Listening to Czech experimental electronics quartet Gurun Gurun is like travelling in a chiming clockwork spaceship, not knowing where you will land – the thing is, they don’t know where they’re going either. Gurun Gurun's coordinates fall somewhere between improvisation, musique concrète and hauntology. Originally naming themselves after a fictional planet from a late 1970s Czechoslovak sci-fi series, the band were later told by their Japanese collaborators that gurungurun is also a Japanese interjection expressing the sound of an object constantly spinning or rolling.

Gurun Gurun was founded in 2007 by “sound organiser” Jára Tarnovski, who once played with the experimental pop band Miou Miou. There he met with art historian, field recording collector (and Gurun Gurun co-founder) Tomáš Knoflíček. Later, theatre performer Tomáš Procházka (who makes music under the pseudonym Federsel) and sound engineer Ondřej Ježek joined the group.

Compared to their studio albums, Gurun Gurun’s live performances used to be a contrasting experience that dragged audiences into organised chaos. The ongoing joke was, “They are different bands,”. Their new album Uzu Oto (released by Lima based Peruvian label Buh Records) documents Gurun Gurun’s two faces becoming one. Capturing an intermediate stage between two previous records, it consists of non-manipulated recordings of live shows gathered during their tour in Czechia and Slovakia. The album features Gurun Gurun’s longtime collaborators and friends, Kyoto based singer Cuushe and Kanazawa sound and toydrone artist Asuna.

“We figured out our place and niche in the band, but we’re still moving,” Tomáš Procházka comments about the band’s process of searching. “After all,” Jára Tarnovski adds, “the constant motion is the only meaningful thing to keep the band alive.”

Miloš Hroch: You named yourself after a fictional planet from the socialist children’s sci-fi series Spadla Z Oblakov (She Came Out Of The Blue Sky). Was it inspired by childhood nostalgia or is there something more cryptic behind the title?

Jára Tarnovski: With Tomáš Knoflíček, we liked the name of the planet Gurun from where the alien little girl Majka flew to then Czechoslovakia in the mentioned series. We knew the TV series from childhood. That’s why we reduplicated the planet’s name to reference our previous band Miou Miou. Then Gurun Gurun was born around the year 2007.

From the start, we knew that we wanted to work with Japanese singers. Our self titled debut was finally released by then Tokyo based label Home Normal in 2010. A few months later, we learned from Japanese friends that gurungurun was their interjection to express the sound of an object constantly spinning or rolling, such as a metal barrel on asphalt. Japanese friends who helped us with the first album – Sawako, Rurarakiss, Moskitoo, Hitoshi Ishihara and the publisher Ian Hawgood, who speaks excellent Japanese – were convinced all the time that crazy Czechs had chosen a Japanese name for their band. The Japanese name found us.

During touring in Japan, I found out that giongo and gitaigo are Japanese onomatopoeia imitating or describing the sounds of inanimate things and animals. Such words are commonly used there for more expressive feelings. In everyday communication, in literature and in advertising. And many of them are just reduplicated words. Our friend and experimental musician Asuna later came up with a Japanese synonym for gurungurun, simply: uzu oto. Which we used as the name of the current album.

Do the used instruments define the music of Gurun Gurun? For instance, Tomáš is a media archaeologist who loves to revive or reinvent old synthesizers from the junkyard.

Tomáš Procházka: I see the band as an omnivorous organism that can consume anything. In the beginning, I had the feeling I would contribute by playing unexpected instruments like a mandolin or a resophonic guitar. I soon realised that the band didn’t really need it. Standard instruments are more a limitation than an extension. We all started to create our own vocabulary and system, which must be as open as possible. Having small tools is also practical. Now I carry in my suitcase amplified cans, small drum machines and several old effects like a ring modulator, delay, and also play the miniature diddley bow. During one period, Ondřej Ježek used to play the Antares II synthesizer, which was developed in late 1978 in only eight prototypes by the Research Institute of Czechoslovak Radio and Television. It’s a distinctive instrument, but it didn’t really make a difference in Gurun Gurun. I don’t think the band is much about the gear we use. I think about the band as a laboratory of presence.

Jára Tarnovski: We often just take instruments from the closet. Someone has a more punk approach like Ondřej Ježek and Tomáš Procházka, who would appear with machines like bat detector. I am more meticulous with Tomáš Knoflíček. The set-up ranges from amplified cans to iPad applications. Knoflíček has an old psalterium and sophisticated modular synthesizers next to it. We look into the past and the future simultaneously – at the intersection, you will find Gurun Gurun.

Was that a leap for you, Jára, when you switched from the experimental pop with Miou Miou to improvisation with Gurun Gurun?

Jára Tarnovski: We didn’t take it as a significant change at all. In the last phase of Miou Miou in the late 2000s, Tomáš Knoflíček played with me in the band, and we had a need to work with electronic sounds, which was not entirely acceptable for other members. When we only played with Tomáš Knoflíček in the same rehearsal room we had with Miou Miou outside of the band, it was like unchaining ourselves – the first Gurun Gurun track was recorded in that rehearsal room and went right to the compilation. Then we met Tomáš Procházka at the beginning of 2008. We attended the performance of his theatre group Handa Gote Research & Development. I asked him if he wanted to join and play with us. I was fascinated by his combination of technology and theatre.

