Lands of Kafka, golem or Elisabeth Bathory present their dark/goth music manifesto for the fourth time!
Anthology “Dark Tunes from Czech and Slovak Caves Vol·IV” introduces the selection of the most interesting current projects from the dark heart of Europe. Download 25 tracks from Czech and Slovak artists for free.CosmoBrigade
CosmoBrigade is a four-piece post punk/darkwave band formed in Prague in January 2023. The band started performing around the Czech Republic in March 2023 and a few months later (August 2023) released a debut EP titled “SpacePit” which was very well received around Europe (““voted Track of the Day”” by Italian White Light//White Heat Magazine) and even featured on several German darkwave compilation albums (such as The Berlin Gravedigger’’s Club). CosmoBrigade had their first more specifically to Berlin, Vienna and Poland. Recently they also played as a supporting act with huge bands such as She Past Away, Soviet Soviet, Ploho or House of Harm and got picked to play at several European goth festivals, e.g. Prague Gothic Treffen e.g. Prague Gothic Treffen or the NCN Festival in Germany. Their debut album titled ““Hollow Obsessions”” is coming out on June 6 or the NCN Festival in Germany. mini-EU tour in the fall of 2023 that took them around the Czech Republic and beyond.
Hysteric Helen
HYSTERIC HELEN is a postpunk/deathrock band from Bratislava, formed in 2003. After releasing their debut album “Hysteric Helen” in 2013 and several successful singles and live performances, the band is breaking up and taking a longer break. After a 12-year hiatus, band leader Dirty77 returns with a new second album, “Chapter Two”.
Phosgene Girls
A brooding trio from Eastern Bohemia returns to the stage with their latest release, Phaistos Disc. The recording showcases the band in one of its many shades of darkness — this time wrapped in a more delicate guise. Fog, darkness, and distant thunder are their key ingredients; a chilling signature that defines their sound.
Scarlet's Sinister Sister
Scarlets Sinister Sister emerged stronger after a rocky start with their former guitarist. Founded in March 2025, the band features lead singer Scarlet Elizabeth Rose, a Czech living in Mexico. Their music blends death, passion, sex, and love.
Jan Kunze a přátelé
Jan Kunze is a singer, writer and exhibition curator. He is behind the bands Munroe and KOFE-IN and runs the EPo1 Centre for Contemporary Art. He has published several books on poetry and visual art. He has long been involved in connecting art across genres. The song ‘Práh’ comes from a previously unreleased solo recording.
Love My Science
Love my science is one woman postpunk/synth/new wave project from Slovakia/Bratislava, which started in year 2020 with its first CD “Perfect disorder”. The second album “Patterns” followed in 2022. LMS released CD EP “Worn out people” in the same year. After three year break project recorded its third CD “Expired.” You can find the track “Shut up when I drive” only on this compilation
Výsměch?
The foundation of this track was laid a few years ago. Since then, it sat quietly in a drawer alongside other unfinished ideas, ‘waiting for the right moment. That moment finally came not long ago — we knew it was time to bring this one to life. Panda’’s lyrics flowed as a stream of images and thoughts’, while Jenda had his lines dictated to him late at night by his black cat, Micka.
Cathedral In Flames
The Gothic rock quartet from Prague has released three albums since 2019, the latest of which, entitled “count to nine, " came out last year. Among the nine tracks, you will also find “The Gate.”
Cold Venus Revisited
Cold Venus Revisited draws inspiration from the punk scene of the 80s and 90s. Their current sound could be described as “darkgaze.” The upcoming album is an attempt to transport the noisy textures of shoegaze bands like Cranes or Bowery Electric into the atmosphere of films by David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch.
Noví Lidé
A two-piece band whose musical identity combines the sound of synthesizers, electric guitar and memorable deep vocals. The abstract lyrics are written by singer and guitarist Mejra Šlejhar. The lyrics may feel dark but there is always a message of hope in them. René Tomaides offers precise synth lines and improvises by playing various samplers and modules. Noví Lidé’s musical style could be described as dark electro with overlaps into post-punk and dark wave. They have released two full-length albums since 2013: Světlo a stín (2017) and Kruh (2020). Both albums were mastered by Moimir Papalescu.
Decent Ruins
Decently ruined, acid-fueled dark magic from the ghost town. Too weird to live and too rare to die. The new track „Redemption" has been hexxed by Juliet and heralds the coming of the freshly corroded era. Feel it. Close your eyes, play it loud, be brave…
Fara
The Košice industrial punk band FARA is back with a new lineup. Under pressure from social changes, the workers operating the string mechanisms were forced to dismantle the deaf drummer. Her duties were taken over by TB (Liter Geňa, Ears, Jazzabel, Bobova diéta), ‘increasing the band’’s reinforced concrete power by approximately 96%. Although the product complies with ISO-9001 and ISO 50001 certifications’, ‘it does not support the moral deformation of youth. Nothing will be resolved—the system won’’t let me. In the labyrinth of hope’, angels herald the ascension of stupidity. Hansel and Gretel wanted to go to the forest on their own, ’their parents didn’’t chase them away’, ’the wolf didn’’t eat the goats’, he just put them in a bag…
Lahka Muza
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Lahka Muza is one of the legends of the Czechoslovak music scene. For 41 years, they have been bringing original musical compositions intertwined between dark wave and ethnic music, recorded on nine albums and performed in concerts across Europe. The current song thematically relates to their latest album Piesne Ticha/The Songs of Silence.
