On 27 September 2024, as Bratislava’s WAX2 club gradually reaches capacity, the club is flooded with lights and police officers. Then a voice commands: “Stop the music immediately! This is a police raid! Put your hands above your head and lean against the wall!”

The crowd respond with varying degrees of distress. Those who’d endured similar crackdowns in the early years of the millennium appear stoic, while others – my friend and I included – are paralysed by shock at this first-time experience of police brutality. As the night stretches on, terror congeals into a state of subdued compliance, rippled with underlying waves of anxiety, dread and uncertainty.

This incident is emblematic of a broader paradigm shift within Slovakia’s sociopolitical framework following the 2023 parliamentary elections. The ascendance of the nationalist-populist Smer-SD party, in coalition with the far right SNS, heralded a systematic erosion of democratic values, a retraction of public funding for cultural institutions, and an escalation of both legislative and public antagonism toward the LGBTQI+ community. This authoritarian turn closely followed the terrorist attack outside the queer bar Tepláreň, where Juraj Vankulič and Matúš Horváth were shot dead in 2022. By mid-2024, state-sanctioned police raids began targeting nightclubs, disproportionately affecting venues in liberal-leaning Bratislava.

While multiple sources suggest that further raids on Bratislava’s nightclubs are unlikely in the immediate future, the broader sociopolitical climate remains inhospitable to independent cultural initiatives.

This playlist illuminates the ways in which Bratislava’s LGBTQI+ community and musicians look for collective strategies of resistance.

ODM
“shun”
from Transmission For Lebanon
(Amphibian Records)

Filip Kiripolský – known as ODM (Ongoing Decay of Morals) – is a Slovak DJ, producer and classically trained musician based in Prague. His selections and off-kilter techno productions reflect a nuanced understanding of electronic idioms. In Bratislava, he co-founded the Cereal collective, pushing underground sound via warehouse raves and events at the Fuga club. He appeared on WAX2’s local bill for the Olam x Intergalactic FM evening, cut short by the police raid on 27 September 2024, a few minutes before the end of his set. His track “Shun” features on the Transmission For Lebanon compilation, released by Prague’s Amphibian Records.

Anthony Rother
“Technophobia”
from AI Space
(PSI49NET)

The Offenbach-based electro pioneer Anthony Rother was among the artists who were supposed to perform at WAX2 club in Bratislava on the infamous night of the raid, which was shut down shortly before his appearance. “Technophobia”, with its dark bass, immersive, haunting melody, and lyrics probing the boundaries of reality and simulation, epitomises both that night’s tense atmosphere and the dystopian themes central to Rother’s work. Released on his PSI49NET label as part of the AI Space album, it underscores his ongoing exploration of identity and control in the digital age.

Katov Synth
“V Bratislave už naše hviezdy nevidno”
from Tu, kde žijem, žiješ, žijeme
(LOM)

Katov Syn(th) is the solo project of Slovak musician Dominik Novák, also known from Blackwood Incident and Kúpel Mysle. His debut album Tu, kde žijem, žiješ, žijeme, released on the LOM label, meditates on change, nostalgia, and a vanishing sense of home inspired by Bratislava’s metamorphosis. Employing modular synthesizers, tape loops, and field recordings, Novák conjures lush analogue soundscapes. These dreamy textures blur the line between memory and place, enriching the album’s resonance. The track “V Bratislave už naše hviezdy nevidno”, which accompanied preparations for the Selenite event in December 2024 at Subdeck in Bratislava, carries a weighty atmosphere interwoven with glimmers of hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Andriy K
“Lybid”
from Poetry Of The Vanished Territories
(Oscilla Sound)

Southern Ukrainian landscapes evoke memories of fading places, suspended between what was and what endures. Andriy K’s album Poetry Of The Vanished Territories opens with “Lybid”, a homage to one of Kyiv’s oldest rivers, resilient in its struggle to survive. Its liquid textures mimic the wild, unpredictable flow carving through steadfast banks. This piece scored the listening-and-reading set at the Selenite event aboard a Danube riverboat, where the club’s floating venue became a tangible vessel for these sonic currents. In that moment, music, place, and memory merged, forging a reflective experience that honoured loss and persistence.

Magdaléna Manderlová
“Struha”
from Prah
(Warm Winters Ltd)

Magdaléna Manderlová, a Czech sound artist, composer, and field recordist residing in Oslo, emerged from the Czech DIY songwriting scene. Her practice centres on relational and sensory listening, immersing herself in field recordings grounded in ecological curiosity and natural processes. Site specific, her oeuvre spans sound installations, compositions, participatory works, concerts, and writings. The composition “Struha”, named after the archaic Slovak term for a small artificial water trough, layers an elderly Slavic woman’s spoken reflection on the trough’s purpose with gentle water currents. Released by a Bratislava based label, it evokes a serene, distinctly homely atmosphere.

El Hardwick featuring Sasha Wilde
“The Queer Art Of Slowness”
from Process Of Elimination
(AD 93)

El Hardwick’s Process Of Elimination offers a soft cushion in hard times, offering refuge even before it’s sought. The opening track, “The Queer Art of Slowness”, features scenic sound design and Sasha Wilde’s chopped, slow-paced vocals, creating anticipation with quiet urgency. The album softens emotional defenses, drawing attention inward to the intimate and present. Slowness and queerness emerge as technologies of care, where questions become answers and mysticism becomes healing. Hardwick’s work weaves narratives of queer worldmaking and explores how we might heal on a damaged planet through softness, reflection, and radically tender soundscapes.

Read Chiara Rendeková’s full report from Bratislava in The Wire 496. The issue is sold out in our online shop but should still be available from many of our stockists. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital magazine library.