11 podob lásky

The album 11 PODOB LÁSKY (i.e. 11 Forms of Love)  was recorded by the band Odysea Mariana Friedla (i.e. Marian Friedl’s Odyssey). It contains seven folk and nine original songs rooted in the traditional music of the Western Carpathians, the connection of which is love. Stylistically, the album is straddled between folk, folklore, jazz and world music. The album is dedicated to the memory of violinist and singer Jitka Šuranská (1978–2019), who stood at its birth.

“We experienced love, sang and thought a lot about it together with my friend and music colleague Jituška Šuranská. She left us suddenly last year, leaving a deep hole in our hearts. The more serious her health problem was, the harder I worked to prepare a new album, which we wanted to record together in the summer of 2020. I really wanted this vision to help her overcome the difficult fate she faced. But our destiny was different… 11 FORMS OF LOVE was recorded together with the beautiful people who have surrounded me for many years and we dedicate it to the memory of a beautiful person,” says Marian Friedl, the author of the project.

Apart from the band’s frontman, Marian Friedl, the vocalist, clarinetist, player on kobza, small dulcimer, folk flutes and shepherd’s pipe, it is formed by the singer Sabrina Pasičnykova, violinist and singer Petra Jelénková and also the jazz core of the successful ensemble Beránci a vlci; saxophonist Štěpán Flagar, guitarist Rostislav Hus, double bass player Martin Kocián and drummer Michal Wierzgoń. This basic line up was accompanied by guests: singer Míša Vítová, violinist Pavel Motyka, bayanist Vojtěch Drnek, viola accompaniment Eliška Smetková and Petr Domčík, percussionist Marek Hlosta, bagpiper Vlasta Bjaček, singers Dušan Strakoš, Martin Skotnica, Lukáš Mrkva and Women's Choir Kudlanky z Kudlovic. A total of 30 singers and instrumentalists took part in the recording.

Marian Friedl is a musician, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, publicist. He’s performed on more than two dozen CDs, often with leading performers of the Czech and international music scene. In 2014 he recorded, for example, the album NOCZ and Iva Bittová (Hevhetia), in 2016 Divé Husy with Jitka Šuranská and Martin Krajíček (nominated for the Anděl Music Award 2016) or in the same year, the album Mateřština with Jiří Slavík (Anděl 2016 in the world music category). He embodied his personal vision of Moravian world music in the original project Beránci a vlci, whose eponymous album won the Anděl award in 2017 in the folk category. In 2019 he released a solo album called Beskydian Odyssey (Indies Scope) and the neo-folk project Píseň ZEMĚ (Animal Music).

The album contains 16 songs and a total time of 75:18 min. It was recorded in Zlín in Studio V, mixing and mastering by Bronislav Šmid, watercolor and graphic design of the cover by Magdalena Říčná, executive producer Marian Friedl.