Pan Society: Excited Aluminium

Luboš Fidler / Oldřich Janota / Štěpán Pečírka
Concert in the Saint Bernard Chapel, Plasy,
Limbo I.
Plasy Monastery 1998

Sounding objects - excited aluminium tuned in quart tuning accompanyed by acoustic quitar and accordeon.


Musician, visual artist and author of sound installations Luboš Fidler (b. 1951 in Karlovy Vary) was active the Czech alternative music scene since the 1970s. As a guitar player, he was founding member of art rock groups such as Stehlík or Švehlík, MCH Band, Kilhets etc. In the early 1980s he was member of the minimalist-experimental trio Janota-Fidler-Richter and later in this period emigrated to Germany. Inthe  1990s he participated with his interactive sound installations in several of Petr Nikl’s projects (Orbis Pictus and Play) and performed at the Center for Metamedia in Plasy Monastery. He has composed and performed music for theatre and film. Since the 1990s, Fidler lives and works in Albeř, a small village near the Czech-Austrian border, and continues to collaborate with other musicians as Oldřich Janota or Zdeněk Konopásek (the duo Noční pták).

Oldřich Janota (born 1949 in Plzeň) is a Czech singer, musician, composer and writer. He started his career in the Czechoslovakian semi-official music scene of late 1970s and 80s as a folk singer. Apart from his solo activity, he was the leader of the "acoustic rock" group Mozart K. Its line-up included harmonium, mandolin, xylophone, tape recorder (Miloš Vojtěchovský), saxophones (Jan Štolba), electric guitar and sitar (Emil Pospíšil), and percussion (Martin Rychta, Mirek Kodym).

In the early 1980s, Janota disbanded Mozart K and changed the genre along with experimental guitarists Luboš Dalmador Fidler and Pavel Richter. The group practiced interweaving acoustic guitar strumming, alternative tuning systems, making use of record players, tape recorders, radios and DIY instruments, such as the roletophone (an amplified window blind-wand) constructed by Luboš Fidler. In the grip of minimalism – listening to Terry Riley and Robert Fripp – they concluded that circles of arppegiated chords are a good departure point.

After 1989, Janota established a trio with Irena and Vojtěch Havel whose music often fuses old music with Eastern influences. in 1992 and 1993, he performed with the ensamble Jiná rychlost času, and with Luboš Fidler. Later Janota has been touring with his ensemble Ora Pro Nova. Janota publised several books of his texts and stories, and composed the opera Koza about the "Left Handed Universe".