"The traditional music industry has had to deal with its new speed of virality." Talking to Bucharest's Ion D and Inana

With the ATOPIA collaborative residency, Rokolectiv Festival brought together Ukrainian musician Maryana Klochko and Bucharest producers Ion D and Inana to work on new music outputs. On this occasion, we caught up with Future Nuggets' Ion D and Inana to talk about the Romanian music scene, pop, TikTok, and speculative philosophy.

ION D

Last year you released an extensive new Future Nuggets compilation. What are the ideas behind it?

From its genesis, Future Nuggets stood for sub-genres, hybridity, twisted expressions under the radar, experiments with no precise scope, and surely rarely thinking about releasing. Publishing when it made sense, or more often, when it was possible! 

In a way, our recent FN "Sounds of the Unheard" vol. 4 is keeping up with the initial drives, adventurous, mixing the un-mixable, transgressing genres, seeing the studio process as a laboratory, mingling global sounds, and still looking for the future unknown. Meshing untraceable pop, hypnagogic trap, psychedelic RnB, electronica, kraut inspired soundtrack vibes, and generally merging with the local and Balkan oriental. Devising points of intersection and going further, wherever. 

How would you describe your relationship to pop? 

Strong and enduring! I see modes of experimenting that could hide behind whatever "pop" could be, pushing the envelope through non-intellectualist means, yet producing progressive political overtones. 

In the past 6-7 years, FN has enthusiastically become the home to unclassified pop expressions, breeding and introducing voice and lyrics, and fostering artists like: 

Suce Fraga (Andreea Baciu)  

Inana (Thomas Höfer)

Sarra (Sarra Tsorakidis), new configurations Xenofolk (Ion D, Suce Fraga), and recently Lidia (Lidia Ilici). 

We have, collectively, steered navigation into uncharted territories! So, there is a transference, but it happened slowly and organically, and, as I like to think, the foundation principles of the label were by default designed to welcome and encourage sound shifts of any magnitude.

"Fragmente Pop vol. 1" compilation was the output indicating this new landscape, and basically with the same drive of inventing an alt-pop scene of Bucharest.

This year we are preparing the 2nd instalment of this compilation.

Last year, one of your tracks became viral on TikTok. Can you tell us more about your recent relationship with the platform ?

Actually it was this year, and I was completely unaware until a friend told me about it. It was curios, I was not even credited, the track was anyway a re-work I did as an homage to a nineties proto-Manele band, Azur, in 2015!! It had a new life of its own in 2023.

But I was already fascinated by TikTok and promoting it for some years. I've been writing about the phenomena and even came up with a political speculative project, "TikTok democracy". 

The Chinese company has really revolutionized the game, their algorithms are set on other principles, yet to be deciphered. Pushing info and content in a more (quasi)democratic and unpredictable way; one can become a star/viral with one's first post and 10 followers. It abolishes chronology and hierarchies. It has become the crossover platform par excellence, it connects cultural bubbles and varied geo-locations through games and self-choreographies, playfully drifting towards a globalized awareness. The traditional music industry has had to deal with its new speed of virality, a futuristic experience that has no school.

As the western media is generally focused on the negative, "alarming" aspects of the platform, I'm looking for the exciting stuff. And there's a lot. This general attitude of mistrust I think is very damaging in terms of understanding this huge phenomenon; political prejudices has made the academia and politicians reluctant to engage in a non-biased way with the cultural revolutions having taken place due to this platform (see the recent absurd, hypocrite and irrelevant TikTok hearings in the US congress, where the only concern of the Democrats and Republicans was to prove to the American public that they are "tough on China"). 

What inspires you these days outside of the music realm?

Many things but mostly, in the past years, I've been dwelling into speculative philosophy territories. Writing and sometimes publishing texts on themes ranging from cave metaphysics, black hole non-human theology, the history of illogical of affect to new body-mind reconfigurations, sketching other subjectivity models that can process the current cultural anomalies and political blockades. Manufacturing conceptual instruments for a world to come. 

Actually, an extract out of all of these interests has just been published this month in a fanzine from New York.

INANA

What are you working on at the moment? I am currently working on polishing and releasing some of my unreleased songs. I also have plans to create new music soon, but, before diving into that, I want to finish some of my existing demos. One of my goals is to dedicate more time to creating instrumental music in the near future. This is because I used to produce a lot more instrumental music a few years ago, so I intend to remake and re-release some of my older instrumental tracks while also composing new ones.  How do you see the current artistic / musical context in Bucharest? Currently in Bucharest, there is a flourishing underground micro-scene, along with more popular scenes such as the Manele scene, trap scene, alt rock scene, and so on. Within our more intimate musical sphere, there are a few small independent labels, some really talented bedroom producers and DJs, and some outstanding bands. These artists approach music making and playing in a playful and boundary-pushing manner, exploring a wide range of sounds. Unfortunately, there is a limited number of venues to choose from, and when it comes to club culture, most clubs tend to focus primarily on the RO-minimal scene, resulting in a lack of diversity in their events. However, a few venues regularly host all kinds of events, both concerts and parties, while maintaining a more receptive attitude towards diversity in terms of electronic music.  How would you describe your sound? I'll start by saying that my music is mostly vocal-oriented, with the majority of my songs following a pop structure, such as verse-chorus-verse-chorus. I enjoy experimenting with various genres and rhythms, including Balkan and oriental rhythms. The Manele inspired lead keyboard lines and the dark, emotive guitar riffs are two main ingredients in my songs. My lyrics can be described as a mix of naivety and melancholy, sometimes expressing non-sense while other times reflecting personal struggles. I feel like I possess multiple musical identities, all under the same umbrella. As a result, some of my tracks lean towards a more emo-trap style, while others have a bedroom pop or lo-fi sound, and so on. Goth, post-punk and chiptune influences are also worth mentioning. Since I am not loyal to any specific genre, incorporating various influences simultaneously is a common practice in my songs. How was your work with Maryana Klochko and Ion D? Collaborating with Maryana and Ion was a unique and lovely experience. We had a great time together, frequently jamming and exploring new musical ideas. Each of us brought something fresh to the table, contributing to the creative process. The studio filled with synths and our laptops full of ideas and drafts turned out to be a fantastic playground for us. I feel privileged to have been a part of this project.

