New publication: Between Euphoria and Exhaustion

Music, clubs and the broader social backdrop of Bratislava in the 1990s are the focus of a new publication by Bratislava City Museum, published in cooperation with N Press. Between Euphoria and Exhaustion. Bratislava’s Club Scene of the 1990s accompanies the exhibition of the same name. You are warmly invited to its opening on 8 October at 18:00 in the Exhibition Hall in the courtyard of the Old Town Hall.

Discover the stories of the clubs and the era that shaped them

U.Club, Garáže, Duna, Rock Fabrik, New Model Club, Propeller. Rádio Ragtime, Spojka, Stoka, tearooms and civil defence shelters, urban music festivals. Techno, fanzines, dreadlocks, private ownership, Mečiar, elections and the euphoria of newly gained freedom. Capitalism, racketeers, drugs and exhaustion after sleepless nights. Together, these elements form a complex portrait of the decade and of the alternative urban scene that shaped a generation.

Peter Dolník, a music enthusiast and editor at Rádio_FM, traces the musical landscape of Bratislava in the 1990s in a text that will appeal not only to those who experienced this remarkable period first-hand. The publication, however, goes beyond music clubs. To capture a fuller picture of the era and its scene, it also outlines the history of alternative urban culture, the broader alternative cultural landscape and the city’s musical map, including radio, festivals, cultural centres, record shops and other spaces that fall outside the conventional definition of a music club. These places often brought together the same people, involved in different projects as creators, participants or audiences.

Michal Čudrnák examines the phenomenon of Bratislava and Slovak techno and the influence of particular places on the emergence of the music. Roman Džambazovič places club culture within sociological theories of subcultures and neo-tribes. In her essay, Zuzana Kepplová offers a feminist and queer perspective on Bratislava’s electronic club scene at the turn of the 1990s and 2000s.

The publication is available from the Kút.museum shop in the courtyard of the Old Town Hall or can be ordered through the Denník N online shop.