We were looking around on Furious.com, and were able find some bits and pieces on the Israeli independent music scene —this movement began with Jerusalem based Fact Records; formed by Yoram Eliakim in August of 1999, on the platform of the Jerusalem record shop Balance, as an alternative for Jerusalem musicians who wanted to release small CD-R editions, avoiding bureaucracy and high expenses. At the same time, Fact Records (not to be confused with Japan’s Fact Records Shop) started to release re-issues of ‘classic’ underground acts, which were unavailable for many years, which you might have imagined.
We absolutely fell in love with Plastic Venus —lush, sexy, trashy and wild. We were thrilled to find a video of theirs online, and as time goes on (while we’re continuing to research their sounds) we’ll post a few more videos and most likely will share more of their music on upcoming episodes. But next, we did want to share a video we were able to locate from their album Roxen רוקס/ 8 circa 1991:
There was also a group from the 1970’s who we came to admire, although we can’t seem to find the right translation of the band’s name (if you know more on this specific album or group, please drop us a line!) This group was led by composer Yoni Rechter —and so far this is the one record we’re digesting in full:
There are a handful of other important musicians from Israel who we should pay close attention to as well, such as The High Windows, Efrat Ben Zur, Taapet, The Monks, Yarkon Bridge Trio, and then there’s Tsuky —who was a sound engineer from Ramat Gan (a Tel Aviv subvert) who released four albums. And, as a dedicated Can and Faust fan, Tsuky created a dreamy sort of melancholy version of Krautrock, by utilizing both computers and acoustic instruments. Tsuky’s albums have been pretty much impossible to find, unless we’ve just been going about our research all wrong…but we cannot find anything of Tsuky’s. We’re completely bewildered. And, disappointed. But we will keep the search alive until we come across at least a song or two.
Here’s one of our other favorite tracks, out of Israel, from The High Windows
If you’d like to know more about these bands out of Israel, come take a listen to our latest episode —which features the majority of the musicians we’ve mentioned above, except for Tsuky’s work unfortunately.
We hope your families are safe, and wish you much love & strength during this trying time.
Most Sincerely —Hey Venus Radio
