The story of the DNBD Recordings Label

Start of a passion

It all started in 2016 when I went to Brno to study. I (Andrej aka Asana aka Label Manager), formerly come from Pezinok, where I lived most of my years. In Brno, I met with Jožan, another university student, but originating from Prague. Trough Jožan I met with Matúš, who is also Slovak as me and also comes from the same city! Matúš in that year, really showed me how drum & bass feels and created a passion in me, that started this label. What a coincidence that I had to meet with my friend, that comes from the same city as me. In Brno. Trough Jožan that comes from Prague. So close, yet so far away.

(Me with Matúš, we took the photo on 31.12.2016, I blurred Matúš’s face because GDPR reasons)

dnb.zone

With Matúš, we went to a lot of drum & bass parties and then came an idea. To start a blog where we would review and write a story about the specific party. We successfully started this project and called it dnb.zone. The articles we wrote, sometimes controversial, had a lot of success in the drum & bass scene in Slovakia.  A lot of people joined in this project, people who also wanted to write their reviews of parties. Our team grew, our project grew, and even the ideas where our project should head next grew.

(Me with T & Sugah on the celebration of the first year of dnb.zone in UHU club, Bratislava)

Two minds

As the project grew and grew, we had different views about where should this project head next. We first started with the organization of our parties. Our first party, we had in a local pub in Pezinok “U Švarca”. The party was full-house a lot of our friends came, and we had a lovely time. We wanted to create more parties, but in better conditions, because the local pub was tiny.

There came the first issues. I did not want to create big parties with big names, just wanted to keep it local. I wanted to go international with this project, but Matúš had his views, and I had mine. This difference became so big over time. I chose to leave this project and create my own.

(Me playing at one of our label parties in Sub club, Bratislava)

DNB Database

I had no time in being in arguments that led to nowhere. I chose to create my project, with my own rules and with my views. The plan called DNB Database came to be. We started in the summer of 2018, and the project had its evolution over the years.

Firstly it started just as a YouTube channel, where I uploaded the songs of the Slovak drum & bass artists, but over the year of so, I felt like people do not appreciate this project enough.

Meanwhile, as part of the DNB Database YouTube channel, we started to release music from promising drum & bass artists, but in that time, I felt like the channel and label should be separated.

(we even had Eargasm shirts, haha)

Eargasm Music

As said before, I created Eargasm Music as a part of DNB Database. It was a project, where I released music as a normal label. But as time went, I saw that having two projects require double the time. Having these two projects, with my other activities as a freelancer, I just did not find enough time to give my 100% to both projects. I choose to merge the Eargasm Music with DNB Database (then called Slovak – “DNB Databáza”).

DNB Database, v2

With merging the Eargasm Music and project DNB Database then called DNB Databáza, I renamed the label to English, dropped the free download releases, and started to behave as a normal label. We also started to release music from international artists, not only Slovak and Czech ones. We have a lot of things coming for you, new releases in the pipeline, new and better music, better graphics. You have something to look forward to!