iamteapot.com

Teapot is Tomáš Ferko (born 1985). His style is an auteur hybrid of cinematic IDM, dubstep, and minimal techno, with the occasional hint of jazz.

After fledgling attempts to form a full band line-up, Teapot embraced the laptop as a dynamic musical instrument and carried on as a solo project. But he quickly grew bored of the isolated nature of bedroom studio work and spent the following years playing live shows, where he developed his current style of performance: beginning with a basic structural foundation, improvisation is the key component. Teapot is constantly adding and subtracting layers to the raw material of the tracks, letting them grow and evolve with every live show. By playing them differently each and every time, from venue to venue and crowd to crowd, he gradually progresses towards his own unique sound while building his reputation in the process.

In 2004, he was selected to be a participant at the Red Bull Music Academy in Rome. Throughout the years he has shared the stage both with local luminaries (Dope Aviators, Karaoke Tundra, Foolk, Isobutane) and international legends (opened for Coldcut /w Isobutane). Teapot has played festivals including Colours Of Ostrava, Wilsonic, NewNew, and has hit key venues in both Slovakia and Czech Republic. He also curates an eclectic clubnight called BALANC, hosting quality electronic live performers and enlightened DJs, and is one-half of GHOUL UNIT – a dubtechno, dubstep and future-garage DJ outfit formed with his long-term ally Break!fast.

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Current location: Bratislava / Slovakia
Booking contact: tomas.ferko@gmail.com 

TEAPOT - UNREST II [OUT ON ECLECTICA RECORDS - 01/08/2011]

18/06/2011 : MOUSTACHE ALBUM LAUNCH PARTY @ KC Dunaj, Bratislava

Moustache

Got Blue Balls?

Isobutane vs. Teapot 

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“The Slovak artist Martina Slovaková, a student at the Bratislava-based Academy of Fine Arts and Design, has dealt with the national conscioussness and identity in her work for some time (and not only because of her surname - Slovak:) Her latest project, her BA graduation work, entitled Slovak National Remix touches upon the controversial patriotism bill courtesy of the Slovak National Party, which required all schools to play the national athem. Slováková´s project creates an alternative sound bank with various versions of the Slovak anthem, which were created by several Slovak producers (Teapot, Foolk, The Uniques, Isobutane, stroon, Kasioboy). The remixes were played at midnight during a week on Radio FM, a Slovak public radio (public radio and TV in Slovakia have the duty to play the anthem at midnight each day).”

(via easterndaze.net)

Radio Slovakia International also aired a very nice and informative feature about this project in the English language, to which you can listen to below. Czech station Radio Wave was also more than happy to spread the good news.

As for myself, well what can I say. I’m very happy to about being given the opportunity to be a contributor to this project. Making the remix was great fun, as it has enabled me to experiment with a kind of sound that I don’t get to cultivate very often. Moreover, just the way Martina conducted the whole media campaign surrounding the project, and the buzz and instant gratification it generated has made it very exciting to be a part of this.

My version of the Slovak national anthem is conceived to sound like a return of the repressed ghost of Slovakia’s totalitarian past, which even to this day echoes through various layers of our day to day experience. It’s still very omnipresent in a way, even though it is somewhat painful to face it, given how we strive to be very modern, western, progressive and contemporary. It’s very influenced by “Soviet inspired architecture” that undeniably constitutes such a great part of how our cities look like. Especially Bratislava is heavily impacted by this predicament, given how much of the historical center of the city has been torn down during the communist era, to make room for the then-new “Soviet inspired” buildings.

Ironically enough, many of these buildings have by now become almost old enough to be considered historical landmarks. Historical landmarks of an era we have by now successfully surpassed, but one that should not be forgotten, can’t be erased and must be dealt with. One of the buildings that represents these notions to me  personally is Bratislava’s Hotel Kyjev whose atmosphere has been so profoundly captured by the shots in Docubyte’s Flickr Photostream, which I urge you to take a look at.

In the remix, I have conciously attempted to immitate what I like to call the “faux italo sound”, meaning of course italo disco deformed through erroreous cultural transfer, which was a sound that played a key role in the shaping of how most of the pop music during the normalisation era sounded like. I’ve used a voice synthesis program to produce an unsettling “Amanda Lear-like” recital of the first few lines of our anthem’s lyrics, that should serve a double purpose. On one hand I aimed to fulfill one of italo disco’s genre clichés, this being that the lyrics in these tracks are often sung with foreign or strange sounding accents. Originally, this was because the Italian singers often sang in English, as the italo disco records were aimed at the international market. On the other hand, the eeriness of the delivery is to emphasise the meaning of the lyrics, which in my view aptly summarise Slovakia’s still-pervasive national inferiority complex. In this way, it is not really meant as a joke, but more as a commentary and a friendly reminder.

The compilation “Slovenský Národný Remix” came out on Monday 9th of May as an insanely limited run of CDs (which have by now all been given away in competitions on Radio_FM), and as a free digital release curated by the good guys at EXITAB.

This is how my version sounds like:

I popped up at Radio_FM for a quick friendly chat and live gig in their studio about  two weeks ago. It ended up online on their website’s podcast section and is available for download (it’s in pretty low bitrate though).

If you don’t feel like downloading anything, but still want to give it a shot, you can stream the bit I’m in by pressing the “play” button on the embedded SoundCloud thingie below. I should probably mention that the interview is in Slovak, yes? Ok, now you can go ahead.

Big thanks to Sperm and Deccart crew! Best easter sunday ever!

