Reportage

SUNRISE IN BUCHAREST
by
William Ralston

Portraits
by Valeriu Catalineanu

23
© Radu Negru

24
December, 1989
Lucian Stan’s adventures started on 19 December, 1989.
Romania was going through a period of civil unrest fol-
lowing demonstrations in Timișoara, a city in the west
of the country. With rumours spreading that President
Nicolae Ceaușescu’s people had killed thousands, pro-
tests in Bucharest intensified, resulting in the mass
imprisonment of those who lined the city streets—in-
cluding Lucian Stan. Along with hundreds of other
protesters, Stan was sent to Jilava prison, referred to as
Penitentiary Bucharest, where he was locked up for over
48 hours. “I thought that was it,” he recalls. “I thought I
was going to die.”
Romania had morphed into a different world by his re-
lease. Ceaușescu had retreated inside, having lost con-
trol of his people. Anarchy had broken out in the streets
as the army attempted to quell the uprising. It remained
like this overnight, with many lives lost, until the fol-
lowing day when the Minister of Defence killed himself
rather than obey orders to shoot the protestors. This left
Ceaușescu without the support of his army. Fearing for
what was to come, the president and his wife fled by per-
sonal helicopter, leaving the chaos behind. Working his
way through the crowds, Stan headed towards the Cen-
tral Committee of the Communist Party Building, the
nucleus of an oppressive rule that was now drawing to
a dramatic close. Having entered through an open door,
he found himself in Ceaușescu’s office, where he armed
himself with one pistol and two Kalashnikov rifles. “I
was like Rambo,” he recalls, smiling.
The shooting ceased on 30 December, at which point
Stan left the building. An interim government had been
stitched together, with Ion Iliescu at the helm. Optimism
filled the air as Stan returned to the streets. The masses
were still in celebration: Ceaușescu had been executed.
The parties continued through the night, and the next
day Stan found himself in the sala de scriitori (“writ-
ers room”) in central Bucharest alongside poet Mir-
cea Dinescu, one of the most celebrated dissidents of
Ceaușescu’s reign. The plan was to “make a party” to
see in the New Year—and they were soon joined by
singer Ray Lema and Romanian band Holograf. Some
French nationals arrived later, bringing with them a
radio transmitter. With the installation complete, Stan
was asked to delve into the collection of imported re-
cords and play some music to the listening nation, thus
launching FM radio in Romania for the first time in the
country’s history. Gipsy Kings, he explains, was his first
selection, a band that, like most Western music, had
been widely inaccessible to the Romanian population
until that very moment.
“That was how it all started,” Stan adds. “That’s where
the story begins.”
45 Years Before
Nicolae Ceaușescu was the last communist dictator
of Europe but the regime he implemented was unlike
anything Europe had seen. Born into a peasant family
on 26 January, 1918, he grew up in Scorniceşti, a small
village 160 kilometres west of Bucharest. He was one
of ten children, one of whom shared his name because
his alcoholic father had forgotten that he already had
a son named Nicolae. Though of only a limited educa-
tion, he was quick to develop communist ideals and a
firm political stance. At the age of just ten, he aban-
doned the poverty of rural Romania for the lights of
Bucharest where he crossed paths with the then illegal
Communist Party and became enchanted with left-
wing activism—first by attending clandestine meet-
ings and then as a party recruit aged just 14.
The end of the Second World War saw the Commu-
nist Party rule Romania. Ceaușescu, now in his teen-
age years, soon became the political head of the army.
As such, he became a secretary to the central commit-
tee and controlled all new recruits—but he selected
only those whom he knew would support his vision.
Slowly and strategically he rose to power, installing a
loyal body of figures around him. By the time Gheorghe
Gheorghiu-Dej died on 19 March, 1965, Ceaușescu was
not the obvious successor but had manipulated key par-
ty members so as to appear a legitimate candidate. He
was confirmed as Secretary General on 22 March, 1965,
three days after Gheorghiu-Dej's death—thus becoming
the leader of Romania.
Great optimism surrounded his appointment, for he
promised a more liberal regime and was expected to
stand up to the Soviet Union. Political centralisation
of power meant that Ceaușescu could write and imple-
ment his own policies, and it didn’t take long for him to
make an impression.
