Oľga Záblacká & Kiwi – Transfúzia [synth pop, Slovakia 1987]

At the beginning of the 1980´s, Slovak pop music was thirsty for new faces. Therefore, the Ministry of culture of the Slovak Socialist Republic decided to support young ambitious singers by organizing guided workshops for them. They took place between 1983 – 1985 under the name “Studies for singers of the entertaining genre”. Oľga Záblacká, one of many private students of the phenomenal voice teacher František Tugendlieb, took part in this project (together with many other participants who later became famous as well). She used to sing easy jazz with her first band “Faun” before, but she changed into a pop singer during the workshop. Oľga decided to establish a new band with her boyfriend Michal Dúžek and named it “Kiwi”. Their first song was “Svet v dámskych kabelkách”, but its success was shaded by the popularity of her duet with Vašo Patejdl “Mopedová (Poďme spolu lietať)” from the popular film-musical “Fontána pre Zuzanu”, which was recorded just shortly after. Thanks to concerting in Norway for some months in 1986 she earned enough for a new synthesizer and after she came back home, she recorded a song “Transfúzia” with her band. That happened probably somewhere between summer 1986 and first months of 1987. Music of the band “Kiwi” became the fresh new air, finally brought to the Slovak music by a new generation of musicians. This new music sounded precisely up to date with “Western” music. Michal Dúžek (who also worked with Vašo Patejdl, the most successful singer and composer of that era) wrote for her girlfriend and future wife Oľga Záblacká a bunch of great songs - heavily synthesized, with great bass lines, interesting rhythms and of course with great vocals. “Transfúzia” wasn´t as successful as “Svet v dámskych kabelkách”, but it´s hard to compare these two songs because of the huge time gap between both recordings. Slovak monopoly label “Opus” decided to allow Oľga Záblacká to release her first SP sometime in spring 1987, far more than a year after “Svet v dámskych kabelkách” was recorded and played on radios. It wasn´t just a case of this recording. Music critics were openly criticizing “Opus” for their out-of-date SP recordings production. Such gap leaded to extremely small editions (only few hundreds of pieces) and low commercial success of these SP vinyl recordings, causing them to be unusually rare nowadays. Shortly said, the communist planned economy of Czechoslovakia was failing in all directions at the end of 1980's. However, the music of that era should be understood today as a signal of the incoming change. It was an open window to the free Western world. That is also the reason, why it keeps being extremely popular and played regularly by popular radio stations in former Czechoslovakia.


Music by: Michal Dúžek
Lyrics by: Ľuboš Zeman
Leading vocals: Oľga Záblacká
Backing band: Kiwi (Oľga Záblacká, Michal Dúžek, Juraj Burian, Jozef Buntaj)
Label: Opus – 9143 0669

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