Track 1. Intro

It's funny that on March 8, International Women's Day, it was precisely such purely male collectives of the industrial scene that performed in Prague. The plans were to visit a new club in Prague and get acquainted with the performances of bands that I had not seen before. Once the Austrians were not allowed to enter Israel with a show for political reasons. Obviously, there was no point in not letting them into Czech Republic. The most interesting project from the line-up for me was the Italians Varunna. Therefore, in anticipation of a good evening, we together headed to the club by slowly walking on the street of Prague.

Track 2. The Club

As I found out before our long crusade Klub 007 is located in a dormitory building of one of the universities. In general, this is all the center of the city, but far away from the center at the same time. So, as expected, we got lost. More precisely, I got lost and led everyone else along with me. I had to use improvised means in order to have time to watch at least half of the performance of the first project. The club itself is located in the basement of the hostel. Even when we got to the right address, we were looking the actual entrance for a long time (hello from Levontin 7 in Tel Aviv). There were not so many people in the club and the first group was already performing on the stage. Beer prices were quite low, as everywhere in the Czech Republic. The hall itself was a with a very uncomfortable column almost in the middle, obstructing the view of the stage from the side of the bar. Directly in front of the stage were benches reminding somehow the structure of amphitheaters in Greece (only structures and not the architecture, of course). The merch of the projects was located near the benches in front of the stage. Quite a few CDs could be bought plus t-shirts and other features.

Track 3. The Audience

The audience was nothing extraordinary. Ordinary metalheads, punks, industrial fans and several goths. Comparing to Israel, the audience was much more diverse and mixed.

Track 4. Varunna (Italy)

The Italian project Varunna released very cool album in 2007 in neofolk and dark folk material in Italian language. That album that year became one of the best in that scene. After that, there were no albums yet, but there were several other releases. When we entered the club, there was one member singing on stage with the guitar. Moreover, he sang with vocals, that didn’t blend well with the arrangement, reminding some death metal like growling. The beautiful acoustic material of the project sounded terrible with such vocals. I don't know if their live music always sounds like this or just here, but I was very disappointed with this performance, which I was really looking forward to. It's good that we didn't come to the very beginning, otherwise I would have started throwing tomatoes at this Italian “black metal” bard. When Alessio (that's the name of the frontman of the project) finished his mournful singing, the club fell silent, awaiting the next performance.

Track 5. Bain Wolfkind (Australia)

I didn’t know the Australian project until March 8, 2012. The only one of the entire lineup of the event. The debut release of the project was out in 2005 on the well-known label Hau Ruck!. When the music started, I immediately realized, that this kind of genre was not interesting for me. It's called alt-country. But in the end it turned out that this music sounds very good live. Such a kind of dark country with experimental sounds. The vocalist acted like a true member of a country band and was dressed accordingly. I did not become a big fan of dark country and this project after his performance, but I enjoyed listening to it.

Track 6. Deutsch Nepal (Sweden)

Peter Andersson and his project have already become a kind of iconic act on the industrial scene. Deutsch Nepal has existed since 1991 and has many releases and performances in different countries of the world. The music on the CDs is a combination of different genres of industrial music from dark ambient to noise. This is what the show looked like. Best performance of the evening. Peter with his partially crazy, partly alluring, somewhere gloomy, a bit aggressive immersive music drove into ecstasy. I wanted to lie down, close my eyes and completely to sink into and to get absorbed in the music of Deutsch Nepal. Without a doubt the best performance of the evening.

Track 7. Der Blutharsch (Austria)

Albin Julius created Der Blutharsch in 1996. His work has always been diverse, but always conceptual and straight. After the change of genres many of the old fans of the project was surprised and a bit angry, so several even stopped listening to their once beloved band. For me, Albin and Co. have never been favorites and his last work generally repelled me with its rock components. So, I didn't really expect much from this performance. It happened so. The stage was quite crowded for this kind of music, that used to play dark folk with martial industrial in the past. Der Blutharsch sounded as a pretty standard psychedelic rock with alt-country elements and recognizable vocals from Albin. I wanted to listen to earlier material, but all the compositions performed by the musicians were performed in the same style. We saw the show to the end then we went home with a sense of accomplishment. I would not say that their new music is bad, but I expected something completely different.

Track 8. Outro

I would not say, that I enjoyed this event much. I was surprised by the musicians, from which I did not expect anything, and disappointed by bands, whose performance I really was looking forward. For the future, I will keep in mind that I need to go to such concerts with a note, that the reality could not meet the expectations in the end. This, of course, is my personal opinion.