When it came to arts, Ceaușescu considered this a me-
dium through which he could gain support of the artis-
tic domain and also enforce his nationalist ideologies.
At the time, socialist realism was the official criterion
for measuring artistic works, meaning that all artworks
were required to depict and glorify communist values,
although enforcement was largely relaxed after Gheo-
rghiu-Dej’s 1960 declaration of autonomy. It was then
formally abandoned by Ceaușescu in 1965, inspiring
the richest period for artistic creativity since the inter-
war period. While censorship towards song lyrics re-
mained cautious, the loosening of the leash gave birth to
musical events, with various rock concerts taking place
across the country. Bars and clubs opened as the popu-
lation had its first taste of western life. People started
growing long hair and wearing flower-power shirts as
the hippie movement took hold, while Western music,
food, and literature flooded in from the outside.
It was a rich cultural explosion like nothing before.
25
The July Theses:
A Tightening of the Belt
This all changed in 1971.
Returning from a trip to China, North Korea, Mongo-
lia, and North Vietnam, the Secretary General was im-
pressed with the control Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong
exerted over their people. This was enough to inspire
the July Theses, a 17-point programme that condemned
the liberalisation of 1965 and required all art to “serve
the people, the fatherland, and the socialist society”—
or draw on authentic national folklore and promote
national values. Authorities took quick action to sub-
ordinate Romanian culture to this ideology, sparking
an iron-fisted rule that heightened in severity until the
1989 revolution. If the ’70s were the dimming of the
light, the ’80s were pure darkness: Romania closed all
borders to the outside world.
It appeared a swift change of tack for the Secretary Gen-
eral, though early transcripts of his meetings indicate
that he always possessed a Marxist perspective of what
art should and should not do. Some even believe that his
prior indifference was nothing more than an act to gain
the trust of the artistic community. By 1968, having ig-
nited nationalism with a public declaration against the
Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia, he then had
the support he had been searching for.
This had grave repercussions for Romania’s musi-
cal landscape. Music, in all forms, was now censored,
comprehensively and severely. Undesired lyrics as well
as illegitimate performances and broadcasting were
banned. Rock and pop bands—such as Uranus, Com-
etele (The Comets), and Sfinţii (The Saints)—were
amongst the hardest hit. Singing in foreign languages,
other than romance languages and those of the socialist
 bloc, was no longer permitted—a drastic development
given that Electrecord, the only state-sponsored label,
had once encouraged covers of Western music in order
to push sales.
While some artists opted for censorship, others sought
to elude the ruling. Only a handful of artists went so far
as to publicly oppose the Communist Party for fear of
imprisonment or something more severe. Many mu-
sicians began adopting poems as lyrics, a loophole in-
spired by the success of Mondial’s 1969 EP, which fea-
tured four songs based on canonical Romanian poetry.
Censors tended to be more tolerant of poetry because
the genre was not consumed by as many people; and
once these words had passed the censors they could
then be used freely as musical lyrics. Thanks to this
clever circumvention and a handful of musical rebels,
two generations of music fans became inadvertently ac-
quainted with a wealth of national poetry.
Mircea Florian: A Lonely Rebel
Mircea Florian was one such rebel. Born in the win-
ter of 1949, he remembers the Ceaușescu regime. Af-
ter studying piano and saxophone at a young age, he
learned the guitar and began a career as a folk singer
in the late ’60s. His work is scattered through the
Electrecord discography under a variety of aliases—
including Florian din Transilvania, M. A. N. Florian,
and FloriMAN.
He subsequently explored Romanian and psychedelic
music, and began writing film and theatre music for
the Communist Party. Later he became one of Roma-
nia’s first musicians to experiment with electronics,
initially building his own generators. He constructed
his first synthesiser in the mid ’60s with the help of
western, Romanian, and Russian technology maga-
zines, before purchasing a Korg synth in 1975—a real
Mircea Florian
27
oddity during those times. As one of Romania’s leading
musicians, and one who harboured a deep resentment
for the Secretary General, he developed a cult following
among the rebellious youth movement.
Florian first fell foul of the authorities in 1968.