29/04/2011 : m:cro.w:lsonic @ KC Dunaj, Bratislava

Hudson Mohawke
Bene & Delik presents Záblesky geniality, úlomky šialenstva
Bad Mojo
Stroon
Teapot

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24/04/2011 : SPERM FESTIVAL @ Meetfactory, Prague

Mutanti hledají východisko
Teapot

Easterndaze showcase:
Montgomery Clunk
PTR1
Break!Fast

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15/04/2011 : DOCsk 2011 @ Tabačka Kulturfabrik, Košice 

Isobutane vs. Teapot
Lafidky
Dead Janitor

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Teapot - Live @ Fléda, Brno (Outtakes)
Shot at Fléda, Brno on 18/02/2011 by Milan Formánek.

08/04/2011 : ISOBUTANE VS. TEAPOT @ Klub Lúč, Trenčín

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Last month’s show at Fléda / Brno was effing amazing, one of the best shows I ever played. I guess the stars aligned or something. I also added some some nice shots from the gig to the “Photos” section of this website. Many thanks go to  Jakub Caha, who was kind enough to let me use them. More of Jakub’s photos from that night are over at Poslouchej.net.

I’ve got more good news though. … The recording of this particular show will be aired by Radio Wave on Monday 14th of March at 19:00 (UTC+1:00) as part of their “Stage” program. So if you have missed the gig, couldn’t come, want to re-live it (to a certain extent), or just want to hear some of my tunes on the radio, be sure to tune in.

Furthermore, regarding the “Isobutane vs. Teapot Tour”, there’s some slightly bad news. We didn’t manage to get a gig in Prague this March, but there’s some stuff in development and I’ll keep you posted as soon as things clear up. It’s probably best to watch out for it on my twitter-feed. Even if it doesn’t work out, you can still hear us play in Trenčin and Košice this April (check this post for a fully updated list). I’m sure it’s going to be mad, and Dead Janitor will be joining us at the Košice gig. :)

There’s one new date in Košice though. You can come and hear me DJ (which i don’t do very often) alongside DJ Junior at Tabačka Kulturfabrik on March the 23rd, midweek at a really nice small clubnight called STREDÁVKA. This particular edition will be joined with a Red Bull Music Academy infosession. As a past participant, I will be there to answer any of the questions you might have regarding the topic, and have a few beers as well. :)

If you’d like to catch up with me in Bratislava, I’m going to hang around at the Ableton Workshop / RBMA Infosession on March 26th, and as I’ve been working my ass off lately I can assure you there’s going to be some new tracks comming out real soon on Exitab, Gergaz and Eclectica.

PS: I’ve already heard a sneak preview of Duktus’s remix of Unrest II and it’s INSANE!!! 

18/02/2011 : MAGION / ICH MY HAHAHA @ Fléda, Brno

Jazzsteppa
Sven Tasnadi
Fiordmoss
Popper-C
Teapot
1A2V1
Click Joe & Kellys
G.H.C.

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16/02/2011 : ISOBUTANE VS. TEAPOT / MILOS & SKANK @ Nu Spirit Club, Bratislava

Isobutane vs. Teapot
Milos & Skank

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Yay! I’m very excited to announce that Unrest II will get it’s digital release on Eclectica Records this very spring and it will be comming with some very sweet  remixes. These most seasoned and prominent Czech bruksters and futuristic breakbeat connoisseurs mean business, but so far I can only blab out that the label should get it’s brand new website very very soon.

Nevertheless, all the tracks released so far are up on SoundCloud, and in case you love them so much you just have to make them a part of your next club wreckin’ DJ set, you can buy them via Bagpak Music.

There’s even more good news in case you like to dress up and prefer independent fashion labels. The rad czech designers and electronic music lovers at PATTERN have collaborated with Eclectica Records to bring you these lovely t-shirts (pictured above). All the items sold by PATTERN are manufacutred in very limited quantities, so you can be sure pretty sure that your chances of running into someone with the same t-shirt are pretty low. And yes, with every purchase you’ll get an exclusive DJ set by label boss DJ Blue.

…and as for Unrest II, here’s a small taste:

… totally made my day :)

Every time I got impatient about something, a good old friend of mine who has long since moved back to the United States used to say to me: “Time takes time man … time takes time.” And time sometimes takes too much time, I reckon.

It really took a while for these templates to be ready for you to enjoy and have fun with. My thanks go to Jozef over at COFO / Contemporary Forms, for once again being the one to help me see this kind of thing through.

If you really happen to like this, print it out, stick it to someplace nice, take a picture and e-mail it to me. Pretty please. :) I’d be delighted to post some of your photos on here.

So here it is.

DOWNLOAD: teapot_stickers.pdf

16/02/2011 : Nuspirit Club  / Bratislava / Slovakia

18/02/2011 : Fléda / Brno / Czech Republic (TEAPOT SOLO)

23/03/2011 : Tabačka Kulturfabrik / Košice / Slovakia (TEAPOT DJ Set)

08/04/2011 : Klub Lúč / Trenčín / Slovakia

15/04/2011 : Tabačka Kulturfabrik / Košice / Slovakia

Do(s)Mineur cigarette break (@ Nomad Café)

Tomorrow I will start packing my bags because on Sunday I’ll be off to Marseille / France to continue work on Do(s)Mineur, an audiovisual project I’m in together with French musicians Julien Lemonnier and Frederic De Benedetti, who are also known as “The CaVe CaNeM”.

Between the 16th and 21st of January we will live at the GRIM, and work at the Nomad Café nearby. On the 22nd, we’ll finish the second part of the residency off  with a live gig at “Léda Atomica Musique” in the center of Marseille. It’ll be a double bill show with Marseille’s  very own singer and songwriter Nicolas Dick (from the band “Kill The Thrill”),

Here’s the event invite, in case you would like to RSVP via Facebook. A blog-post about the first part of the collaboration at Tabačka Kulturfabrik can be found here.