Easterndaze On Air - our second radio event celebrating community radio in Central / Eastern Europe

𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟵, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮, including 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐈𝐞𝐯𝐚 𝐆𝐮𝐝𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐲𝐭𝐞.

December 9, 2022 sees the second Easterndaze On Air radio day. Community radios from Central and Eastern Europe will connect through the Easterndaze x Berlin platform, in cooperation with Cashmere Radio, in an effort to encourage collaboration between these DIY mediums. Since the first radio day in April 2021, which connected radios and listeners during the pandemic, the war in Ukraine has further heightened a state of political and social crisis.

These radios play a crucial role in their respective artistic and community milieus (being implicitly political, especially in Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Belarus and Hungary). The project’s participants are these community radios from Central or Eastern Europe: Radio Kapital from Warsaw, Lahmacun Radio from Budapest, 20ft Radio and Gasoline Radio from Kyiv, Mutant from Tblissi, Plato from Minsk along with the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) connecting radios in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius and Helsinki, hosted by Berlin's Cashmere Radio. The project will encompass collaborative programming, including joint shows and radiophonic contributions created by each radio especially for this live broadcast on FM and online. The session will culminate in a panel talk about the issue of community radios, hosted by musicologist and community radio expert Ieva Gudaiyte.

Listen live on December 9, 2022, from 4pm CET on individual radio websites and on FM 88.4 Berin 90.7 Potsdam.

Here you can hear all of the resulting radio programmes, including the panel talk on community radios.

Participating radios:

𝟐𝟎𝐟𝐭 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 - https://20ftradio.net/ 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 - https://cashmereradio.com/ 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 - https://www.instagram.com/i_c_r_n/ 𝐋𝐚𝐡𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐮𝐧 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨- https://lahmacun.hu/ 𝐌𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 - https://mutantradio.net/ 𝐆𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 - https://gasolineradio.com/ 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 𝐊𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 - https://radiokapital.pl/ 𝐑𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐨 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨 - https://radioplato.by/

Funded by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa

Easterndaze x Berlin 2021 - Community Radio special Archive

Community radios from Central and Eastern Europe connected through the Easterndaze Berlin platform. Easterndaze Berlin On Air facilitated conversation and exchange between diverse voices which you can follow both locally and all over the world. Joining the project were Radio Kapital from Warsaw, Lahmacun Radio from Budapest, IDA Radio from Tallinn/Helsinki and Cashmere Radio from Berlin. Showmakers and musicians contributed to a week of collaborative broadcasting practices, creating and developing new collective experiments in radiophonic formats. Easterndaze Berlin On Air took place from April 19th to April 23rd.

You can listen to the whole archive here. Screenshot: Natalie Mets

From March to September 2021

As the world is unraveling this past year, cultural events in physical space remain postponed indefinitely. Most of these happenings have shifted online with artists and audiences atomized across the world, connecting via 0s and 1s. With Easterndaze x Berlin, the connection between communities and collectives will be symbolic - it will not happen physically per se, nor via online streams or virtual get-togethers. The collaborations will take place in the form of a compilation and zine, a video installation, a week-long community radio marathon, and a presentation of historical and contemporary music videos.

"An Embrace" is a collaborative project between the Bulgarian experimental music collective Amek and the German music label Vaagner. “An Embrace” is a mutual undertaking which aims to create a bridge between two communities from different cultural environments in Eastern and Western Europe, by pairing artists from the respective regions into four duos. The final results will be compiled and presented as a joint release of Amek and Vaagner, comprising both a limited edition cassette tape, and an accompanying riso-printed zine - formats that have been the key element of DIY labels and initiatives for many decades. The zine will offer further insight into the creative process of the release, including interviews with the artists and information about the activities of the labels involved.

The Double is an immersive installation by Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus (Hydrangea), presented by Subtext Recordings. The Double is part of a fictitious quantum entangled network of European colonial gardens with which the artist duo is engaging. In The Double, botanical spaces are problematised, as sites of camouflaged violence, of appropriation and deletion. This iteration of the work takes place on the twin islands of Bärenzwinger, formerly used to cage captive city bears, and engages with the history of Köllnischer Park, once owned by the Freemason lodge. The Double will be presented to limited audiences as listening sessions on the evenings of 10, 11, 12 September 2021. Community radios from Central and Eastern Europe will connect through the Easterndaze x Berlin platform in an effort to encourage collaboration between these DIY mediums which play a crucial role in their respective artistic and community milieus (being implicitly political, especially in Poland and Hungary). The project’s participants are these community radios from Central or Eastern Europe: Radio Kapital from Warsaw, Lahmacun Radio from Budapest and IDA Radio from Tallinn/Helsinki, hosted by Berlin's Cashmere Radio. The project will encompass a week-long collaborative programming (including swapping shows and moderators - ie. a Cashmere Radio show would be moderated and presented - in a way remixed, or recontextualised - on Lahmacun by their own moderators, etc). The week will culminate in a live broadcasting session and a panel talk about the issue of community radios on Friday, 23 April.

