other singers from that era. Next to impressive albums from the late sixties, he also cooperated many years later with drone band Sunn O))) in 2014. It was a big challenge to pick one song, as the album is packed by great tracks, but eventually I went for The Old Man’s Back Again, as it offers in short all of his awesome qualities. Storytelling, arrangements, lyrics and Ennio Morricone feel.

Every time I also want to give a space to some Czech band or an artist. This time I chose a track from post punk, noise rock band Sinks. I love their earlier tracks, where they seemed like a street punk British band. Amazing energy and F*ck You attitude, especially at a song called Professor T. On their full length 2021 album Sinks, they showed mainly a taste for dark atmospheric rock sound. I gladly played very psychedelic single Serotonin.

Audience choice #2

As the second choice from an audience, in Prague a stable guest and a dear member of the SONS team, Karel Novotný chose a track from a legendary prog rock band Progres 2. In Ostrava, my good friend Alex Vavrova, which is great in promoting these events on her Facebook, chose a song from Norwegian band Wardruna, she fell in love during one of the previous events.

For a bonus, I chose one of the tracks, I loved to listen to during the pandemic. Australian artist Tash Sultana, was recommended to me by my friend and a student of English, Jorga, at that time an office manager in Coca Cola. Tash is an incredible talent, with her attitude reminding me of Dub FX. I must honestly say, I love the track called Jungle the most from her. The only problem was to pick an ideal live version, as there were number of cool ones. The one from Rocking the Daisies 2019 was by far the best. It was her last show of the long tour and the final part of the song is simply epic. In 2020 she was supposed to come for the first time to Prague, but it unfortunately was cancelled due to pandemic. Hopefully she will manage soon.

52:40

Next events took place in these dates: 13^th of October in Ostrava and 19^th of September in Prague.

Behind the scenes stories coming soon.

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