Performers
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“Our style is mana. A mix of funky, electro, rock’n’roll, drum and bass, dub… It’s hard to categorize. We enjoy variety and mixing various influences. We are the image of the world of today. We are complicated, not monolithic, yet also playful and always ready for new things.” This is how the band sees itself. More
5 FOOT ASSASSINS
This is an international music band from Prague which oscillates between rock and rockabilly. The guitarist, Jonny Quality, has cooperated also with the world-famous DJ Fatboy with studio sessions and live appearances on the stage. Other members are the Irish vocalist T-Bone O’Neill, the Bulgarian guitarist Boogie and the Czech drummer, K’Man. More
ABIGAIL YBARRA
“I reckon that music fans in the West must have felt the same more than 40 years ago when they first met Jimi Hendrix: massive energy, astounding technical skill, absolute harmony among the musicians... How come I don’t know them? How come that nobody, most likely, knows them?” This is how the dramaturgist of the Šumperk festival Blues Alive remembers his first meeting with the duo. It was his invitation that brought Abigail Ybarra to a major audience last November for the first time; their gig for the thousand listeners was doubtlessly the leading revelation of the event. More
ALEF ZERO
However the band consists of performing artists with experience of dance music, punk, or jazz, its distinctive style resembles the broken beats of drum’n’bass or breakbeat. Alef Zero is the only band of the genre in the Czech Republic to use a wind section. The band was formed in the spring of 2004 when the initial four tracks were recorded in a studio. In the fall of that year they held their premiere concerts in Pardubice (the Žlutý pes club) and Prague (Roxy). More
ALEJANDRO TOLEDO
The saxophone player and singer Alejandro Toledo has Argentinean heritage and studied classical music in Montreal, Canada; however, he has spent most of the time with Gypsy bands that have had major impact on his preference of music style. After all, he says that his biggest influence the Romanian brass music band Fanfare Ciocarlia which is also quite famous in the Czech Republic. However, his concerts are a travel agency of sorts; they show the genres from all parts of the world. The listener can identify the Balkans roots, the traditional rhythms of Africa, the Jewish klezmer, a touch of French chanson, jazz, even hip hop. This is further supported by the fact that in his own songs Toledo makes equal use of French, Italian, Spanish, and Gypsy languages. More
AMPARO SÁNCHEZ
No matter how new the name of the guitarist and singer Amparo Sanchez might seem at the music scene, it builds on vast music experience. Under her arts name of Amparanoia, which would eventually be the synonym of the entire band of which she was the leader, she played about a thousand concerts and released seven albums between 1996 and 2006. The sound Amparanoia played would mix – under the occasional assistance of Manu Chao – Amparo’s perhaps native Spanish mindset with dominant influence of Latin-American rhythms, Cuban music, and reggae. More
ANDREA ROTTIN
The story of Andrea Rottin, a remarkable Italian singer-songwriter, is similar to the stories of his contemporary colleagues all over the world who have their roots in hard indie bands. In Andrea’s case, the band was Oswald – they released The Last Songs record in 2003. He soon fell for a more acoustic-oriented sound and one which had more freedom than the earlier noise-rock style. More
ARAN EPOCHAL
This band is run by two big names of the Prague indie scene: the bass-guitarist and lyrics writer Aran from the “noise” band Gnu and the guitarist/keyboard player Bourek from the power-pop Sporto; the latter is known in the rap scene under the nick of Bonus. However, the sound of Aran Epochal is quite far from Gnu or Sporto, leave alone hip hop. The duo makes hypnotic, post-punk music which is built on minimalist bass-guitar riffs under the support of the basic “beat” of the metronome. More
BASTA FIDEL
Some former members of the ska project Fidel Castro met five years ago, invited other musicians, and have spent more than five years making “ska-chanson-Balkan thrashing.” Their unique style first appeared in the 2006 album, Plezír (The Kick of It), which gave the band a nomination for the 2006 Anděl music award. The band then took to tireless tours in the Czech Republic, but also in Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany More