Tomáš Procházka: The show [Trains] that we performed there that year was based on experiments with amplified metallic objects. I also played that resophonic guitar there. When Jára and Tomáš Knoflíček contacted me, I thought it was because of the instruments, just like in socialist Czechoslovakia when people lacked access to proper musical instruments, so the one who happened to have a bass guitar was immediately a bass player.

On the one hand, you are inspired by Japanese aesthetics and collaborate with Japanese experimental musicians. On the other, you use Czech references to weird TV series or novels by Karel Čapek. How it is possible to combine such cultural contexts without appropriation?

Tomáš Procházka: I would never dare say that I work in the spirit of Japanese ideals. Instead, I dream of Japan from Central Europe. Each of Gurun Gurun’s members has its own connection to Japan. I have had the Handa Gote theatre ensemble for 15 years, and the name is a Japanese expression for a soldering gun. We were initially inspired by specific Japanese aesthetic categories, such as “mono no aware”. It’s hard to translate, but one way to understand is sadness from the transience of things. In Central Europe, we have nostalgia stuck mainly and ponderous, like “it was much better in my day”. Mono no aware is rather experienced through objects, traces of time and artefacts – it is based on the belief that things never go away. Instead, they are still with us.

Jára Tarnovski: I was fascinated by how high and low [culture] naturally blended in Japanese art. It started after the Second World War with the import of Western culture on a larger scale – and in the first phase, there was no clear distinction between Presley and Stockhausen, between contemporary classical and pop music – and that way of thinking stayed there, I believe. With Gurun Gurun, we don’t try to sound like Japanese bands. We have different sources of inspiration. The Japanese artists themselves are confused when they see us live: “Why do you do such music in so many people? It doesn’t make sense,” they wonder. This connection between Czechia and Japan I see as ideological affinity. Although I find it funny to write haiku outside Japan, you can develop your local ways like the Czech poet and philosopher Egon Bondy in his collection Totální Realismus (Total Realism) and reach a similar format. For me, it’s like finding a soul mate.

Is the musician and artist Petr Válek, who created the cover for Uzu Oto, just such a soulmate?

Jára Tarnovski: Absolutely. Petr Válek is a man who refuses to play at a prestigious German festival because he is just learning how to solder homemade electronics. For me, he is the most important Czech musician right now, but Tomáš will say more because he “discovered him”.

Tomáš Procházka: I’ve been following his journey since he used to send and overload people with his records on CDs. Everybody around was shaking their heads, but I was fascinated straight away. I ran the Endemit Archives blog focused on outsider music, antimusic or art brut – and he was the best fit for it. His modest success today wasn’t for free: but there is a consistency and terrible amount of work behind it that many people would not be willing to invest in it at all. Such an honest body of work in music and fine arts.

What do collaborations outside of groups mean to you?

Jára Tarnovski: It’s often impulsive and we don’t plan it. Once in Hiroshima, we were in a line-up with a crazy guitar band wearing pyjamas – Mayakashi Plastic. We asked their singer to the concert with us. She found a herbarium in the library and did the whole set with us [reading lines from the book]. In terms of records, collaborations are crucial for me. It is an incredible joy that people like Sawako, Moskitoo or Cuushe work with us. Cuushe is a beautiful example of how you can naturally blend pop with improvisation. The song “Toumeiningen” with her, on Uzu Oto, is a complete improv, including vocal lines and lyrics.

Also, working with Haco is a dream for us. Not only that she has one of the most beautiful voices I know, but I also learned a lot from her approach to art. Jenny Hval cites her as an inspiration. David Toop writes about her and Haco could have top producers on her records, but she prefers to mix them herself and invite amateur or local musicians. For Haco, it does have more value because it is pure and matches her world – and we are happy to be working on our new Gurun Gurun album with her.

Tomáš, you used to organise Wakushoppu, a platform for improvisational music. Could you describe the current improvisation scene in the Czech Republic and its condition?

Tomáš Procházka: Petr Ferenc and I ran the Wakushoppu series from 2010–20, and we tried to invite new faces every month, including Petr Válek. I stood behind the desk for ten years as a sound engineer, so I had a more intimate relationship with the artists than the listeners. I made recordings of their performances so we could have some historical traces. It was a very communal experience, but it exhausted itself, and so was I. As a performer, I learned many things, like that I need to constantly negate my previous habits, which should be part of improvisation in general. When we ended Wakushoppu, I felt that the improvisation scene was tied to my generation of people in their mid-forties and that encapsulation was imminent. I thought that the scene should not be limited by any generation, and I preferred to withdraw. Similarly, with Gurun Gurun, we like to stand somewhere outside. Wakushoppu is also a Japanese term for a workshop, and I have often abbreviated it to waku. Then I found out that waku waku is a Japanese interjection for looking forward to something, so I’m looking forward to what will rise after us.

Gurun Gurun's Uzu Oto is released by Buh on 11 March