A selection of current and past music videos from the CEE region will be shown at Zönotéka in Berlin's Neukölln, a collaboration with the Klipzona project, an archive of audiovisual music from Central and Eastern Europe, from the 1960s to the present.

Design: Elod Janky: http://elodjanky.com/ More information: https://berlin.easterndaze.net/

ABOUT EASTERNDAZE X BERLIN

Easterndaze x Berlin first took place in 2016 as a music festival and film series geared to present music from Eastern European DIY music scenes in Berlin, where music from Eastern European countries is underrepresented despite the city’s proximity to Central and Eastern Europe, drawing on the Easterndaze project which aims to inform about underground music of the CEE region. Other key aims were the facilitation of cooperation and networking of these scenes and contributing in a small way to changing the exoticizing discourse often still rooted in Cold War clichés.

Two further editions took place in 2018 and 2019, also facilitating such collaborative works as the split tape of Exiles, Technologie + das Unheimliche and Total Black imprints.

Easterndaze x Berlin in videos

The 3rd edition of our Berlin encounters brought together collectives, thinkers, ideas and people from avantgarde digital sonics of Conditional vs Serious Serious, to manele vs Brazilian performance courtesy of Paradaiz and Voodoohop to art to techno/electro/acid from Forbidden Planet and Mechta, to talks about the relevance of notions of East and West nowadays, the precariousness of cultural endeavours and necessity to be active and try to change existing societies in the face of adversity (rising rightwing, nationalism, xenophobia, lack of resources, etc). Here are some of the moments.

Easterndaze x Berlin 2019 presents KAJET Journal panel talk & D'EST videoteka

On Saturday the accompanying talk curated by Kajet Journal is held at the exhibition and space of ZÖNOTÉKA in Neukölln, and takes up central topics on the theme “Subcultural Peripheries: Remapping the East”. Event takes place on Saturday from 4pm, Facebook event here. 

The cultural spaces of Europe have continued to be divided even long after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Despite the benefits of globalisation, increased mobility, and widespread access to technology and foreign cultures, Eastern Europe is still seen as lagging behind and non-progressive.

Within this circuit of transactions, there is a sharp contrast between what happens intellectually, artistically, and culturally in Eastern Europe and how these ideas are disseminated within a Western sphere of action. Regardless of this, Eastern Europe has blossoming local scenes that manage to translate their marginal condition into artistic practices, and this topography of pain into powerful pockets of creativity.

This talk seeks to explore what happens beyond the core and the normative centre. By tackling the existing master narratives, can an emphasis placed on marginality and periphery give way to the possibility to create a community of struggle across borders? How can subcultural forms of artistic expression create a framework of transnational (Eastern European) solidarity? With panelists:

Alexander Pehlemann - journalist, curator, organizer. Since 1993 he is editor and publisher of Zonic Magazine, an holds a special interest in Eastern European subcultures. He is the DJ-selector for Al-Haca Sound System, and writes for regional and national music magazines. He also produces the Zonic Radio Show. He's curated numerous exhibitions and compilations focused on Eastern European underground culture. 

Artjom Astrov (musician, multimedia artist and founder of the Serious Serious collective). 

Ira Merzlichin (member of the Paradaiz collective, an organization whose main goals are the exploration, mediation and support of inter-cultural exchanges as engines of preserving cultural diversity and creating tolerance between what is considered minority and majority, peripheral and central.

Anita Jóri - a research associate at Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin). Her research and publications focus on electronic (dance) music cultures and their diversity and gender issues. She’s just finished editing two upcoming volumes at Springer Publishing: Music & Empowerment and The “New“ Age of Electronic Dance Music and Club Cultures. Since 2018 Anita is also a chairperson of the German Association for Music Business and Music Culture Research (GMM). She’s part of the curatorial team of CTM Festival's discourse program

At the same venue a selection of related video art curated by the D’EST will be on view. D’EST: A Multi-Curatorial Online Platform for Video Art from the Former ‘East’ and ‘West’ is a project initiated by Ulrike Gerhardt with DISTRICT Berlin.  D'EST is a Berlin- based online audiovisual platform that reflects the post-socialist transformation along post- geographic, horizontal, and feminist focus topics.  

The event is on donation base - all proceeds will be donated to GSBTB - Open Music School *

Dominik Wojciechowski in the second issue of Kajet Journal, project: Svijet

Easterndaze x 2019 presents Voodoohop

The Brasil-Berlin cultural underground activists collective Voodoohop pioneered the new Latin American downtempo sound. Though it was started in Sao Paulo, Brazil, their party series has since expanded to a Berlin outpost with events appearing regularly around town at different venues creating a multi sensory tropical cabaret. Mixing Brazilian traditional heritage mix with ritualistic performance, the collective transforms spaces from abandoned buildings to natural hideaways.

Voodohop is joined by Bucharest's Pardaiz on 29/11 at Arkaoda - FB event here. 

TINA SCARLATINA (live)

Based in Berlin, Paulete aka Tina Scarlatina, is a trans-multidisciplinary artist who transits between photography, video, edition, graphic design, painting and performing creation. Researching the possible meanings of trans-boarding, crossing from virtual and material productions and trans-gender identity themes. Being an immigrant and for that compulsively creating strategy of how to break barriers. In the performance and visual fields creation along the years of bringing experimentalism, political acts about relationships to the encounter of entertainment. 

