To conclude Brno Daily’s retrospective of 30 years of Indies Scope, Brno’s iconic independent record label, our contributor Anthony B picks the highlights of the last five years of releases. This week, we go back to 2019 and 2020. Image Credit: Courtesy of Indies Scope.
Concluding a 30-year story of a label is not so easy. So much could be added, so many rich productions and music turned up. Music is the art of our century, was never spread at this level before, never consumed so quickly, and with such diversity and musical support.
The last 30 years were the peak of that evolution, a path to digitalization, and labels, including Indies Scope, will need to adapt constantly to the new trends of the music market, keeping the balance between a musical identity, the will to discover, and an economic and profitable system, to survive for the next 30 years. This also depends on the artists themselves: how will they keep their relationships with labels? Will they need them? Let’s see what happens, and for now let’s review the last two albums of that series..
2019: “Amerika” – Kafka Band
A trip, a journey, a literary moment like the novel which inspired them, a great concept with a solid base (an interactive video clip and great production), all wrapped up into an electro-rock package.
12 songs of average 5 minutes to travel between exploration and hypersensitivity, slowed-down tracks and guitar echoes, multiple languages, bridges between cultures (Czech, German, English) to build up a record as the image of the book, an explorative request by individuals, knowing other grounds to know themselves more.
A great piece of music, emotionally high and probably enjoyable (when possible) on a real stage; as a book can become a theatre play, an album is mostly made to be revealed during gigs.
The form of this album is more and more visible as the tracks go along, “Der Marsch nach Ramses” giving tempo to a real experience, to taste until the last page of the notes written, with paradox and weird scenery; “Jiu Jitsu Frau”, creating an explosive work to listen several times, to find the way of the listeners, in this world of images, a great structural trip…
Leading you directly to Amerika, or the image you may have of it…
You can find out more information about this album here.
2020: “Motyle” – Tara Fuki
The duo of Andrea and Dorota, celebrated their 20-year anniversary in 2020 on Indies, with 7 albums released.
A duo travelling the decades and making music. The best way to gather ideas and create songs with them, a real poetic approach as bands on Indies Scope often demonstrate.
This new album arrived after 6 years, calm and soft, light and clear.
10 songs with an average length of 4 minutes, an elegant flight between an omnipresent Cello and a calm but strong vocal, a melodic and rhythmic colourful mix of acoustic folk and sweet pop, like on title track “Motyle” (“Butterfly) with fresh poetic tracks such as “Rano” following.
Some songs are in Czech and the rest in Polish, showing through music the vicinity of these languages, especially through the poetic prisms.
This is an album to relax (“Inna”) and a perfect conclusion of 20 years of music, between noise and chaos, long production hours of work and rework, between ideas and their achievement, 20 years of a band, and 30 of a label, closing a chapter and opening a new one, ready to create more, with their luggage packed full of musical history and with the naïve will to explore more and share more, on any kind of format, and soon, if the times finally return to normal again, on stage.
You can find out more about this album here.
