Homemade: Making it lauder
Almost all parts of our building are quiet at the moment. Dormant, waiting. Closed until further notice. However, one of the rooms of Planeta Za emits sounds on a weekly basis. Those sounds are coming from the studio of Radio Laude, our new ‘tenants’, who since moving into their new home during summer have been running a diverse online broadcast every Sunday. Claudia Franco has visited the Laude boys and wrote about their origins, ideas and future intentions.
Falling into cliches is easy, but nobody can deny the part of truth that hides in all of them. Let’s take, for instance, that ‘age is nothing but a number’. Always at the tip of the tongue when speaking with someone younger, in order to avoid sounding patronizing, taking importance off the ever-minded gap. It has a foundation of truth nonetheless. Age is manners, attitude, assertiveness, approach to life: all relative to experience, rather than time. And if there’s someone who defeats all the preconceptions against the youth and its traditionally attached lack of experience, it’s the minds behind Radio Laude.
Štěpán Hlaváček and Viktor Švolík, better known as DeSteffan and VolumeSphere, are fresh outta high school. But unlike most recent graduates, they have found their path and started to walk it a few years ago with no intention to stop alongside the road to take a breath. Because they’re not sleeping on it: the speed is just rising. They know what they want, and they know how to get it.
There’s an anachronistic nuance in their way of doing things. A passion that doesn’t age, and for which age is not a factor. Their sound follows through, for it’s a modern take on non-contemporary music. Radio Laude sits at an intersection, always working on crossroads: between an analog sound and a futuristic approach, old legends and new talents, the local and the international.
This permeates their sound as DJs, to which both contribute with slightly divergent approaches. Štěpán oscillates towards a more caustic, bass-intensive sound while Viktor strolls through old-school infused tracks with the steadiness and calm that characterizes him as a person. They compensate each other and come together as a unit, which explains why they’ve worked so well so far.
Their influence travels back on time, but if we were to speak of the strongest ones, we would have to point at the local label Endless Illusion. Formerly integrated by Exhausted Modern and Raphael Kosmos, both the individuals and the jointed project were substantial for the apparition and the current standpoint of Radio Laude, and it determined the sound of the duo of the new generation.
Their origins date back to 2017, when Stepan gained access to a studio above CrossClub where he could play the music he was enthusiastic about. Viktor ended up joining him. As Stepan explains, after visiting parties like Polygon or nite vibes when he was 15 and getting to know the Endless Illusion duo, his interest in music grew and grew. ‘At the beginning I wanted to buy turntables to play tracks. [Raphael] Kosmos told me not to do it and gave me the keys to a studio above CrossClub to try. I called the guy who was managing the club and studio and I started to go there every friday after school. I was talking about it with Viktor and friends were chilling on the couch while I was playing and he started to be interested in it and that was the start.’
Together, they began to discover music and the technical side of DJing, working on the impressive skills they put out in every gig they have. Witnessing one of those is an incredible sight. The level of rapport between both is mind shattering, riding the same soundwaves, showing it with the coordinated tilting of the head. At the same time, their diverging personalities peak out when behind the decks, in their movements and the small facial gestures when the transition just hits the spot. Both solo and as a pair, they have a deep musical knowledge, savoir-faire and style that have granted them a spot in the forefront of the Czech DJ scene. And this is just the beginning.
That first studio soon became too small for their ambitions, for they wanted to step up the game and create a radio. But not in the traditional sense, as Stepan makes clear: ‘When we use the term ‘radio’ we don’t understand it in the FM sense, but in an abstract way, as a way of connecting things and people in one spot.’ All would fall in place when, playing at their school’s graduation party, Jiří Straka, one of the founders of Tabor’s festival Transforma, approached them with an offer to work from the Studio Savec, thus becoming a pillar for their project and future development. Viktor recalls it as defining moment: ‘ He actually pushed us a lot to work on our flow, to work on the program, to work more than we can and so on, so we really had to think of what we can do. He was something like a big brother, kicking ass when we were not doing shit and also teaching us a lot’.
