E was a Czech

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

group from Brno active between 1984 and 1997. Their music fell into the wider scope of

alternative Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film * ''The Alternative ...

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground ...

, and

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

rock genres.

Background

Josef Ostřanský and Vladimír Václavek were known from the band Dunaj and from their collaboration with singer

Iva Bittová Iva Bittová (born 22 July 1958) is a Czech avant-garde violinist, singer, and composer. She began her career as an actor in the mid-1970s, appearing in several Czech feature films, but switched to playing violin and singing in the early 1980s. ...

. The band's frontman was singer and lyricist Vladimír Kokolia, known primarily as a painter, graphic artist, and cartoonist; he went on to work as the head teacher of graphic studio 2 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The band's music was based upon mutually interlocking riffs of both instrumentalists, forming elaborate loops together with simple but sophisticated

cross-rhythm In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term ''cross rhythm '' was introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980). It refers to when the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms is th ...

s. Kokolia's role consisted of very expressive declamations of imaginative and metaphorical existentialist lyrics, often with sarcastic humour. Onstage, both guitarists were also equipped with a simple drum kit (

snare SNARE proteins – " SNAP REceptor" – are a large protein family consisting of at least 24 members in yeasts, more than 60 members in mammalian cells, and some numbers in plants. The primary role of SNARE proteins is to mediate vesicle f ...

kick drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...

, tom, and hi-hat) and played those instruments simultaneously while Kokolia sometimes operated the foot electronic percussion rug. Two recorded albums represent only a part of the band's repertoire.

Former members

* Vladimír Kokolia – vocals, percussion * Josef Ostřanský – guitar, percussion * Vladimír Václavek – bass guitar, guitar, percussion

Discography

* ''E'' (Live, 1990) * ''I Adore Nothing (I Believe It Does Not Exist)'' (1994)

References

External links

E song lyrics
{{Authority control Czech post-punk music groups Czech alternative rock groups Czech experimental music groups Czech underground music groups Czech experimental rock groups Musical groups established in 1984 Musical groups disestablished in 1997 1984 establishments in Czechoslovakia 1997 disestablishments in the Czech Republic