8.25.20 by Ryan Masteller
It’s become somewhat of a predictable cycle with Baba Vanga: receive tape in the mail from label; slather said tape with praise; repeat. Of course, the tapes come from Prague, so there’s often all manner of unusual (to these U.S. eyes, rheumy with COVID [probably], anyway) diacritical additions to the letters in artist and album titles – even the consonants! So while “I haven’t ‘been to Prague,’ been to Prague, but I know that thing, that stop shaving your armpits, read ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ date a sculptor, now I know how bad American coffee is thing.” And the diacritical marks thing. (I could quote Noah Baumbach’s “Kicking and Screaming” all day. “Is that a pajama top?” “No! … Yes.”)
Now that I’ve received a new tape in the mail from Baba Vanga, it’s time so slather it with praise. Daniel Kordík, who records with various other projects, has decided to become “Lord of the Dance,” as it were, infusing his seven off-kilter and sublimely catchy electronic concoctions with enough of a rhythmic jolt to get you out of your chair and onto your feet to … well, move them, I guess. But hold up – before you get all weirded out, I wouldn’t remotely find these tunes appropriate in, like, a club setting. No, “Spojky Čiary” is, after all, “devoted to … dance for dance’s sake, without its social function or manipulation.”
There goes my idea to petition for “Drz0t” for prom theme this year (again, COVID permitting).
Instead, this is the kind of thing you shake it on down to while you’re cooking dinner in your apartment, or playing chess with (and losing to) your kids, or scrubbing the bathroom sink, or wandering around the house looking for other things to do because you’re so sinfully bored. Or you could just jam it – no reason to not pop open the nearest tape deck and insert “Spojky Čiary” for a feel-good afternoon wiggle. It’s thinking-person’s dance tuneage, not tied to any practice or mood – it’s just there to induce movement and action. And I think we could all use a little bit of that right now!
Also, Baba Vanga killing it with the imprinting on this thing – look at it!
Related Links
