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Ancestral Archeology

by Nina Pixel

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €11.11 EUR  or more

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Double vinyl with a unique print you can put on your wall. One vinyl is transparent and one vinyl is black. The cover can be transformed into a poster.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Ancestral Archeology via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 150 

      €33.33 EUR or more 

     

  • Poster/Print + Digital Album

    Limited edition designed by Studio Andre & Andrej. Photography and mysterious object are from Adrián Kriška. The back side contains all lyrics and stories from the album. 62x93cm

    Includes unlimited streaming of Ancestral Archeology via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 20 

      €15 EUR or more 

     

1.
Manifest 01:13
2.
3.
Doba extázy 04:20
4.
5.
Zmrzlí 01:49
6.
Odovzdať 06:17
7.
8.
9.
Puhpowee 06:27
10.
Artemisia 00:34
11.
12.
Šeptať 04:30
13.
14.
15.
Deväť mien 00:21
16.
17.
Pohár viny 06:07
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Chytať sa 04:39
23.
13th Month 06:33

about

In 2020, electronic musician Nina Pixel was offered a track on a compilation album of songs from the Liptov region. What started as a rearrangement of a single folk song eventually grew in scope and size, eventually becoming a series of releases. Titled Ancestral Archaeology, the series counts two self-released EPs, an audiovisual show in co-operation with Adrián Kriška, and now, after two years, a double LP published by Weltschmerzen. In this definitive form of an album, Ancestral Archaeology reveals itself as a musical reimagination of traditional historical Slovak culture at large.

Nina Pixel averts the perils of lapsing into inauthentic fakelore by building her music with, rather than on, the ethnographic riches of Slovakia. With the eagerness of a genuine archeological prospector, Ancestral Archaeology invokes the always present but seldom perceived linchpins of folklore culture: the desperate clinging to the memory of pre-Christian paganism and witchcraft, songs with narratives of beautiful innate wyrdness that is utterly unfit for mass culture, and superstition as the most serious longing for the balance between sense and irrationality.

If we acknowledge the truism of folklore as the shared way of expression in rural society, the techno music on Ancestral Archeology proposes that, in the urban society of ours, this role is served by raves. The argument isn’t as much declared as it’s implied // in music and in the spoken-word lyrics that are rife with historical and contemporary sources. An 18th-century recipe by the writer and priest Juraj Fándly proposes snorting the grounded flowers of the medicinal weed Valerian as a way of curing bad vision. “It is a proven remedy!” we are repeatedly assured, and it’s not hard imagining Fándly and his parishioners, strung out on Valerian, moving almost involuntarily to the rhythms of their era just as we can move to Ancestral Archeology.

Nina Pixel is a Slovak music artist based in Berlin // Weltschmerzen is a Slovak music label based in Bratislava.

Apart // Together // Always

Find more merchandise here: everpress.com/profile/nina-pixel

credits

released October 13, 2022

Created and narrated by Nina Pixel. Lyrics are inspired by Slovak folklore traditions, songs and shared beliefs.

Manifestation tools: cello, overtone flute koncovka, fujara, gong, metal bowls, sheep bell, field recordings of Slovak forests, Andreas’s tom and various drum machines.

Voice samples:
Sutartinės (A Goddess comes from within the Earth)
Funeral Lament, recorded in Vernár 1973 (Puhpowee)
Panoráma Ľudovej Kultúry; Liptov (Pohár viny, 13th Month)
Hay-making Songs; Selec, Kysuce, Terchová (It Felt Like I Suppose to Follow It, Zmrzlí,Dialogické vyvolávania)


Mixed and mastered by Andreas Bonkowski at Magic Window
Graphic design: Andrej & Andrej
Album cover: Adrian Kriska

Credits and respect to all ancestors and Andreas for inspiring me and navigating me all the way from madness to meaning.

Financially supported by FPU & BSK
In Berlin 2019-2021


apart // together // always.
Weltschmerzen.

license

all rights reserved

tags

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