Straight out of the gloomy industrial city of Galati arises another bassline soldier with a mission to spread low frequency love to the world. A little bit of grime, a little bit of dub and definitely much love coming from the one called Pake who serves us his own productions in this treat of a mix that doesn’t trick. We’ve been chewing on this one for almost a week and we realised it’s time to do a proper introduction.
Pake’s been flirting with sick basslines for more than 3 years and delivered us – alongside LMK the Blaze a Lot EP last year in April and he’s also done a remix for Mesmer’s “Fine Wide Spread” (Scarcity Records). In the meantime he’s been busy making tunes and playing constantly in his home town with the infamous Galaxi Crew.
We’re giving away as free download his take on Hiten & Hazee’s Let Me Tell Ya, one of the first releases in our catalogue.
Mofo has been building a good reputation in the past two years as a drumandbass dj by playing some epic sunrise sets at big events like Summer Break Festival and Solid Like Rock (Brasov). He’s pushing a deep and dancefloor oriented mix between neurotech and sexy liquid that got him bookings at parties in Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj Napoca and of course his hometown – Deva where he is a regular infamous entertainer.
The Steps EP marks his recent taking on production. Although he still has a long way ahead to develop his sound there are definitely some good ideas and good vibes inside. A certain minimalistic direction in the veins of SpectraSoul, Lynx or Instra:Mental is obvious, you know what to expect – simple dubbed out breaks, nice atmos and some trippy voice samples. If there’s a favourite to pick “This Is It” does it for us.
As a side note, it’s really exciting to see how many people started producing in the past year in Romania and it can only get better. Besides Dan Habarnam, BAU, Deevision, Alien Pimp and Shull there is not too much home-brewed drumandbass that’s worth mentioning.
Romania is buzzin’ musically more than ever and this is a testament of a fresh, good and minimal selection. Suie Paparude, Cosmin TRG, Alien Pimp, The Model and Makunouchi Bento are among the chosen ones that contributed to this compilation released by one of the leading Romanian music blogs called Freshgoodminimal. This is also the first local music compilation released under Creative Commons license. It has a run of 1000 physical copies and the digital pack contains 7 extra tracks. All the songs can (and should!) be shared and downloaded from the net for noncommercial use and part of them can be sampled and remixed.
The purpose of the CDs is to promote the artists and the digital compilation which will be distributed to labels, promoters and other artists form Romania and abroad. If you want a goodie pack – get in touch with the guilty parties and prove you’re worthy!
We thought it’s a good way to promote our artists by giving away some free downloads each month with unreleased tunes. This month belongs to Readymate who’s dropping a pair of his broken beat productions straight out of his sound-lab in Sibiu.
Feel free to play, share and give us some feedback!
Makunouchi Bento is featured on this aptly named ‘petite & jolie’ compilation which is a free download released by the netlabel with the same name.
In case you’re not familiar with Makunouchi Bento (TM Base, Timisoara), get to know:
“The Makunouchi Bento, or traditional japanese lunchbox, is a highly lacquered wooden box divided into quadrants, each of which contains different delicacies. It is also one of the most familiar images of Japan’s domestic environment. Reading the box as both an object and a metaphor, Felix Petrescu (Waka X) and Valentin Toma (Qewza) founded this experimental / electronica project back in 2001.”
And here’s what the compilation is all about. Well said, we can’t agree more:
“Here are presents from all over the world, delicatley crafted, uploaded and delivered to you as to celebrate a moment of joy, happiness and sharing. A moment of calm indeed. Even a moment of impatience… the impatience of a kid, waiting for his presents, trying to make a clever guess about the different presents he’ll receive. Remember? We do.
From both sides of Petite & Jolie, everybody has been busy under the tree. Musicians and drawers, both working on nice presents. No real goals, no concepts. Only the pleasure of pleasing.
Some musicians decided to share some private unreleased works, others decided to start from scratches a new tune while illustrators worked on cute covers for you to choose.
The results goes beyond expectations as with any new releases on petite & jolie, we finally broaden our spectrum of genres and colours for your pleasure only and we know you like this a lot.
So here come the best moment of the party, where you jump at the tree and finally discover the glowing packages and try to spot your name carefully written on them. Well, today, obviously, everybody will get a gift from Petite & Jolie even if you’ve been bad during this year. Let’s say it’s our way to thank you all for enjoying and following us.
A big thank you to all the following people who contributed.”
soundtracker.ro is the most comprehensive directory for mixes/radio shows made by Romanian djs/producers. Its servers are already cramming up several gigabytes of old and new selections that range from fierce drumandbass to brain bubbling minimal.