KUPALUA (live)  Kupalua is always in transit. There’s no trace of morals or frontier. It’s simultaneously extra-terrestrial and earthly-physical-corporeal. Travels from the interior of the pussy to outer space in the speed of light. There’s no separation between nature-culture or body-cosmos. What is root and what is synthetic. Rooster, frog, rain, melodic voice, synthesizers, microphones and processors. The body’s construction as prosthetics and light depict the sonorous landscape. Laser prothesis are making contact with us and with outer-space while every matter flows through timbers that leaves us given over to estrangement. I don’t know where I am when I listen/see Kupalua, if I’m under water or if I’m suspended, weightless, timeless, without story, without clothes. It’s a journey completely inside of sound waves. by Julia Rocha URUBU MARINKA (dj set)

Born and raised on the core of on the Brazilian African culture, Urubu learned early flapping her wings in rhythm. Before meeting the machines she met the drum skina persona that grew within Voodoohop parties and journeys. From that to a big digging into psychedelic metling with the Brazilian most folklore sounds, loads of vibrating skins, wooden samples and oscillators. Since then, she has frequently travelled and performed in many countries and also through many cities around Brasil, developing each time a broader and diverse exploration of all corners of the music spectrum.

CAROLINE BARRUECO (visual installation)

Digital artist & tech geek. At Voodohop, Caroline makes visual installations and set design.

Easterndaze x Berlin 2019 presents Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet is a label, radio show and party started in Montreal, Canada. They operate partly from Berlin, and their sound pays homage to the subterranean basements of the German capital (especially in its more underground, 90s semblance). From the likes of The Mover (legendary hardcore producer Marc Acardipane to Finnish maverick Mono Junk). On Saturday, 30 November (FB event) the label has curated these artists to play alongside Minsk's Mechta collective at the legendary Tresor club in Berlin: 

MONO JUNK

known for being one of the first Finnish electronic producers to acknowledge the Detroit and Chicago lineages in his compositions.

MAS569

Matías Contreras aka Mas569 is a Chilean musician, producer and profesional sound engineer focused in the electronic music. He is founder in Cazeria Cazador Records.

YANLING

The Hong Kong native emerged in Zurich Berlin‘s leftfield dance scene pushing a bass heavy sound inspired by early grime and rave at a time when that mix of sounds had few admirers. She mixes cyber techno sets with dazzling incursions of electro and breakbeat.

Easterndaze x Berlin 2019 presents Bucharest's Paradaiz

PARADAIZ TAPE MAȘINA is a DJ duo based in Bucharest that exclusively plays original hand-picked muzică de petrecere and early Manele cassettes. Manele is a musical genre from the Balkans, also described as contemporary Romani wedding music. Its linguistic origin dates back to the Ottoman Emipire and has been evolved in the 80’s and 90’s with bands replacing instruments with electric guitars and syntesizers to absorb influences from pop and oriental to folk and electronic music.

Producer and DJ Matteo Islandezu fell in love with Manele in his early teens and loves to bring forgotten vibes of past times, mending classic sounds and mentality with modern techniques in an attempt to bring something new. Joined by his sister Lena, the shy choir singer with a thuggish attitude, this duo shows promise and they’ll give their all on stage.

As a collective acting in the area of peripheral subcultures in Romania, PARADAIZ accesses the music produced by them as exploration and support of inter-cultural exchanges as engines of preserving cultural diversity and bridging what is considered minority and majority, peripheral and central. "It’s bizarre to think it was easier for Florin Salam, the new king of the genre, to appear on BBC Radio 1 than to be on any mainstream radio or TV station in Romania. There is an active resistance and stigma applied to this music that cannot be dissociated from racism in Romanian society against Romani people," said Paul Breazu, one of Paradaiz co-founders in an interview. 

Hear their new Cashmere Radio mix below: 

Easterndaze x Berlin 2019 presents Conditional

Conditional is a record label dedicated to forward-facing electronic and computer music, established in 2015 by Calum Gunn and based in Berlin, Germany. Releases are primarily disseminated on cassette tapes, but have included vinyl, CDs, lanyard, t-shirts, video games and posters. A monthly two-hour radio broadcast airs on Resonance EXTRA.

The Conditional label showcase will take place on Thursday, 28 November at ACUD in Berlin, alongside Tallinn's Serious Serious. 

Steph Horak & Renick Bell

Steph Horak and Renick Bell first played together live in Bristol on 26th November 2016. Whilst their means of production may be different, the methodology of improvised, realtime composition on self-programmed systems is what unites these artists.

The pair have developed a fluid sound that marries the ideas of error and chance, all whilst delivering danceable extended sets with uncanny references to modern forms of electronic club music, with a live vocals PA. Horak notes her interest and surprise in understanding where the line between person and machine is in these systems, often noticing that moments of pure and accidental synchronicity occur when she is least in control of her system, and wondering if she is responding to Renick in that moment, or the things Renick commanded his system to do several moments earlier.

Jennifer Walton

Jennifer Walton’s recent 'White Nurse' EP on Mutualism channels their frustrations as a fan of Power Electronics, a genre constantly flirting with fascist imagery. The EP instead proposes a more constructive and critical aesthetic, pointing towards the Xenofeminist manifesto as a collection of ideas allowing for transcendence of the current state of gender and body politics that is often tied down in ideas of what is 'natural' and therefore 'right'.

