Heard In Romania

Heard In Romania

24 August, 2009 | 7.15AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: dj charts, heard in berlin, romania

You can buy a lot on the road between Bucharest and Romania’s Black Sea resort, Mamaia. Amongst the traffic, dust, and tired horses dragging wagons overladen with scrap and gypsy families, boys with missing teeth sell nuts, fishing rods, and old mobile phones. Ladies with bare buttocks in high heels are also for sale.

The journey from Bucharest Otopeni airport to the seaside takes around four hours, and awaiting you there are basic hotels, poor quality food, and pregnant dogs hiding from the sun. The beach is crowded, the entertainment family-orientated, and the sea view tarnished by a decaying power station.

Mamaia is far from the perfect holiday destination, yet here, in this chaotic and curious town hides some of the most exciting dance music experiences the world has to offer. It may be home to one of Europe’s top clubs, La Mania, and the twice-yearly Sunwaves festival is now a world-class event, but the most compelling reason to visit is not really tangible. There’s something about the magnanimous and unrivaled spirit of Romania’s young and beautiful clubbers that makes Mamaia shine brighter than all other clubbing hotspots currently, even Ibiza.

Those who make the journey - not many outside of Romania do so at the moment - leave with their love for dance music and life, reaffirmed.

It’s a Friday night, and the pre-party for the 6th edition of Sunwaves festival unfolds heatedly at Kristal Beach Club, the summer home of Bucharest’s famous Kristal Glam Club.

A stunning venue with an all-white interior and a multi-level dancefloor, the club immediately reminds of Ibiza’s Pacha, minus the preteniousness and over-the-top drapery. There are no pay-to-be-a-celeb-for-an-hour “VIP” tables here.

The music is unadulterated house and techno, hypnotic and resplete with groove, played by Romania’s Praslea and Gescu. Their set is impossible to fault, devoid of a single identifiable rhythm. They play only vinyl, and remain in a zone that could not be recreated anywhere else, for they mix by their surroundings and build beats that lead the energy and emotion of those gathered before them, with cunning execution.

Hardly known outside of their country, Praslea and Gescu are just another two Romanian DJs, from a generation of talent, underrated, unrecognized.

Saturday’s main event promised to be a techno lovers dream beach party with a line-up bursting with forward-thinking DJs, and it doesn’t disappoint.

As Seth Troxler and Bill Patrick warm up one arena with The B-52’s comedy hit ‘Love Shack’, RPR Sounsystem’s Raresh delivers a sublime and wonderful set of booty shaking house, deep beats, and tech goodness.

DJ Q ‘Fila’ warbles its way across the white tent, as its flanging beats and drifting pads play out like the calm before the storm.

It’s the kind of chunky Chicago-influenced house music RPR have become famous for playing.

La Pena ‘Free From Love’ locks the three thousand or so dancers into a tribal pattern, as Raresh expertedly filters out the bass to break the track’s cyclical rhythm.

The arena continues to fill with happy faces and energetic bodies, as all around, graceful party people mix playfully with friends and strangers, a staggering proportion of them attractive girls. The tent itself is impressive, with solid wooden floors, a DJ alter surrounded by pulsating visuals, and a powerful soundsystem unplagued by overzealous sound restrictions that too often ruin festivals elsewhere.

Later Oneiro ‘Shh!’ (Circles & Circles of Sorrow) and Global Communication ‘The Way’ gave Raresh’s set a distint old skool house feel.

Chilean king Luciano then takes control, and is welcomed to the decks like a long lost brother. Taking the tent by the scruff of its neck, he leads the many through a set filled with his usual carnival celebrations and house anthems. Fortified by Traktor’s beat-perfect sync ability, he layers fruity South American vocals, flute solos, drum rolls, and circus noises, over dirty basslines that push the crowd’s spirit skywards.

James Talk’s mix of Buraka Som Sistema ‘IC19’ on Fabric records, snares the arena in Brazilian funk.

Mendo Project’s brilliant ‘Everybody I Got Him’ (2009 Mix) brings the power of piano, before Luciano offers FPI Project and Behrouz’ dreamy ‘Rich In Paradise’, quite literally, out of his hands like an imaginary butterfly.

The cover of Luciano’s soon-to-be-released debut album ‘Tribute To The Sun’ features the Cadenza boss surrounded by butterflies, holding his hand out towards the sun, and although grandiose, it is very much who Luciano has become behind the decks. His showmanship, boundless energy, whistling, and gestures are infectious and likeable, and to watch him is entertainment in itself.

All around on stage, friends and blaggers dance and egg him on, whilst swigging vodka through red faces. As much a part of the performance as the main act, they enliven the DJ booth and give the tent an edge of debauchery and hedonism, the kind that clubs like DC10 in Ibiza have become famous for. Long gone are the days of watching a superstar DJ perform solo on a giant stage as a metal fence ensures distance between the performer and the party. Luciano was the party.

In an adjacent tent, Richie Hawtin spins his own blend of techno naughtiness to a similar sized crowd. Machine driven and bleepy, his set is eons away from the soul-drenched musical mish mash of Luciano, but no less endearing.

Layering obscene basslines, solid hi hats, squiggly acid lines, and mountainous impromptu build ups in a way that only the Minus man can, Hawtin’s set does it all.

Peja ‘Blow Up’ lives up to its name, destroying the tent with its booming underbelly.

Later Hawtin brings the funk, with Valentino Kanzyani ‘We Are All Vacume’ creating mini surges of energy.

Next came, District One ‘Dubcrystal’ and as its perfect rolling tech house groove builds up and up, the rising sun slowly adds a deep red to the mystical star-lit sky.

As morning comes, the Black Sea’s gentle waves slowly became visible, as clubbers and smoking partners huddle around sun loungers and umbrellas, some dancing to whatever music happens to waft over from nearby soundsystems, some sleeping from a night of excess.

The sun keeps coming, and so does the music. By 9am, the tents are sunkissed gatherings for Ray Ban-wearing fashionistas. By 10am the other tents are beer bottle graveyards, as Hawtin and Luciano continue to preside over their own rediculously loose parties. Now seven or eight hours into their sets, things are no longer winding up, or down, but exist in a peaceful equilibrium that only comes when neither the DJ, nor the crowd, want to go home. Thankfully for everyone - and this is what makes Romania so good - there is no forced closure or licensing nonsense to worry about so the headliners can keep playing, and playing.

Hawtin eventually packs up with a series of classics that includes Claude VonStroke’s seminal ‘Who’s Afraid of Detroit?’. He would have continued, but a series of audio drop outs forced him to retire. Luciano keeps going well past 11am.

Later that afternoon, the festival wash-ups gather at the nearby Kudos beach bar for a Balearic-style afterparty, complete with topless girls and sunburnt boys. It’s a paradise for house fans, with classics like the Pete Heller re-edit of Jerome Sydenham and Dennis Ferrer’s ‘Sandcastles’ bringing smiles.

As we sit on the sand and sip on vodka Red Bulls, watching Romania’s clubbing elite party with the kind of enthusiasm that once gripped Britain during its early acid house days, we contemplate whether the trip was worth it.

It was a long way to come, for a night out, but not for one second, did we ever regret making the trip down the long and odd road from Bucharest.

• (12) Comments
• (6747) Views
• Get the Heard In Romania chart