Under the “cipher” 29/2 (reads as “Twenty-ninth February”) there is a band that was created for a bit of fun. They used compositional techniques that should not work in songwriting at all. It has united musicians who, by definition, perhaps can never understand each other. And yet the result is an album of very strong songs that, despite all the experimentalism, makes sense and works as a whole.
At the beginning of the short history of this “supergroup” (as formations composed of experienced musicians from various bands are called in popular music) was Martin Kyšperský, the frontman of the band Květy from Brno. He posted a message on Facebook stating that he would like to have a band called 29th February, meet once every four years and make a record right away. However, the crazy concept came to fruition because Martin was approached by enough other musicians who wanted to be in such a band. So they booked a studio for 29 February 2020. “There were twelve of us, including the sound engineer Dušan. Musicians with such different sensibilities and histories that they could not be more varied,” reads Kyšperský’s description on the album cover, continuing: “Nobody prepared anything at home, yet we managed to record the material for the whole album in just a few hours. And even sing some of the songs.”
In the band 29/2, Kyšperský was joined, among others, by Aleš Pilgr, his colleague from Květy, Filip Pýcha, bandleader of the band Tajné slunce, cimbalom player Michal Grombiřík, Zdeněk Král, composer of contemporary, theatre, spiritual and electronic music and pianist, double bass player Jakub Nožička (Bartleby, ex-Ponk), singer-songwriter Alena “Alen” Pohlová and Petr Tudy Holubář, keyboardist from the crossover band Insania. The producer Kyšperský describes how the musical component was created, in the booklet of the released LP album. The song Zpomalené dítě (Slow Child), for example, is built on a single chord with individual musicians joining in a pre-arranged order. In the song Druhý měsíc (The Second Moon), each person could “play only three notes of their own choice; they were allowed to play them in a speed and phrasing of their own devising”. For the final Doris de Agostini, “without agreeing on a key or chord, all the players went in turn to record their parts to the click of the metronome”. And Clapton, the album’s strongest song, was created by having the musicians “draw the chord order from envelopes”. Here, the band approaches the concept of aleatoric music, the use of which in songwriting is truly unique.
The lyrics prepared by Martin Kyšperský are related to 29 February or to this month, as appropriate. Some of them concern events that happened on the “leap day”. These can be moments that truly belong in the annals (the last breakthrough of the Gotthard Tunnel – on 29 February 1880 – inspired the song Gotthard Tunnel), as well as those that could at most have been chronicled in the press (Eric Clapton was punished with a six-month driving ban for speeding on 29 February 2000 – the song Clapton). Other songs are based on the phrase second month, which is not only February, but also, for example, the second month of a child’s age, or “second Moon”, an object with a diameter of 1.9–3.5 m, identified by astronomers “in a leap year”. Some of Kyšperský’s lyrics are based primarily on strong recurring slogans (e.g. “You mustn’t cut your hair for the child to be made”), while others are fictional stories. Here, Clapton again stands out, thinking of his blues role models and musical colleagues as he drives fast in his car, and then conversing with a policewoman about it in the song. After all, Kyšperský has experience in writing lyrics of various types, and so while Gotthard Tunnel recalls the lyrics from his solo electronic album Vlakem (By Train), Clapton is a song nearing, with its palaverer nature, the composition Když L. Kerndl zpíval na lodi (When L. Kerndl Sang on the Boat) from the album Myjau by the band Květy.
The band 29/2 and its officially released album cannot compete with Květy as a mature and cohesive band. However, it is an interesting experiment, where musicians with no previous experience together, using elements of play, humour and chance, have managed to create a truly meaningful recording that deserves attention and is far from some musical bizarro. In particular, it is a testimony to Martin Kyšperský’s production skills. About being able to realize his vision and lead a seemingly disparate group of musicians.
29/2; Polí5 2021, 13 tracks, total track length 42:53
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