WHITE NURSE by Jennifer Walton

Daniel Katinsky

Glasgow, Scotland’s Daniel Katinsky exhibits a startlingly unique new voice with complete mastery of their tools. Staccato bursts of precisely-modulated synth solidify with chemtrail delay lines and pinpoint percussion laid down using generative and chance-based software to form a captivating whole. Recent releases on Conditional and New York Haunted are testament to Katinsky’s singular sound.

Digital Concrete by Daniel Katinsky

Easterndaze x Berlin 2019 presents Tallin’s Serious Serious

Serious Serious is a label/collective based between Vienna and Tallinn. Their roster varies from cut’n’paste maestro Ratkiller, to existential beatmaker Benzokai and several artists from the Tallinn underground. They will present three artists from their roster at our Easterndaze x Berlin event on 28 November at ACUD Macht Neu (Ratkiller, Benzokai and Kisling).

RATKILLER

The sense of worn-out psychedelia in Ratkiller’s music as well as his obsessions with all kinds of obscurities might ring many bells in listener’s imagination, but it is foremost the playful dialogue between “zeitgeist” and “obsolete”, the constant shifting of forms and their meanings, that leaves us wonder – how does something so unimportant and unsexy ends up being so stimulating and cool? Mihkel Kleis (aka Ratkiller, Edasi, and most recently Court Rat) has been releasing music under numerous underground labels since late 90’s, witnessing and shaping the forming of Estonian experimental music scene, all of this while maintaining his distinctive and somewhat obviously unexpected approach. ratkiller.bandcamp.com

KISLING Kisling is a regular at Vienna’s underground music gatherings thanks to the brave experimentatorship and intensity contained in her sets. Kisling's compositions often transcend logic of a certain style or genre –– like fashion, they combine parallels that are not easily imaginable. kisling.bandcamp.com

BENZOKAI

Benzokai’s way is that of drum, bass and unfriendly rapping.   soundcloud.com/rinla

Listen to their Cashmere Radio mix on our monthly show with tracks from Lolina, Kisling, Jacob Samuel and others!

Resident Advisor events:

Easterndaze x Berlin 2019

THIRD EDITION OF FESTIVAL CONTINUES TO PAIR ELECTRONIC MUSIC COLLECTIVES OF EASTERN EUROPE + BERLIN TO CELEBRATE DIY ARTS & COMMUNAL ETHOS 

28-30 November 2019 Various venues in Berlin Tickets for each event can be purchased directly at the door. The Easterndaze x Berlin festival once again invites artists, actors and activists from the electronic music scene of Eastern Europe to Berlin, pairing them with locally-based labels/collectives for live performances, DJ sets and talks. Established in 2010, the blog Easterndaze (easterndaze.net) has explored and mapped local DIY scenes operating in Eastern and Central Europe. Founders Lucia Udvardyova and Peter Gonda travelled across the region to record interviews and collect perspectives on how contemporary artists and independent music-related initiatives operate in the region and its socio-political context. The initial result was a series of audio documentaries which then expanded to: a label (Baba Vanga); a networking initiative; radio shows (Resonance FM, Czech Radio, Berlin’s Cashmere Radio); and finally, events around the region, as well as the festival’s first two editions in Berlin (2016, 2018). As the fascination with and discourse around contemporary Eastern European culture gradually enters the mainstream, Easterndaze remains one of the pillars of these investigations nearly a decade strong. PROGRAM EASTERNDAZE × BERLIN 2019: DIY MUSIC TOPOGRAPHIES CONCERTS Thursday 28/11 - Conditional (Berlin) x Serious Serious (Tallinn) Venue: ACUD - Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin-Mitte Line up:

Steph Horak & Renick Bell (live) Jennifer Walton (live) Daniel Katinsky (live) Ratkiller (live) Benzokai (live) Kisling (live) Friday 29/11 - Voodoohop (Berlin/Sao Paulo) x Paradaiz (Bucharest) Venue: Arkaoda - Karl-Marx-Platz 16-18, 12043 Berlin- Neukölln Line up: Paradaiz Tape Mașina (DJ) Tina Scarlatina (live) Matteo Islandezu feat Lena (live) *secret guest* Urubu Marinka (dj set) Caroline Barrueco (visual installation) Saturday 30/11 - Forbidden Planet (Berlin/Montreal) x Мechta (Minsk) Venue: +4 Bar/Tresor - Köpenicker Str. 70, 10179 Berlin Line up: Mono Junk (live) Mas569 (live) Yanling (DJ) Elena Sizova (DJ) Morgotika (DJ) SDS (DJ) TALKS Saturday 30/11 Venue: ZÖNOTÉKA – Hobrechtstrasse 54., 12047 Berlin-Neukölln // Kajet Journal presents: “SUBCULTURAL PERIPHERIES: RE-MAPPING THE EAST” // D’EST presents: Videoteka with music-related video art by female and non-binary artists Partners: Cashmere Radio, KAJET Journal, D'EST, Exberliner, Crack Magazine, Kaput Magazine and Berlin Art Link. Curated by Lucia Udvardyova, produced by Natalie Gravenor, graphic design by Marijn Degenaar. Funded by Musicboard Berlin, supported by Estonian Embassy in Berlin RA event: https://www.residentadvisor.net/events/1331242

Cranky Bow: Why Your Aikido Will Fail On The Street

Cranky bow is the psychedelic step-son of Gábor Kovács. A weird and often absurd collage-project that deals with the forgotten members of the audio-spectrum. Samples, drones and noises that belong to the junkyard of a well-balanced life. Just take a look at the table, it's Cher's face on a slice of toast and arsenic in the coffee.

