In December, we made our way to the Czech Republic for the first time. It was a packed month with concerts in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, and Pardubice.
This was our first destination back in Europe after spending a month in Tunisia, so the contrast of being in a snowy and wintery place was a bit shocking at first. With concerts back to back in different cities, it was a really busy time, but relaxing moments with beer, new friends, Christmas markets, and old city squares balanced out the overall chaos of touring. Our concerts at Pomezì in Brno, Punctum in Prague, and OtvOr V Docku in Ostrava were each their own flavor of small associations trying to cultivate underground music scenes in their city. It was a wonderful opportunity to be introduced to so many kind and interesting people, as well as their music, and it was a pleasure to share our live set with different audiences around the country.
Most of our December was spent in Pardubice, a charming medium-size city about an hour train ride from Prague, where we were hosted as OFFCity’s artists in residence at the Automatic Mills.
The Mills are a defunct mill in the town, currently being renovated for different cultural projects. While in residence, we also had access to the partnering Gampa Gallery, a beautiful space in the city where we were able to hold a concert, record, and rehearse. Because the gallery has interesting acoustics, we captured impulse responses in different locations within the space in order to give each of our upcoming musical works a specific sonic footprint. Besides that, we recorded nearly forty minutes of music making use of some new instruments of ours that we hope to release later this year.
We feel very grateful to have spent our last month of 2021 in such a welcoming environment, and can’t wait to return to this beautiful country.