Ceaușescu had just publicly opposed the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia, and Florian, a supporter, wanted to
voice his allegiance. To do so, he wrote Voice of Sheep,
a song that fell in line with Ceaușescu’s message, and
reached out to Cornel Chiriac, a radio presenter. The
censorship department was located on the eighth floor
of the radio tower, and all tapes had to be approved be-
fore being transmitted on air. On this occasion, Chiriac
had prepared two tapes for his show—one with Voice
of Sheep, one without. After having the “clean” tape ap-
proved for radio play, he returned to the fifth floor to
switch the tapes before making his way to the transmis-
sion centre where he played Voice of Sheep to the mass-
es. The authorities banned Florian from performing for
two years; only Ceaușescu could comment on issues of
a political nature.
As the regime tightened through the ’80s, Florian
wished to demonstrate his acrimony, and also connect
with like-minded individuals. “We had to escape the
jail,” he says. “It was necessary otherwise I would have
gone insane.” So he created a “parallel musical world”
using a “secret language” through which he delivered
anti-communist messages. “This was our most used
bullet,” he says.
The system was based on poetry and metaphors; mes-
sages were delivered in abstract fables or stories that
would have to be deciphered. Metestaza (Metastasis) for
example, tells the story of a cancer sufferer and draws
parallels with the society of the time. But the best ex-
ample is Situatia Ca O Parafraza (meaning Situation as
a Paraphrase). The lyrics read as follows:

28
The situation is sad and bitter
My mother doesn’t float
My father doesn’t fly anymore
Listen my son
This is one of my last words undiscovered
You will find the meaning of that after a while
The words were a metaphor for the future; they commu-
nicated the starkness of the regime.
Though subtle, the power should not be underestimated:
the preclusion of free speech amplified the potency of any
rebellious statement. A line as explicit as “The situation
is sad and bitter” could be extraordinarily impactful. “It
was like a movement,” Florian explains. “Communicat-
ing these feelings made us feel together in this fight.”
Detachment
For much of this time, almost nothing came into Roma-
nia, and almost nothing went out. International travel
was banned; communist propaganda dominated the
television and radio airwaves. Western music, strictly
prohibited, was by and large inaccessible.
“But there were always ways,” one local recalls. It’s not
so easy to shut out the outside world when you have a
coastline and neighbouring states. Yugoslavia and Hun-
gary, for example, were more open to Western civilisa-
tion in the ’80s, and listeners in western Romania were
close enough to tune into their radio and television
stations. In the south and in Bucharest, Bulgarian net-
works could be accessed. Some people even attempted
to record music from these foreign radio stations onto
tapes, but the sound quality was poor.
Timișoara in particular was nearly immune to the re-
strictions. Situated only 80 kilometres from Hungary
and 60 kilometres from Serbia, residents had almost
full access to these foreign networks. Of particular im-
portance was the Serbian influence: stations like 101
and Dvesta Dva were serving up the finest Western con-
tent, and this created a “bubble,” recalls Dudu Radoslav,
a DJ based in the city. In addition to this, Timișoara had
long been a multicultural city, so everybody had rela-
tives abroad who often brought over Western goods.
Satellite dishes, too, were often smuggled in, meaning
that many Timișoara households could access Ger-
man television networks.
Across Romania there also existed a vibrant market
in legitimate though forbidden imports, mostly com-
ing from friends and family abroad. Those who were
required to travel for work—pilots, air stewardesses,
and athletes—were known to return home with items
from the West, and some would exploit their posi-
tion by selling these items. Close friends would then
be invited to private listening sessions. These records
would often also be copied onto tape, creating a sea of
pirated replicas. “The whole neighbourhood knew if
you had a good The Police record in your house,” one
local jokes. It was through these methods that much
of the Romanian population developed their most ba-
sic musical education.
Cristian Vladescu: DJ Vladone
Cristian Vladescu was in one of the most fortunate posi-
tions of all.
Vladescu was born in Bucharest in 1951 and has called
the city home for over six decades. He lives a calm life
today, but until 2004 he was DJ Vladone, considered
by many to be the country’s first ever DJ (despite Cor-
nel Chiriac’s record playing via the radio at the end of
the ’60s).
He began his career in 1968. Embracing the coun-
try’s cultural opening, he started presenting music in
Bucharest’s student social clubs. These were musical
gatherings rather than parties. By 1971, he was DJing
at a discotheque on the Romanian coast. There was
no mixing; rather, he would play tapes from his col-
lection, introducing each one with a snippet of in-
formation. The music he played was closely moni-
tored: he could play one Western record for every
three Romanian records.
