Prague has its advantages when it comes to DIY parties and off-location raves, as Tomáš Bím knows: »Czech law is not that strict. The police have fewer powers, not like in Germany – or the Netherlands. If there were complaints there, the police could enter your flat and take your equipment. In the Czech Republic, they cannot shut down a party so easily.« A perfect breeding ground for what he and a group of like-minded people launched in 2014: a party series that has since grown into one of the most relevant addresses in the European techno underground.
Without the large off-location raves in a Prague still defined by a certain freedom – a freedom that, according to Bím, has since been substantially eroded by textbook gentrification – the organic yet focused development of Harmony Rec. would never have worked. It began with events centred primarily on deep techno. »When we started, most other promoters were booking classic Berlin Berghain techno,« Bím says, sketching the party landscape of the Czech capital at the time.
In its early years, Harmony Rec. instead pursued a sound emerging on then-novel labels such as Midgar, Hypnus Records or Spazio Disponibile: deep techno. Meaning techno with a natural face, biotope music one would gladly be reborn to. Bubbling, creaking sounds; tributaries from those depths that these labels explored early on. Yet Bím is quick to point out that the collective never thought in one dimension: »We never positioned ourselves as a deep-techno label or party series.« And still, it is precisely this depth that has allowed Harmony Rec. to last.
All that techno
»When you organise a party, you put so much effort into it. After eight to twelve hours it’s all over, and all you have left is the memory, nothing physical,« says Bím. Alfred Czital, arguably the collective’s most prominent member, therefore pushed in 2017 to preserve the sound and memories of those nights on record and create a fully fledged label. »I’m very grateful to him for that,« says Bím.
Harmony Rec. now operates on two fronts. Alongside events across Europe – most recently at C115 in Berlin, where part of the collective now lives – come a steady stream of strong releases whose aesthetics vary considerably. A catalogue stretching back to 2017 includes deep-techno records in the spirit of Prologue Records, atmospheric trance from Alan Backdrop, and faster, percussion-driven jaw-harp techno by Munich-based Polygonia and Shoal.
»The music we release should be playable at both Monument Festival and Mala Junta.«
Tomáš Bím
More recent releases, such as Night Out by Czital & Ayu, move briskly towards a more progressive, trance-inflected sound – something that will not surprise visitors to Harmony’s parties.»There has always been other music at our events. We’ve always liked trance. Even if people now say we’ve changed: listen to Alan Backdrop’s early releases on the label,« says Bím. And indeed, Laguna Sud from 2021, though slower than the label’s current output, already featured long-form trance synths capable of bathing a dancefloor in purple.
Sexy abtauchen
The collective was also keen to avoid being pigeonholed as a pure deep-techno label and to resist artificial constraints. Apparent contradictions are meant to dissolve within Harmony Rec.: »The music we release should be playable at both Monument Festival and Mala Junta.« In other words, deep immersion and communicative, direct sexiness need not be mutually exclusive. Especially not within a family-like atmosphere. The collective knows every artist who has released on Harmony personally – making disagreements over taste somewhat easier to navigate.
The Harmony Records family continues to grow, steadily but organically. For a label rooted in the Prague scene, that remains important. Eastern European scenes, Bím argues, are still too often overlooked. Which is why the end of June marks a major milestone: »As far as we know, we are the first Czech label and collective ever to be given a night at Säule in Berghain. We’re incredibly proud of that.«
