Who’s the dybbuk? - Boris Grushenko meets Anton Ivanovich Lebedokov in Love and Death. (Allen, 1975).
When said by Woody Allen, the word dybbuk automatically sounds funny even if you have no idea what it means. In Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a malevolent, wandering spirit which enters and possesses a living person until it is exorcised. It was also the name taken by an all-female noise group from Czechoslovakia, who John Peel admitted on this programme, he had spent most of the 1980s hearing about but failing to get hold of any of their records. Even when his European grand tour of October 1992 had taken him into the newly formed Czech Republic, he had been unable to find anything by them. However, just a few months later, he had received a copy of the group’s reunion album, Ale Cert to Vem and played the track, Dopis (A Letter) stating that the performance featured What sounds like me on the piano. And during a short but compelling track during which it sounds as though all manner of feelings are being poured out into the letter, the piano playing is hilariously awful. Certainly a long way from Camille Howard.
As a rock band living in a Soviet controlled Communist society, Dybbuk had found it difficult even to get opportunities to play live gigs, let alone release records during the 80s. The notes for Ale Cert to Vem revealed that the band had enjoyed the experience so much, they intended to continue working together. But they rebranded themselves as Zuby Nehty (Teeth Nails) , releasing 4 albums between 1993 and 1999, with further albums following in 2014 and 2021 - like a Czech version of The Monkeywrench, who should be due to put something out this year given their 21st Century eight-year cycle of releases.
Video courtesy of Jan Tichavsky.
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