Ceaușescu’s 1971 July Theses brought the end of these
privileges. Following its implementation, all disco-
theques had restricted openings from 5pm until 8pm as
the president sought control of his population. Vlades-
cu’s job was at risk, but not for long.
Tourism brought much financial reward to the Commu-
nist Party, and closure of these night spots jeopardised
this income, so within one week the authorities had im-
plemented a new structure: discotheques for Romanian
nationals and discotheques exclusively for tourists. The
former were open from 8pm to 1am and required pay-
ment in leu; while the latter were open until 3am and
prohibited locals by requiring payment in U.S. dollars.
They were governed by an organisation called BTT (Bu-
reau of Travel and Tourism) and were usually found on
the ground levels of seaside hotels or in holiday resorts.
It was not uncommon for Romanians to source U.S dol-
lars to enter these venues, but it came with a risk: pos-
session or trafficking of any foreign currency was an of-
fence worthy of imprisonment.
This opened the door for Vladescu. In 1977, after four
years in a Romanian discotheque, he was hired as a DJ
for a Swedish company by the seaside. The venue re-
mained open for the duration of summer but precluded
Romanians from entering by requiring an entry fee
of US$1.50. Vladescu now had access to all the music
from the West. He became a glitch in Ceaușescu’s sys-
tem: not only did he regularly share his records with
29
DJs of Romanian discotheques, he also shared them
with friends to copy onto tape—supporting the market
for pirated Western music.
The operation of discotheques continued like this until
1983, when restrictions intensified and the venues had
to close at 10pm—including clubs for foreigners. Many
remained open illegally until 1986, when three Ameri-
can sailors embarked on a night out in Constanta. A
fight broke out with the door staff and one soldier lost
an eye. The incident became an issue of national se-
curity when it surfaced that the soldier was the son of
the Military Attaché in the Bucharest Embassy, and
Ceaușescu was alerted. This was the end of this small
underground scene: all venues were tightly monitored
and forced to close no later than 10pm. Vladescu spent
these years DJing in a Romanian discotheque from 8
through 10pm.
This was the height of darkness.
After 1989
A Post-Communist Rush:
The Light Comes On
On 21 December, 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu stepped onto
the balcony of the Central Committee of the Commu-
nist Party Building. It was early afternoon and the Sec-
retary General aimed to reassert control following the
demonstrations in Timișoara. At the front of the crowd
were the hacks, hired to feign support for their leader,
but they could not mask the jeering coming from those
dissidents behind.
Overnight the crowds grew and anarchy broke out on
the city streets. The end was nigh, and on Christmas
Day 1989 Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were
shot by a firing squad, after a trial lasting less than one
 hour. The fall was announced on television from the na-
tional TV headquarters, which had been occupied by the
Democratic revolutionaries. Romania's leading actor Ion
Caramitru and dissident writer Mircea Dinescu were
the most vocal in the transmission, calling time on a
quarter-century rule that translated into oppression and
misery for the vast majority of the Romanian population.
Ceaușescu’s death sparked the beginning of a national
transformation. A slow period of privatisation ensued
as the interim president sought to minimise inflation,
though many believe he sought only to retain his power.
Capitalist euphoria ignited as the country began con-
necting with the Western world. “It was a complete
boom,” one local says. Everyone was buying; every-
one was spending. Clubs, restaurants, and bars were
now open all day, every day. The interim government
gave all those over 18 years old a “reasonable” sum of
money which allowed them to celebrate a freedom few
believed would ever come.
The intensity of the boom was heightened by what
Vintilă Mihăilescu terms “a high market of desire.”
Mihăilescu, a leading Romanian cultural anthropolo-
gist, explains that post-communist countries always
need time to shift towards a market economy. However,
the severity of the communism is important, he contin-
ues, adding that Romania must be understood in con-
text. By the fall of communism in 1989, the country
had enjoyed times of reasonable freedom, during the
late ’60s and early ’70s, after which they were cut off
entirely, creating a “starving” population. The revo-
lution then saw a rapid shift toward consumerism as
people began overcompensating for the communist
shortages. “Instead of ordering one beer, they would
order four,” he jokes.