Being more grounded, their intentions were set on giving visibility to local musical projects they deemed interesting and outstanding. Amongst their first guests one could find established artists like Exhausted Modern, whydie?, Raphael Kosmos, St. Jakob or up-and-coming DJs like Gertie Adelaido or Xynnh. The breaking point for them was having Josh Cheon as a guest when he was visiting the city for the rare party with Dark Entries, in which they also took part, stepping up their performance game. Remembering the moment brings up laughs: ‘When streaming, everything technical just went fucked in every possible way, but it was the starting point in which we started to think we needed to connect the Czech scene with the international scene, so the people from the outside know about the scene in here and the people from here know the scene outside.’
That is precisely one of the core points that make Radio Laude distinctive: their effort to increase the visibility of Czech artists outside. It is a widespread idea that there’s a glass ceiling hard to break for Czech artists, given the relatively little electronic music exportation from the country. As Viktor puts it: We had a conversation with Láďa (Exhausted Modern) about it. The producers here are stuck with the idea that if you’re producing in the Czech Republic it’s gonna be harder for you to be seen outside, and then there’s some kind of demotivation about it. We would like to give them a chance to be seen.’ Changing the mindset and introducing Czech artists to an international audience are the first steps that can be taken in order to shift it.
Laude is working towards that goal with a 50/50 program in terms of local talent and international guests. Apart from that, defining Radio Laude’s program is no easy task, for they look for people that can give something that sets them apart. Something different. ‘It can’t be too shallow, something you have heard many times. It must contain a good idea, a good message. Sometimes people send us messages appreciating the work we do, for instance Public House is now doing a video clip for us. They want to do something more, so instead of a stream with them playing, it would be cool to do a video, and they started this big fucking thing (laughs). Like they were asking on instagram if anyone would have a red cabriolet, a fast one, and drones and stuff like that. So yeah, that kind of people, people with a push and the will to do something.’
Who are these people? As you can imagine, the range is very wide. The traditional support they’ve had since their beginnings is still there and from an international scope, they’ve been successful at establishing long-time relations with some very well-known artists, like The Brvtalist, Josh Cheon or Zarkoff. In the meantime, local acts of very diverse backgrounds and styles are providing a comprehensive understanding of what the Czech Republic sounds like: Sanjin, Oliver Torr, Kuba 93, Jim Hate, Trauma or Schaumstoff, to name a few. All in all, Štěpán summarizes it pretty well: ‘Everyone’s part of Laude if they want to do something. And they can do anything they want’.
This makes sense taking into account that another of the values Laude stands by and for is a tight-knit community. The core of the team describes itself as a family. Štěpán and Viktor would be joined by Štěpán’s brother Vojtěch and their good friend Karel in their activities. And, as in a family, each one of them has a different set of skills and interests, which results in a solid ground for the radio to expand from, because, as Viktor puts it: ‘we empower each other, if we were by our own it wouldn’t work.’ But community for them is something bigger. The bigger picture of their intentions is to contribute to the Czech scene and foster the creativity around them as much as they can.
‘Everyone’s part of Laude if they want to do something. And they can do anything they want.’
At the end of the summer, their operational center was moved to the cultural space that’s brewing behind Ankali. Upstairs from its little brother, Planeta Za, a small studio is the place they can call home. The freedom they finally got is having an impact on the scope of their activities. And they’re dreaming big. Štěpán explains that the shows are just going to grow in kind and number: ‘we want to include talks and podcasts as well, all in all, make Radio Laude a site where you can find everything that you may possibly want. We want to make it special in pretty much every way.’ Talking about special, one of the ideas that’s in their minds is touring around the world with a Laude van broadcasting international talent from every corner. Impossible has been proven nothing, so this, like anything they propose themselves, is just a matter of time.
Homemade
Homemade is an Ankali blog series dedicated to the mapping of local electronic dance music scene through various crews involved in it with an emphasis on the DIY attitude.
