Secret vinyl listening sessions revive a forgotten Prague cinema

For tourists, it’s an unavoidable passage to reach the city’s landmarks. For people who live in Prague, it’s a very much avoidable street lined with trdelník stands and cheap souvenir shops.

Leading to the Charles Bridge on the Malá Strana side, Mostecká street isn’t the place you’d expect that sort of underground event to take place away from the prying eyes.

And yet, walk through a discreet passage right next to the busy McDonald’s, continue through the small courtyard where teens and tourists are gulping down Big Mac’s and chicken nuggets, and there you are, in one of the best kept secrets this side of town.

As we descend the stairs to the underground space of Kino 64 U Hradeb, we’re greeted by Carmen Rizzo, our host for this evening’s launch of his first Harmonia Sessions.

A two-time Grammy nominee, Carmen is a prolific Italian American music producer, programmer and artist with decades of experience working with some world-class musicians, from Seal and Michael Jackson to Coldplay, Alanis Morissette and dozens of others.

After visiting Czechia on and off for the past 15 years, he’s permanently moved to Prague from Los Angeles about four years ago, a choice he described as “one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” and now works from his studio in the Prague monastery-turned art and cultural center Gabriel Loci.

Launched last month in cooperation with members-only Klub Doupě and Clear Audio, his Harmonia Sessions are all about creating a deep-listening lounge to disconnect from the outside world and find our way back to what music is all about.

Its aim, he explains, is to “create a space where we can reconnect – with music, and with each other – without algorithms shaping the experience.”

“Not through a screen, not on a feed, but together, in the room. Listening and feeling the experience.”

For its first event, Carmen hand-picked four albums to explore the Czech tearoom-ambient and experimental scene, “a quietly, deeply influential movement rooted in intimacy, repetition, and space” that he’s recently discovered.

Alongside a diverse crowd of about 30-40 people invited for the opening, we immersed ourselves for about an hour in the beautiful, meditative tracks of the Richter Band, Jaroslav Kořán, Oldřich Janota and Gurun Gurun – before continuing the evening with friendly chats and discussions at the bar of that unique and magical venue.

No musical background needed, just the desire to take a step back and enjoy the intimate, carefully curated journey. Oh, and to turn off your phones.

“I was honestly overwhelmed by the response to our first Harmonia Sessions,” Carmen says. “We all need environments like this, free from the pressure of constant simulation and communication; a place where we can explore how records were made, who played on them, what instruments were used; while experiencing the music the way it was meant to be heard on a proper system, in a shared space.”

And to be sure, it’s hard to imagine a better fit between Carmen’s ethos and Kino 64 U Hradeb, where his deep-listening sessions are organized.

Opened in the early 1960’s, Kino 64 U Hradeb was a staple of Prague’s cultural life for decades and an iconic venue known for premiering some of the Czechoslovak New Wave’s greatest works. Italian director Federico Fellini is also said to have had a particular liking for it.

Plans to turn it into an underground parking space in the early 2000’s met with fierce opposition from locals and conservationists, but the 2002 floods were even more unforgiving, and the cinema had to shut down. Until recently.

“This space clearly deserves to be on the cultural map of Prague again, and it is touching how it still lives on in the memory of many people,” says Jan Čep, the new owner of the place who has been spearheading the rebirth of U Hradeb, and was also present at Carmen’s evening.

Thanks to his efforts, the cinema’s ground floor has now been renovated, and reconstruction continues in the stunning, half-in-ruin cinema hall and underground space, precisely where we hid from the domineering presence of Spotify and algorithms for a few hours in the company of Carmen and his records.

For both Harmonia and Kino U Hradeb, this is just the beginning. In time, the cinema is to become a multifunctional space with a strong focus on films and audiovisual creation.

Carmen, meanwhile, is planning more art installations and residencies, deep-listening sessions and intimate performances and would like, eventually, to take Harmonia Sessions on the road.

But for now, you know exactly where to go.