Esperanto Music History

La Mondanoj

Mon 23 Oct 2023

Ankaŭ havebla en Esperanto.

La Mondanoj was one of the early Esperanto rock groups, active between 1983 and 1987 and based in Berlin. They had a strong reputation as a live act at Esperanto events and in the local Berlin scene, but produced relatively little in the way of recorded output: their officially published work consists solely of the studio recording of one song, Muskola Belulino, which appeared on Vinilkosmo’s 1995 Kompil' Vol. 1. The band also produced a number of demo tapes, which were distributed in small quantities, and there was at least one bootleg live recording of the group. The difficulty in obtaining copies of their music has given the band something of a mythical status, and much of the information available about them to date has been incomplete and/or inaccurate. Thanks to significant contributions from the band members, I hope to be able to clarify their history in this post.

La Verda Stel'

Thu 31 Aug 2023

La Verda Stel' is a mysterious recording posted to YouTube by an otherwise-empty account by the name of Julian Gastalou in 2018. The two videos purport to be both sides of a “weird record that [he] found at a garage sale”, with lyrics that could be in Esperanto or Ido. The name of the group makes it fairly obvious which of these two languages was intended - and indeed, the record is sung in Esperanto.

Any further details than this, however, are something of a mystery: it seems that nobody in the online Esperanto movement has heard of this group. The record does not appear in the comprehensive Laŭjara Katalogo de Muzikaj Diskoj en Esperanto, and none of the appeals for information that have been put out on a popular Esperanto blog or on social media or StackExchange have met with any success. If anyone from the Esperanto community knew anything about this record, we would almost certainly have heard from them by now.

My original post on this subject took the approach of assuming that the music was indeed from a real record and trying to solve the puzzle of when and where it was released by research and detective work. However, the results of this, and feedback from readers, has led to only one conclusion: the record does not actually exist.

Esperinst

Tue 16 May 2023

In my first ever post on this site, I mentioned that it was difficult to find out any information about what the very earliest Esperanto record was, and so began my blog by writing about the earliest LP. Today I think I may have an answer to that question - at least, I have some more information about two of the earliest Esperanto records, and I strongly suspect that they were the very first ones.

Kore

Tue 20 Dec 2022

Continuing our look at 2000s Esperanto music, Kore is a band from France, led by Kris Spitzer, who released two albums: Kia Viv' in 2000, and Tielas Vivo in 2007 - the latter consisting of two parts in two different styles.

Dolchamar

Sun 20 Nov 2022

Dolchamar (originally Dolcxamar) is the name for Patrik Austin’s Esperanto music projects. Three studio albums were released under this name, as well as a non-album single and contributions to three compilation projects, but the only common factor is Austin himself: each album is produced in a different musical style, by a different group of musicians.

Duo Espera

Wed 31 Aug 2022

Today’s post is in part a request for help - because although I’ve spent a good amount of time researching the history of Duo Espera and their album Jen Nia Mondo, I’ve not been able to find out all the details. I’d almost go as far as to say that if you wanted to produce something to frustrate future researchers, you could scarcely do better than to replicate the liner notes on this album, which provide just enough information to hint that there is more to be found, but not quite enough to actually make it possible to find anything useful.

Team

Wed 24 Aug 2022

Team is one of Slovakia’s most commercially and critically successful rock bands, with a career spanning over forty years and eleven albums. A complete history of the group was published in book form (in Slovak) in 2012 (TEAM - Príbeh Hudobnej Legendy by Daniel Hevier); so for this article we will focus on their origins and Esperanto activities.

Krea-Sono Records

Wed 17 Aug 2022

Krea-Sono Records was an Esperanto imprint of the Scottish independent label West Records, named after its founder and director, James (Jim) West. A total of four Esperanto records were issued by the imprint, all featuring either the poetry of William Auld or the folk music of Margaret Hill.

Tutmonda Muziko

Fri 12 Aug 2022

Unusually for an Esperanto group, the Tutmonda Muziko project was not launched by Esperanto speakers or even by musicians, but by an independent producer who assembled a team to bring his idea to life. Gunter Koch, a police officer from Stuttgart, discovered Esperanto in the 1980s and wanted to find an opportunity to promote the language more widely.

Ni Kantu en Esperanto

Wed 10 Aug 2022

To start off a blog on the history of Esperanto music, it would perhaps make the most sense to start at the very beginning, with the earliest release. Unfortunately, it’s hard to pin down exactly what the first ever Esperanto record was - the earliest surviving reference appears to be the Oficiala Jarlibro de la Esperanto-Movado 1931, which lists six records, all 78rpm discs. I’ve not been able to find out a huge amount of information about any of these early releases, so let’s jump ahead a little and look instead at the first LP: Ni Kantu en Esperanto.