The opening of the gates triggered a difficult period for
Romanian musicians. Many were forced to seek book-
Cristian Vladescu
31
ings abroad as domestic interest dropped: Western cul-
ture was now in demand. As one local recalls, “all the
colours of the rainbow were suddenly available, so it was
only natural to want to explore.” And on a deeper level,
Romanians associated Western music with freedom, a
liberty they had craved for almost a quarter of a century.
“People moved away from Romanian culture because
they associated it with communism,” adds another lo-
cal. “The Western music became a beacon of liberty.”
But this excitement was soon greeted by frustration.
People had a hunger for Western culture but grew dis-
gruntled at the lack of infrastructure for it. Further-
more, once these initial funds were spent, poverty set in,
restricting the population’s access to Western products.
There’s a saying in Romanian that goes like this: “before
the revolution you had money but nothing on which to
spend it; after the revolution you didn’t have any more
money but you had everything on which to spend it.”
Piracy
One of the first new markets was for pirated cassette
tapes.
Until the revolution, piracy had been an underground
and personal practice: friends and family members
would lend records to each other to replicate for per-
sonal use. There was little or no business surrounding
it. But this changed after the revolution. Romania’s legal
infrastructure did not begin regulating copyright in-
fringement until July 1996; and by 1992 business was
booming. A successful organisation—such as Audio
Soft Systems Timișoara—might set up a studio with
ten or more reel-to-reel copying decks recording around
the clock. Pirated products would then be shipped na-
tionwide, accompanied by makeshift artwork inside the
sleeve. The tapes were sold in corner shops and stalls
that specialised in pirated music and stocked hundreds

32
of cassettes. Retailers would even take orders for specific
artists or releases. It was a highly lucrative enterprise.
Pirated tapes were of great importance to Romania’s
musical community. But in terms of genre, tape-pirat-
ing organisations were not specialised. Western acts
like Madonna and Nirvana were guaranteed to sell.
There was also a market for oriental music and mu-
sic of the former Socialist state, including Romanian
manele, but the developing middle class perceived it as
the “soundtrack to poverty,” one local says.
A burgeoning alternative was the arrival of electron-
ic dance music. The early ‘90s experienced a surge
in progressive rock—The Prodigy, Depeche Mode,
Enigma—and these pirated tapes began seeping into
the Romanian market, defining how electronic beats
would come to sound—the recognizably “punchy
drums,” as one Romanian artist puts it. And by all ac-
counts, this infiltration was Romania’s first exposure
to electronic dance music.
Electrecord
Before the Second World War, Romania boasted a thriv-
ing musical scene with multiple independent record-
ing labels. In Bucharest alone, there were six or seven
labels that were pressing records and had mini studio
sets of the artists. At the end of the war, the Soviets na-
tionalised everything they found in Romania, thus bun-
dling all these independent label bodies into one state-
owned brand under the name Electrecord.
For over four decades, Electrecord served as the only re-
cord label in communist Romania, and it mirrored oth-
er centralised labels behind the Iron Curtain: Melodya
in the Soviet Union; Moiras in Hungary; Balkanton in
Bulgaria; Jugoton in Yugoslavia; and Amiga in the DDR.
As a state-controlled industry, only the Communist
Party could determine what was released, and when. As
such, it was not aligned with the laws of local or global
markets. It was also Romania’s only authorised access to
hard music, and thus each release had to be approved by
a censorship committee.
Electrecord divided its releases into four content-based
classes: C, P, X, and D. Category C covered classical
music, encompassing medieval, romantic, opera, and
contemporary styles. P was for Romanian folk music;
though in truth it represented arrangements modified
to Soviet standards and the majority of the releases in-
volved instruments that had not existed 60 years prior.
X covered everything spoken, such as radio clips, au-
thors reading their own stories, and educational discs
for schools. Finally, D was for dance music. These four
categories represented the whole Romanian spectrum
of music.
And while category D offered plenty of music that one
could dance to—disco, funk, pop, and popular instru-
mentations—there was nothing electronic. The notable-
exception is a 1985 self-titled album by Grupul Stereo,
produced by Adrian Enescu, who carried out some
electronic/progressive rock experiments in the late
’70s. This is not to say that people were not experiment-
ing with electronic music—but that Electrecord didn’t
release it. The Romanian population was therefore not
exposed to electronic dance music until pirated tapes hit
the market in 1991, the only caveat being MTV, which
featured electronic music in its most commercial form.
