music

“The idea is that we are not powerless and we refuse to be at the mercy of a system that hates us – find the others!” Horde, a new intriguing music project centred around Icelander Palli Banine, a multimedia artist and musician, recently released the debut single from their upcoming album, ‘Taking Reality by Surprise’. In the exclusive and extensive interview, Palli reveals the collective roots of Horde, the personal struggles of being “beached” on life’s shores and finding hope and deep affection regardless, and so much more than can fit into a single opening paragraph. We invite you to take your time with this genuine, sans-filter, and raw reflection of one’s life intertwined with art.

Brace yourselves, the cultural highlight of the Prague autumn season is on. The iconic and boundary-smashing Lunchmeat Festival just launched in Prague and, as with every edition, we plan to savour everything it has to offer – and invite you along for the ride. The festival’s entire programming runs between September 22 and 28.

Polish composer Rafał Ryterski creates multimedia "total pieces" that blend classical music approaches with experimental electronics to create a genrebending, political sonic landscape. Read him trace his path from childhood encounters with The Prodigy to abandoning academia, and catch him live at Sanatorium Sonorum 2025.

“Interestingly, when I sing in Bulgarian, I also sound less queer than in English.” We were lucky enough to get ahold of one of the most idiosyncratic and eye-catching acts the Slovak 2025 Pohoda Festival has to offer, just a day before the event kicked off: Bulgarian choreographer, performer, and singer-songwriter Ivo Dimchev. His enthusiastic fandom knows him for a wild and vivid mixture of folklore, catchy pop, cabaret, and opera – and this year’s Pohoda should expect nothing less. With Ivo, we talked “fame”, multudisciplinarity, inspiration, queerness, and questions that haven’t been asked yet.

“At the mountain’s cold peak, there is no wasted movement, and nothing without its shadow.” Within only a year of two shows — one at PAF film festival, Ostrava, one at CTM, Berlin — Swiss adventurous music tastemakers Danse Noire do the good thing early by releasing Theo Alexander & Qow’s collaborative performance, ‘So Afraid To Show I Care’. We are elated to welcome a first-time guest writer, Prague-based Freddie Hudson, who penned a sweeping and suggestive review of the masterfully concocted album for SWARM MAG.

The Norma Festival is a critically acclaimed dance festival taking place on November 16-17 in Prague, Czech Republic, at the Studio Hrdinů theatre. Each year, the festival commissions at least one custom performance – in 2024, it’s a piece called “Bliss” by Czech visual and virtual artist NIVVA and Polish theatre and opera director Magda Szpecht. “Bliss” is a performance that “imagines the possibilities of the relationship between a virtual being and its human creator.” Using motion capture technology, it speculates about a future where digital beings may emerge with a sense of agency beyond human design. The Czech-Polish team created this project in co-production with Æfekt Productions, Komuna Warszawa and Pawiłon Poznan.

“We also played around with the idea of Hell as something that makes you do something involuntary endlessly, some kind of strange punishment.” As a special performance added to this year's Lunchmeat Festival, Canadian artists Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn introduced their singular project Inferno involving cybernetics, a human-machine performance, questions of relenting control, and “novice” participants from the audience. Enjoy an in-depth interview with the artists below.

This year marks the first year of Sanatorium Sonorum, a unique festival-residency for musicians and sound artists. Featuring site-specific performances, the event aims to not only present some of the most innovative experimental musicians, but also provide them with a space for healing and self-reflection. Read today’s exclusive interview with founder Natálie Pleváková and Thistle, one of the performing acts, to get a taste of what you can expect at the visionary event this August.

“We have watched many clubs and festivals opening in the Czech Republic and many fitness centres opening in Slovakia.” Nowadays, the Pohoda Festival near Trenčín, Slovakia, is an internationally acclaimed award-winning three-day event but its seeds were sown by the Slovak hardcore scene nearly three decades ago. Michal Kaščák, Pohoda’s original founding father, explains this growth, the deeply rooted activist side of the event, and how the festival has been championing an above-standard ethical, ecological and diversity framework since the first edition.

Music journalism is a sight rarely seen at SWARM Mag but some occasions are just too good not to share and recommend. Especially such a project as the INOTA Festival, which took place at the beginning of September this year. Enjoy a stream of observations from the very first year of Hungary's most ambitious audiovisual event.

Today, Island Mint are releasing their new EP All Studium No Punctum and with it comes a shift in the band's sound. Today, Matyáš Adámek, the band's frontman, writer and producer talks to us about the release, his song-writing process, and upcoming trip to Australia.

“A duck quack sample? Yes.” Singular singer and songwriter Terra sat down with Swarm to talk her (and Kewu's) new album, fashion as big part of her artistic expression, how algorithmic “dopamine chase” forces artists into exaggerated and grotesque social media self-promotion, and more.

Creepy Teepee is a unique Czech musical event disregarding genre boundaries, focusing instead on community, contemporary themes, and cutting-edge creative approaches by artists from all over the world. SWARM MAG sat down with one of its chief organizers Jakub Hošek to bring you a closer look at the event’s values, background, and 2023 lineup. There are still some last tickets available, so don’t miss it!

“It’s not only music. It’s a world. It's a search for ambitious identities. It’s a creature community. It's an eco system. A queer mythology. It's more than a dream.” From the sheer and ruffled creations of Livia Rita, avant-pop singer, musician and performer, designer and self-proclaimed Alpine witch, emerge the cutest of specimens fostering social change and otherkin utopia.

“Cosmic Planta is the story of a planet in a completely different galaxy that has not yet been discovered. Only our green friends live on the planet; plants and trees. After a special asteroid from outer space lands on this green planet, everything changes...” In today’s feature, Princess Hıdır invites us to her vivid universe where Ozoyo’s ephemeral beats pulse with the sentient flora’s breaths.

Molly, who named herself, is an AI guide who was custom-made for the 2022 Lunchmeat Festival, a famed Prague's, Czechia, audiovisual intermedia treat. She introduces artists, events, and news by crafting her own texts and her ever-changing face graces this year's visuals. We bring you an exclusive interview with Molly and, at the same time, extend an invitation to this year's 'Lunchmeat'. We see you dancin'!

"Has popular music been completely consumed by melancholy, anxiety and hopelessness?" Karel Veselý and Miloš Hroch ask in their 2020 book named after a song by The Cure, and today we delve into their compelling narrative.

Dig with us into the crates of electro, an often-forgotten genre which spawned multitudes of music genres in the 80s and is now coming back in force. Accompanied by an interview with the author of the text’s mesmerizing images, Sofia Palm, SWARM MAG invites you to an audiovisual journey with plenty forward-looking tunes coming to a club near you soon.

Lotus Wash, aka David Herzig, is a prominent force on Prague’s music scene. Apart from working with Bert and Friends, Never Sol and Oliver Torr, among others, he is known for his captivating live modular synthesizer sets. He has recently released his debut album Field Theory on LBD Sounds, and in this interview he tells us about the debut release, his history with music, and creativity during pandemic times.

Ever since its inception, Dungeon Synth has been both an amalgamation of many different genres and an influential dynamo whose reverberations are still felt today. Join us on a journey into the depths, but keep your ears peeled: there lurks a different evil in the dungeons than just the demons and peculiar nostalgias.