FRI

Whatever happened with the musical romanticism, euphoria and good vibes of Romania?
Soul, Synth pop, popular themes brought into jazz, good fun, dreamful state? You don’t get that too often today: writing a text on Prahova Valley, Mangalia shores, Vama Veche beach or Conrnățel hills.

 The 49th episode of Freedom Rucks of Interdependence is the result of a continuous exercise over the years to dig, collect records and listen to genuine music made in Romania, good fun music that can be played anywhere.
The context and the methods of production may be far from perfect: copies, kitsch, more or less instruments and virtuosity, soviet culture; today’s crate is a reflection of the last 65 years musical past.
The tracks from this first playlist dedicated to good mood Romanian music have a personal significance as they were chosen for Ciprian’s newborn baptism.

 The major ways of production are rooted in Electrectord context, the Romanian music label, a triangle of connections between the composer, the vocals and the text producer. It’s been known the low quality of composers although some good names appear: Anton Suteu, Adrian Enescu, Richard Oschanitsky. And you really get that suddenly: the difference in composition or music conducting. 
The Romanian pop music before the ‘90s is the music of composers not of the vocalists as you may be tempted to read the record covers. There aren’t too many composers so the good choices are limited. In a way you can compare this to Italo Disco and maybe the times are similar: putting on the cover whatever attracts, collaborating with a nice female voice.
Nevertheless you can only say that Romanian music before the 90s is unheard of.  And maybe for good reason: it is a difficult process to research it and listen to it: technically and audio altogether within a lot of speculative initiatives and “popular” bias.

 Despite this, it is cool to find tracks that remind you of “Gilles Peterson Digs America” or other similar compilations that reflect a good disco, fantastic soul and funk spirit. Some of the artists that can be heard are: Group “Stereo”, Aura Urzicanu, Vocal Jazz Quartet, Cvintetul instrumental Radu Ghizășan. We’re keeping the good energy after the ‘90s also with some rethought music that got to the Shape platform in 2016 from “Raze de Soare”.

 Lastly, even if the crate from today is far from following a specific period of time and drifts from jazz to pop, is worth mentioning the fantastic work of Sonar Kollektiv with “Romanian Jazz - Jazz From The Electrecord Archives 1966-1978, which always inspires me of the fresh choices made on this record.