MTV was accessible through satellite in 1990, but only
became readily available through cable in 1993.
The Cold War of Electrecord
Being a state-run label meant that everything sold at a
fixed price. The flat price for records in categories P and
D was 26 leu; meanwhile, category X releases cost 20
leu. Classical records were more pricey at 28 leu.
There are a few theories to explain this discrepancy. One,
suggested by a local is that this was a discreet means of
controlling the population. Perhaps the communist
state wished to discourage the purchase of classical mu-
sic because it was considered as promoting higher ideas.
In other words, music that was not considered mind-
expanding was incentivised.
Another pricing idiosyncrasy relates to formatting. Re-
leases on cassette tapes were over five times the price of
vinyl. One explanation is the extra minutes of material
that are available on cassette. But a stronger theory is
that a cassette tape can be recorded over while a vinyl
record may not be. In other words, cassettes were more
expensive because they provided a canvas upon which a
message, or a piece of Western music, could be recorded
for distribution.
This was critical in the age of Radio Free Europe. The
Munich-based station, which was accessible across Ro-
mania, became Ceaușescu’s greatest enemy. By trans-
mitting strong anti-communist messages, the station
became a confidant for Romanian nationals. It was
headed by important Romanian anti-regime commen-
tators who were living in the West. Cornel Chiriac be-
came Radio Free Europe's music curator after escaping
Romania following the incident with Mircea Florian.
It is rumoured that during his reign Ceaușescu became
so paranoid about freedom of information and counter-
propaganda that he tried to hire Ilich Ramírez Sánchez
(a.k.a Carlos the Jackal), a Venezuelan political terrorist,
to blow up the Romanian section of the station. It fol-
lows suit that he might have "discouraged" the distribu-
tion of Electrecord cassette tapes that could be used to
archive and publicly disseminate Radio Free Europe.
But as with Ceaușescu, the revolution proved to be the
downfall of Electrecord. The label struggled to compete
in the capitalist market. The demand for Western music
33
and the availability of pirated tapes quickly deteriorated
Electrecord’s sales, and it stopped issuing vinyl in 1995.
The launch of the CD format saw the vinyl plants close
down, ramping up the prices of vinyl blanks. Ultimate-
ly, Electrecord found itself in the same position as many
other labels: they could not afford the intermediate parts
of making a record and still turn a profit.
1990—
Vladone, Vasile, and the “Kids”
Cristian Vladescu (a.k.a DJ Vladone) continued DJing
on the Black Sea coast after the revolution.
Upon returning to Bucharest in 1993, he discovered an
old, abandoned theatre fit for a discotheque. He contact-
ed some friends to fund the renovation, and together
they launched one of the city’s first post-communist
party spots: the doors of Studio Martin opened in 1994.
Like most venues of its kind, it was open from 8pm un-
til 3am, six days per week—with one left for cleaning. It
was full every night.
The musical programme was monitored by Vladone.
Only vinyl was allowed—a rarity given the scarcity of
turntables in the ’90s. Vladone would DJ each night,
but he also invited esteemed guests to play. The fo-
cus was on what he calls “hit” music—or music that
could “bring a lot of people to dance.” Michael Jackson
and Madonna were popular, but he also endeavoured
to broaden people’s minds. To do so, he implemented
a system: at 1:30am, just a few hours before close, he
would begin playing house, techno, drum and bass,
and more experimental genres. “We lost a lot of clients
this way,” he explains. “People just didn’t want this un-
usual stuff.” Soon, and for the years that followed, it be-
came Bucharest’s only venue to push non-commercial
electronic music.
 Lucian Stan was a regular attendee-after launching the
aforementioned FM Radio (Radio Nova) in Romania on
New Year’s Eve in 1989. Following this, he became DJ
Vasile and initiated two radio residencies. Alongside
Gabi Andres, he started “19 Forever,” Romania’s first
ever radio show on January 26, 1990—Ceaușescu's
birthday. Between 1990 and 1994, when the novelty of
radio wore off, Stan spent each day playing his favourite
records to the listening population. He then became a
regular at Studio Martin, often arriving late in the night
to purvey his more experimental tastes.