Listen to the new record, out via Cold Moss, below:

Why Your Aikido Will Fail On The Street by Cranky Bow

Easterndaze x Berlin: Hear the new Total Black, EXILES and T+U compilation!

The compilation was inspired by the concept and initiative of Easterndaze festival as for collective collaboration bringing together three different art projects but similar mindsets, geographically, virtually and symbolically. Formed in Montreal, 2012, Total Black is a record label presently based in Berlin releasing noise, industrial, power electronics, and experimental music. Frequently organizing events with disparate but complimentary sounds, showcasing artists and associates of the label from across the world. EXILES is a Budapest-based experimental techno label T+U (Technologie und das Unheimliche) is a Berlin-Budapest-Elsewhere based publishing project and cross-disciplinary movement. T+U aims to circuit the cultural phenomena resulting from the confrontation between the conditio humana and technology by thematic issues and related projects. Regarding to this mission, T+U mediates between cultural technologies within the context of post-digitality and tries to contaminate para-academic thinking with artistic tactics.

The result of this collective brainstorming materialized in a compilation consisting six tracks of unreleased and exclusive materials from the artists and musicians performing at the festival. Released digitally on Bandcamp and on limited tape records of 50 copies.

Easterndaze x Berlin: Total Black x EXILES x T+U by Easterndaze

1. nullius in verba feat. Lynette Cerezo (Bestial Mouths) - I Saw Death - Special collaboration between Lynette Cerezo, vocalist of darkwave, goth synth band Bestial Mouths and nullius in verba aka Balazs Kepli, sound engineer and music editor of Technologie und das Unheimliche collective. Epic layers of drone produced by nullius in verba overdubbed with Lynette Cerezo's ritual chanting about the depths and cycle of life: "I know nothing but I know death." 2. Purgate & Entertainment - Container - Long time Canadian friends living in Berlin joined forces for sonic experiments where heavyweight dark ambient soundscapes meet powerful rhythmic noise. Purgate is a new solo project of Frederic Arbour, founder of the legendary dark ambient label Cyclic Law, debuting his live show at Easterndaze x Berlin festival 2018. Entertainment is the alter ego of Brett Wagg, founder of power noise tape label Total Black also debuting his live show with his duo project Jesuve. 3. FOR. - Neo Hidraero - FOR. is the duo of Abris Gryllus and Miklos Farkas releasing records on Budapest labels Farbwechsel and Exiles. Their music is an investigation of the "abyss between distorted industrial soundscapes and heavy-weight techno beats". They are preparing a new live show for their Berlin debut. 4. Oil Thief - Victoria - Oil Thief provided an unreleased track and he is playing new material off his forthcoming new album. The LA based veteran of industrial, techno and power electronics is on Eastern European tour with Jesuve. 5. Fausto Mercier - Daze - Exiles affiliated Hungarian sound designer and producer compresses bass heavy beats with industrial noises to create a massive catharsis of sonic attacks. 6. TELEϟPORT - léc - Infamous destroyer and modular synth punk Péter Márton aka Prell is founder of the Budapest-based free-tekno collective Davoria. His hardcore harsh noise recall the 90's rave explosions with a fresh eastern blast. 

Easterndaze x Berlin 2018

FESTIVAL SHOWCASES COLLECTIVES OF EASTERN EUROPE + BERLIN SECOND EDITION FROM NOV 28 - DEC 1 2018 AT VARIOUS VENUES

Beyond folklore clichés and Cold War discourse, below the radar of the tastemaking music press, DIY, alternative, independent music scenes are thriving in Central and Eastern Europe. Since 2010, Easterndaze has explored and mapped local DIY scenes operating in a digital realm, introducing the creative personalities and collectives behind them to provide context.

The concert & flm screening series Easterndaze × Berlin: DIY Music Topographies (curated by Lucia Udvardyova and produced by Natalie Gravenor) follows up on the frst edition in 2016, by presenting music collectives from Eastern Europe, pairing each of them with groups from Berlin’s diverse DIY scenes in the name of collective spirit and communal effort.

The concert series takes place at several important Berlin arts and music venues. The festival exemplifes a decentralized curatorial model—the lineup of individual each event is curated by the collectives themselves.

Audiovisual sister duo WIDT (Antonina Nowacka and Bogumila Piotrowska) from Warsaw and legendary Berlin-based producer Christoph de Babalon rejoin forces after their commissioned work for the 2016 edition of the festival, presenting their new, mutual album and project TEYAS. The labels T&U (Budapest), Exiles (Budapest) and Total Black (Berlin) will release a joint cassette compilation on the occasion of the festival, entitled “Easterndaze x Berlin: Total Black x Exiles & T+U” reflecting the aesthetics and philosophies of their individual platforms.

The accompanying flm program will be presented at Soundwatch Music Film Festival Berlin (soundwatch.de) Nov 7 - 16 at Lichtblick-Kino.

Easterndaze × Berlin is funded by Musicboard Berlin. 

Nov 28 2018. Land3C, WIDT x Christoph de Babalon present TEYAS at Panke, Gerichstr 23, 13347. 20:00. Free Entry.

Nov 29 2018. Room 4 Resistance x Intruder Alert with DJ OCCULT, Gigsta, Luz, ASTMA (live), B.YHZZ (live), KRY and interior design by NehoTigra at OHM, Köpenicker Str. 70, 10179. 23:00. 8€.