Majo Polyak & Radmila Svensson
Majo Polyak & Radmila Svensson is a music project delivering electronic compositions with a dark edge, multilayered sound, and honest lyrics. Their songs are visual and melancholic, resonating with the listener long after the final note fades.
Ashen Decay
Ashen Decay is a darkwave project from Olomouc, Czechia, infused with post-punk and dark synth/dark electro elements and influenced by the late 90s London goth club scene. Ashen Decay‘s music is characterised by a blend of driving beats, haunting, melancholic tones, and lyrics centered on themes such as isolation, hopelessness, alienation, love and loss, and the tragicomicality of existence, conveyed in Rob Paterlini’s distinctive gloomy and poignant baritone voice. „Your Poison“ is an autobiographical song exploring the subject of living following the loss of all that one holds dearest, and a sequel to „Eileen“, the unofficial single off of Ashen Decay’s 2024 „Shades of Zer0“ EP.
It Burns
The Czech-American project It Burns was formed in Prague in 2025, featuring Zdeněk (synths, guitars, arrangements) and Cheryl (lyrics, vocals). The duo fuses post-punk and darkwave textures with a minimalist aesthetic rooted in emotional depth. “Shift to Overdrive” marks their debut release.
QWiFF
QWiFF is a solo project from Prague, reincarnated in 2020. Since then, the demo Dark Cabaret (2023) has been released, to be followed by Disconnected (2025). Music, lyrics, vocal - Richard Chadim.
StyXdivE
StyXdivE isn’t a band. It’s an electro-cult, born from the twisted vision of two musicians who decided to tear down the last illusions of light, hope, and humanity. In their hands, music becomes a ritual. A weapon. A poisonous sermon. It’ll rip your soul apart and suck the last remnants of faith out of you. No mercy. No turning back. Just dark beats, suffocating electronics, and despair that drags you into the current of the river of death.
580 Miles
580 Miles is the project of Peter Chudík aka AnAstromo and Miriam Christina aka Theothersideofwho?.
Grandemonium
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‘“The four-member musical project Grandemonium combines dark electronics with gothic aesthetics. The project’’s music oscillates between harshness and melancholy’
Die Alten Maschinen
Die Alten Maschinen is an ideological project about machines that are friendly to humans. About technologies that are not a threat, but are primarily intended to serve and help humanity. It is also a tribute to all dreamers, inventors and writers of the first idealistic science fiction, when dreaming about the future was still so beautiful. Moimir Papalescu is behind the DIE ALTEN MASCHINEN project. You may know him from the bands Moimir Papalescu & The Nihilists, The Stylists with Tonya Graves, ‘Magnetik or even from the cult band Gun Dreams. Also involved is Moimir’’s long-time collaborator Petr Venkrbec (ex-Krásné nové stroje’, Psí vojáci, Vltava), Canadian singer and drummer Leon Stevenson from the new wave Canadian band The Extras, and Gerald V. Casale, leader of the legendary American band DEVO.
Isiolia
Isiolia is a solo project originated in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Keyboardist Julie started with music production in 2010, influenced mostly by synthpop / darkwave / EBM. In August 2021, Isiolia debuted with her first album I Saw It Coming and in 2022, she performed at Prague Gothic Treffen.
Frontier Guards
Frontier Guards is a Czech dark electronic project blending industrial, ambient, and post-apocalyptic sounds. They release music under the Aliens Production label and create sonic stories with a cinematic atmosphere. Current lineup: Martin Pavlík and Jitka Charvátová (Oceán, Fiction).
Truly Significant
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Truly Significant is a czech industrial electronic producer/DJ, blending hard techno/electro-punk, noise and experimental club with the depth and meaning of art-rock. He creates atmospheric, conceptual tracks inspired by inner conflict, existential dread & isolation in a chaotic, anxious world.
Standard Society
The waking world seems just as strange and bizarre to the dreamer as the dream world seems to the one who is awake. Wakefulness is a strange dream of the dreamer. Standard Society documents this wakefulness—it documents the dream that the dreamer dreams. Above the sea’s surface, the light is sharp and the air is unbreathable, yet the dream returns with urgency every morning. The first step is to remember it…
The current raw live performance of Standard Society works with minimalism, a performer, and two voices. The performance unfolds within the audience, among the spectators, and often in unconventional spaces, whose specifics the duo integrates into their act.