Petr & Pavel ORM – Víkend
from album “Discofil”, 1979, Panton 81130080
produced by ORM & Svatoslav Rychlý

original LP sleeve
Petr & Pavel Orm are by no means brothers. The keyboarder and the guitarist are known as Petr Dvořák and Pavel Růžička, respectively. Originally they were members of the Jan Václavík orchestra, a.k.a. Golem, who used to back the controversial pop singer Josef Laufer, among others. In the late seventies the multi-instrumental duo started to record for the Panton label as ORM.
Their first album Discofil (The Discophile) is a compactly sounding collection of twelve rather short disco tracks. Some of them are pretty cheesy, usually the vocal ones. Others may even come quite funky when lots of Fender Rhodes piano was used, like in Peklo and Riviera. The tracks are not overproduced, only seven of them were recorded with the help from Golem drummer Vladimír Grunt (ex-Atlantis) and the Framus 5 bass player Michal Bláha. An uncredited female choir appears here and there, too. The credits mention the use of an “ORM rytmic computer”, what ever that was; Czechs are quite known for their creative home-made inventions. The influence of European electro-disco becomes clear by inclusion of the only cover version, Magic Fly by Space, which is neither much better nor much worse than the original (depending on your actual opinion on the original in the first place).
In the eighties ORM were the team behind the popular female disco duo Kamélie, producing synth-pop crap en masse. But in any case they definitely belong to the pioneers of electronic pop music in Czechoslovakia, along with Alexander Goldscheider (a.k.a. Odysseus) and Alojz Bouda.
By the way, Víkend is a Czech word that has been adopted directly from the English language and means, you guessed it, “weekend”. Have a nice one…