Nov 30 2018. Total Black x T+U & Exiles with Oil Thief (live), Ciarra Black, Entertainment, FOR. (live) (Farbwechsel / Exiles), Nullius in Verba, Purgate (live), Zanias (Candela Rising / Fleisch) b2b Luna Vassarotti (Instruments of Discipline), Alley Catss (live), Fausto Mercier (live), Juhász Tamás (live), ooo & MA’AM (live), TELEϟPORT (live) at Urban Spree, Revaler Str. 99, 10245. 21:00. 8€.

Dec 1 2018. Care/Of Editions x Muscut with Adam Asnan (live) — record release, ST/NE (live) — record release Mike Kitcher (dj), Who Cares (dj), at arkaoda berlin, 16-18 Karl-Marx-Platz, 12043. 20:00. 8€.

PARTICIPATING LABELS/COLLECTIVES/CULTURAL ACTIVISTS

Land 3C Present their audiovisual project which fctionalizes the topography between the Baltics and the Balkans.

WIDT (Warsaw) + Christoph de Babalon (Berlin) Audiovisual sister duo WIDT (Antonina Nowacka and Bogumila Piotrowska) from Warsaw and legendary Berlin-based producer Christoph de Babalon rejoin forces after their commissioned work for the 2016 edition of the festival, presenting their new, mutual album and project TEYAS.

Room 4 Resistance (Berlin) ROOM 4 RESISTANCE is a Berlin-based queer femme / non-binary forward collective focused on community-building and creating safer space & visibility for underrepresented artists in dance music. R4R runs parties at ://about blank, curates panels & workshops to promote women, gender queers, non-binaries, trans, black and POC artists – to explore the political dimensions of the dance floor, and create bridges between different communities.

Intruder Alert (Warsaw) Intruder Alert is a Warsaw-based music label / series of events navigating the murky waters of “post-club” music, referencing rave, acid, techno, “global” ambient and various mutations of DAW-driven bass music.

Total Black (Berlin) Total Black is a record label presently based in Berlin releasing noise, industrial, power electronics, and experimental music that is frequently organizing events with disparate but complimentary sounds, showcasing artists and associates of the label from across the world. Formed in Montreal, 2012.

T+U (Budapest) T+U (Technologie und das Unheimliche) is a Berlin-Budapest-Elsewhere based publishing project and cross-disciplinary movement. T+U aims to circuit the cultural phenomena resulting from the confrontation between the conditio humana and technology by thematic issues and related projects. Regarding to this mission, T+U mediates between cultural technologies within the context of post-digitality and tries to contaminate para-academic thinking with artistic tactics.

EXILES (Budapest) Budapest-based electronic label featuring all shades of experimental and forward-thinking techno.

Care of Editions (Berlin) Founded in 2013, Care Of Editions produces concerts, festivals, and recordings that bring together the worlds of popular and experimental music. In addition to producing music, Care Of Editions develops new and creative ways of distributing this music online.

Muscut (Kiev) Muscút (Ukrainian: Мускáт, pronounced [Muskát]) is an international label founded by Dmytro Nikolaienko in 2012, that explores sounds of hauntological research, musique concréte and library music.

John Object’s Heat EP is a difficult pleasure.

Timur Dzhafarov aka John Object is a producer based in Kiev, Ukraine. We met & interviewed him in autumn 2017, while waiting for a gig in Kiev's Plivka. He recently released his debut EP Heat on the Ukrainian label Bio Future Laboratory. Heat sounds like a frenetic rebirth of IDM (even though Timur refuses to identify with the genre and instead proposes the term “pop musique concrete’) mixed with a tint of breakcore composed of rapid-fire dust of samples (in the vein of Xanopticon's seminal release Liminal). Some tracks of the EP, such as "Bellwether" use sounds of vomiting juxtaposed with strings specially composed for the EP, while others, like the immensely catchy tune "Drake/Future" feature infectious hooks on top of complex polyrythmic structures composed of myriad of sonic shards.

Can you describe how you came to produce music as John Object ?

As a teenager I used to be into minimal wave and synthpop music. It was the best I could do at an emo/goth phase, being the nerd I was. Later I transitioned to ambient – mostly through Brian Eno, and then I discovered the modern experimental electronic scene, which kind of blew me away. To learn production early on I kept trying to make cover versions of the songs I liked, mostly Kraftwerk, and that was my main thing for the last couple of years at high school. I was just doing it obsessively before I even had any music of my own, and in fact, Kraftwerk are such a great skill test that I still do it sometimes – I’ve been trying to recreate the bass from "The Robots" once a year for the past eight & I only nailed it this year! 

These days I can only hope I’m doing something experimental. I’ve had this idea for a long time of attempting to develop a new musical language, for lack of a better word, to update and replace the staples of modern electronic production and hoping that it circumstantially affects pop music as well. I don’t get and I've never been able to enjoy a huge amount of modern dance music, which is really based on tradition started by people who are all deaf or dead now, using sounds from instruments which are no longer made, and mimicking limitations of gear which no one uses anymore. It would seem a good place to start in the search for “newness” now is to look for the true limitations of digital gear/the DAW, and to embrace the true limitations again. It really feels like you could do everything, but everyone settles on just doing something. I truly do believe in a DAW there are ways to get more emotional tools out of a sound other than just timbre, pitch, volume and rhythm, even by simply playing things out of tune and off beat, which can give the sound, if done right, a certain “hysterical” quality that feels right for me right now.  

