Karya - Muž Ze Skla

Format : 12"

Label : Smiling C

Catalog # : SC#1201

Genre : House

Muž Ze Skla seems to be one of the few house records of its style coming from Czechoslovakia during the ‘90s, and with good reason. Labels like the government-run Supraphon dominated the electronic music industry during the communist party rule through the '70s & '80s, controlling the styles of music that artists were allowed to release. In 1990, Czechoslovakia had its first free elections in nearly 45 years. What came of it was the installation of a new democratic party, and new opportunities for artists like Jindřich Parma to release the music they wanted to.

Jindřich started a label with his brother, Eddie Parma, Jr. (who strangely was featured as a head collaborator on Nigerian album Call Me Up by Al Diamond), called Parma Productions in ‘91 to release hip hop and house music. Until then, Jindřich was working prolifically as a session musician from the ‘70s onward, notedly featuring as a trumpet player for jazz-funk group Mahagon, and keyboardist on recordings for a Czechoslovakian drummer, Vítězslav Vávra. He created the first Czech house record with his group Hipodrom.

Following Hipodrom, Karya was Jindřich’s studio creation to represent a dreamier style of deep house. When Jindřich began the project, he recorded under the pseudonym Enrico Marino, and the Karya that’s heard is an anonymous female voice. Maybe it’s only a coincidence that Jindřich chose an Italian-sounding alias, but sonically, the single shares moments with Italian dream house classics. After the single, Karya became the stage name for Jana Feriová who Jindřich continued to produce through the ‘90s.

The original 7" for Muž Ze Skla was delicately holding itself as a soon-to-be invisible relic of Czechoslovakian history. This reissue is a remastered version of the original single, pressed on 12” at 45rpm, archived for future years to come. The sleeve comes with a "man of glass" sticker.