Anna Romanovská & rlung - Live at Konektiv Night
Anna Romanovská – violin, koto
rlung – electronics, violin
Anna Romanovská and rlung might be known within quite different parts of the Eastern European music scene, but their collaborative live debut for Konektiv, recorded 6th November 2024 at Alfred ve dvoře, Prague, shows the potency of drawing together artists who, perhaps surprisingly, share half of the same heart.
Czechia sits at a crossroads, both geographically and metaphysically; it’s pertinent that the birthplace of Konektiv was in establishing a body of collaborative work that embodies the inherently inclusive demands of collaboration between national and cultural identities. It is telling that, since the group’s initiation, the need for multinational solidarity in Europe at large has only grown more profound.
Hailing from the Ural region, rlung rose to prominence in the contemporary Czech ambient scene from 2022, when they played at the internationally renowned Lunchmeat Festival. Anna Romanovská, trained in violin at the Prague Conservatory, completed her Master’s in violin and music education at Charles University, Prague.
In rlung’s solo compositions, the attention centers on dense, almost overwhelming, sound worlds constructed from sedimentary formations of processed field recordings and sampled hardware synthesisers. Normally foregrounded, here both aspects are whittled down: field recordings are perceptible as atmospheric background elements, a sheer backdrop for Romanovská’s coruscating improvisations on her native violin and the Japanese koto, drawing cycling journeys of emotional resonances from the coiled metal which almost inevitably evokes the rotation of Earth through its seasons – stuttering frozen plucks of violin strings skitter like stones over a frozen lake, melting into radiant blossoming strokes on the koto.
Maybe the most striking aspect of their performance is in subtlety; each moment bears the potential for shift and change, and yet the flow of energy between is neither negotiated nor fought over, but seamless, instinctive. An emphatic duet that limelights neither artist more than the other, Romanovská and rlung show that an essential aspect of collaboration is in the dissolution of the individual self, which is not an act of self-destruction, but of self-remaking, a malleable shared identity forged in the bridging silences of their separate artistry.
(Konektiv and Blue Lizard Rec.)
| Property | Value |
| format | CD audio |