Can you be more specific about how you search for the limits of digital gear ?

A good start is to look at the parameters you wouldn’t change, like BPM, time signature or global pitch. I think changing those often lends an unusual feeling of fluidity to tracks. Many of my tracks speed up and slow down all the time, then go off tempo at times. It’s also a good practice to try and make your sounds untraceable to instruments or plug-ins, because knowing or at least having a vague idea of how the sound was made can really fuck with the magic, maybe more for other producers than listeners, but isn’t everyone a producer these days anyway? I’ve been experimenting with blurring things lately, melting everything into one big mass of sound instead of a bunch of sounds playing over each other, which is really just so boring now, isn’t it? That might explain why I feel nothing from most of club or techno music at local parties. I have no emotional response.

Are you trying to elicit some kind of non-standard emotions in your listeners ?

I suppose I am trying to elicit emotions that are not really caused by music, especially electronic, yes. Some of my pieces I would consider torch songs or ballads, and if I could sing I definitely would. Sometimes I try to go the other way around, my work can get pretty disgusting/gnarly, purposefully so. There are certain things and topics which are now off limits for electronic dance music, and I think it would do a lot of good for all of us to fuck with the tyranny of being made to feel “cool” at the club, honestly.

Can you describe your music-making process, and are you using software or hardware ?

I have to admit, I have 4 keyboards right now, and they are all for sale, I haven’t used them in my music in years. Easy mistake to make, starting out I got obsessed with gear pretty quick, I’d stay up all night watching synth demos online. It seems so obvious now that a computer, any computer, is the way to go – the limitations are unimaginable and the music gets so wonderfully extreme when you finally begin to approach them. I’m so glad I never got around to getting a modular, I’d be using it as a chair at this point. And there is something perversely masturbatory in a big modular synth all plugged in and playing itself/with itself, no?

How does all of this relate to pop ?

My goal really used to be to get to produce someone like Beyoncé or Kanye, but it seems I’m a bit over that now. Pop does seem like the ultimate, unachievable dream for someone considered an experimental musician, the perfect platform to prove you had good ideas all along, and if you could only get those ideas on a big enough record, you could change the norm – when a new Beyoncé record comes out, it really affects everyone. But I’d probably settle for any mention or influence on a record like that, that would probably be enough of an ego trip. If we view pop music for what it is, the amalgamation of cultural baggage of civilization, everything we ever came up with, in three minutes, it would seem incredible to get yourself in there somehow as well – I mean, if you play a single note on a Beyoncé record, you’re immortal, you now exist forever, as long as we all do. Which, of course, might not be that much longer.

I think pop music is interesting also from a neurological standpoint. Imagine future pop that is not composed but “designed” to cause the highest dopamine rush.

Yeah, definitely, the goal of pop is to please you as much as possible by any means necessary. I’d love to throw in something disgusting in there as well, I’d love to see what that does to someone. I imagine there would be a market for these so-called difficult pleasures as well, something that’s both powerfully attractive and quite repulsive, similarly to how some people enjoy harsh noise, some enjoy listening to tapes, and most of us, probably, avoid most pop because it’s just “too easy”.

Can you briefly speak about your new release ?

Most of the EP was born either out of pure sonic experimentation or out of necessity – "Bellwether" was feverishly written for my gig at the Brave! Factory festival in 2017, and "Cum/Blood" was an attempt at recreating the melancholy of throwing up at a club as a Cxema set opener. The rest were exercises in preparation for the recording of what I expected to be my actual debut EP, which will now have to follow Heat. Over the course of the recording I realized that “a club night gone wrong” became the narrative of the EP, perhaps, starting at track two, "Steroid Bath", and looping all the way back to track one, "Cum/Blood" as the finale, with its subdued coda hopefully capturing an experience of falling asleep in an irregular state of mind.

I hear a lot of strings on the tracks, are they composed for the EP or sampled ?

Yes, all the string parts were written by me for the EP. My laptop couldn’t really handle me writing string parts within the original tracks’ projects, so I’d often spend days just working on the strings separately, which felt like a guilty pleasure – I’m no good at writing proper melodic parts, but with strings often it is deceptively easy to make things sound really pretty – so I played around with them for a while.

Also I hear a lot of breathing on the EP..

The breathing goes back to the idea of recreating an experience of a bad club night, once again – you may have noticed none of the music on the record is particularly “club” in and of itself, but a lot of it utilizes hyperreal equivalents of the physical sounds of clubbing – heavy breathing, feet stomping, throwing up, coughing and liquids being poured. If sweating had a sound, I’d use that, too. While working I was also under the experience the breathing could also serve as an instrument to disrupt the listener’s perception of the loudness of the music – hearing a really quiet sound such as a person breathing next to your ear, mixed in with grenade explosions and gabber kicks seemed to point out the absurdity of the combination of violence and intimacy expected of a perfect club night.

Easterndaze #5 on Cashmere Radio with Notes From the Underground

Our fifth show on Cashmere Radio with guests: curator, DJ, author and all around expert when it comes to “Ostblock” music Alexander Pehlemann and The Wire magazine editor-in-chief Chris Bohn. Focused on a new compilation called Unearthing The Music Presents Notes from the Underground, an anthology of underground music made in Eastern Europe before 1989. Chris recollects his trips to Budapest and Prague in the early 1980s and the music he encountered there, Alex talks about growing up in a “system” family and developing his interest in subterranean sounds. With exclusive preview of the vinyl double album.