Occasionally you can also spot here productions by unsigned artists. It is the case of the mysterious Handrei and his heady-sticky indie electronica. “Estattica” brings together 6 musical ventures that fusions downtempo with jazz and stoner rock. We were surprised to find quite a good production level plus coherent and strong compositions. This is somewhat close to Fila Brazilia and the sound spectrum of Pork Recordings but with a strong and original personal touch.
If you’re looking for a perfect soundtrack to your Sunday afternoon and not only, we highly recommend to download Aievea‘s latest album offering. The project of 6 talented and renowned Romanian musicians was self released in December 2009 and it is available to download for free. We couldn’t help falling for their jazzy excursions and sweet melodies which effortlessly blend acoustic and electronic elements into an emotional and cinematic melting pot.
Here’s their version of the story as quoted from their homepage:
Following the success of their debut album “Scared of jazz”, Aievea took a long time writing and producing their second LP entitled “Cinema”. True to their vision and production concepts Aievea managed to do everything on their own. No record label was harmed in the making of this album. Made almost entirely via the internet, “Cinema” was written in Bucharest, arranged in Rotterdam, recorded and mixed in Timisoara and then mastered in Bucharest. The songs have all been crafted on the road and tested on crowds around Europe. Thirteen songs of masterful songwriting, exquisite beats and fabulous lyrics make this album an interesting, sometimes hypnotizing listening experience.
“Cinema” is not free! It is a gift for like minded people. Since everyone is copying music from wherever possible, Aievea decided to offer this album as a gift to everyone who comes with a USB memory stick to their concerts. “We don´t make music for a profit. What we want to do is shake hands with the people that copy our music, get to know each other and let them know we are ok with it. We are trying to make you slow down a little, think about things that you don’t normally think about. There are traces of everything we like on this album”.
The intention is to release a “Cinema limited edition” cd in 2010, including all songs plus bonus tracks, remixes and videos by Casa Gontz.
You can count on your fingers the number of drumandbass producers in Romania. Maybe Dan Habarnam‘s the most well known abroad since in 2009 he had a string of 12″s bearing his name but there are also a few underexposed and unsung heroes. One of them is Eugen Kovacs aka Deevision who’s been active as a producer for some time and already counts a few releases for Kubiks’ Rubik Digital, Influenza LTD and our own High Definition Music. Although he is mainly producing drumanbass, he’s been experimenting with other genres too namely dubstep, house and electro.
As we’ve spotted on his Soundcloud 4 free tracks that worth your attention we naturally thought to spread the word and share them. If you’re into the deep, minimal and hypnotic stuff produced by Alix Perez, Spectrasoul, Instra:Mental or Bop you’ll definitely dig these!
Nobody who’s into music can ignore SoundCloud nowadays. For anyone not familiar with it yet, here you can get real time sound updates from artists/labels and spot talented people that may not have stepped out of their bedroom studios. One of these freezing days we came across Cristina Tasnic’s aka Muntelevenus page. There was an instant buzz going on our chat after hearing her latest uploaded sketches ‘Cheesecake Time’ and ‘Attic Scene’. Naturally, we asked her some questions to find out more about this mysterious Muntelevenus moniker. Check the tunes and you’ll know why!
I’m just a girl. I was born in Chisinau, but currently live in Amsterdam.
When did you start to produce music and why?
When – this summer. Why – because I always wanted to.
What is your artist name standing for?
Perhaps Mound of Venus could shed some light, otherwise it’s just the female pubic bone in Romanian
How could you describe your music?
Still in the process of developing my own style, so can’t really say.
What setup do you have? (hardware/software) Which is your favorite plug-in/instrument and why?
Reason, Live, Ozone and a NI interface. That’s about it for now.
Which would be your greatest accomplishment as a musician?
Add something new to the music, develop new genre, inspire people and make them happy. That’s cuz you said “would”. I haven’t achieved any of that yet.
What’s better for you: producing or djing?
Producing. Although both bring unique kind of satisfaction.
From where do you get music to your mp3 player/computer/decks?
I only get music if I really need it, otherwise it’s Spotify. I also like radio shows like Zona Libera “cu Matze si Vasile” , Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio 1… oh and SoundCloud and MySpace to see what are my favorite producers up to.
Where do you think dubstep is going this year?
Just like in any genre hitting the mainstream there’s going to be more tunes sounding the same, but there’s also great potential for innovation. Fusion with already existing genres is always interesting.
What music/artists/labels do you think sounds fresh right now?
I’m pretty impressed with DJ Bootsie’s Holidays in the Shade, which came out just recently. Awesome stuff. Also Two Fingers, Kode9, Rustie, PANTyRAID. Labels – uhm, I usually keep my eye out for the artists, not labels… but I like nearly everyone on Hyperdub.
Do you believe in 2012?
No, but I’d still like to squeeze in as much as I can before then