DJ Vasile was also one of the first artists to create his
own computerised music. It didn’t take him long to
field several electronic music projects: Matze in 1992
with Cristi Stanciu, and one year later he began work-
ing alongside founding members Mihai Câmpineanu
and Mihai Dobre in Şuie Paparude, the first electronic
music band in Romania. By ’97, Vasile had founded the
Natural Soft Killers (NSK) project with Cristi Stanciu
and Cristian Stefanescu (a.k.a. Electric Brother). They
recorded at Yama Studios, a commercial space for
films, and soon released some of the first ever Roma-
nian electronic dance music.
One cannot overstate the importance of Vasile and Vla-
done in shaping all that has come after. The opening to
the West created a strange divide in society: while many
chose to see the world for how it appeared, a small mi-
nority decided to dig deeper. Vasile and Vladone were
ringleaders whose actions inspired the “kids,” a new
generation of curious young Romanians eager to ex-
plore the lesser-known realms of music.
The first meeting point for these figures was Club Archi-
tecture (a.k.a. Club A), the capital’s oldest venue. It was
also uniquely exclusive: only architecture students from
Bucharest University and their friends were allowed in,
and it became something of an “oasis of freedom” for
Lucian Stan
35
those fortunate enough to enter. Following the revolu-
tion, it became a regular social venue with a musical
focus on rock and post-rock. Rhadoo—one the scene's
most pivotal figures—began by playing tapes there.
"One of the tape players was actually broken so he would
have to run the tape using a pen," recalls one local. “You
would know that a Depeche Mode was here on the reel,
and half a rotation later was a Madonna track. And you
would have to twist it yourself!”
As the scene grew, its vanguard figures began looking
for a home. The early ‘90s had seen a host of “poshy,”
mobster-run discotheques pop up around Bucharest,
none of which catered to the advancing musical taste.
Artists like DJ Vasile, who refused to compromise,
were forced to either produce their own events or im-
print their own styles onto more sophisticated venues.
Vasile could often be found playing his drum and bass
and jungle records in expensive cocktail bars with
“fancy” girls. Before Studio Martin opened in 1994,
there was simply no other option.
And then came Ion Liberopoulos.
1997—
The Web Club: Arts and Music
A lifetime ago, Ion Liberopoulos returned home to
Athens after studying in New York City. A Greek na-
tional, he intended to set up shop, but suffered in the
grip of the country’s weak economy. Recognising that
opportunities lay elsewhere, he hopped on a flight to
Bucharest where he now works in one of the city’s e-
commerce fulfilment centres. Romania is unique in
this sense: a scarcity of retail stores combined with
access to high-speed internet and global courier ser-
vices has fuelled a boom in e-commerce, and the
country now relies almost entirely on the Internet for
product diversity.
 36
He is tall and slim, with a kind face and a gentle, qui-
et demeanour. It’s not usual for him to socialise on a
weekend; his Sundays are reserved for family time, but
he journeyed across town having spent his morning
taking his daughter for a walk. He becomes animated
as he revisits an earlier chapter of his life. “I miss it,” he
says, smiling. It’s hard to fathom that this is the myste-
rious man who contributed so much to the Romanian
electronic music movement.
Liberopoulos stepped into post-communist Roma-
nia in 1995. Having grown up in Athens, he spent his
teenage years in New York where he studied Engineer-
ing at Columbia University. Qualifications in hand, he
moved back across the Atlantic to take up construction
work in London, where he remained for eight years be-
fore returning to Greece to join the army. Opportunity
arose when a friend hired Liberopoulos to oversee the
construction of a game centre in Bucharest.
The arrangement didn’t work out, but Liberopou-
los decided to stay. In his search for an apartment,
he found instead a house and decided to use the ex-
tra space to start a hangout spot downstairs. The idea
stemmed from his two loves: “acid jazz and billiards,”
he says. “I just wanted to listen to acid jazz while play-
ing billiards, so that’s why I started the club!”
There were three rooms. Two rooms became Bu-
charest’s second Internet cafe after Liberopoulos
installed a satellite dish on the rooftop. The larger
third room housed a billiard table and a prodigious
mushroom mural—a symbol of the venue. There
were also some turntables, a mixer, and some speak-
ers. He called it The Web Club: whisky—for drink-
ing; echo—for the music; bravo—for the fun. It’s
coincidence that "Web" came to mean the Internet.
“Back then it just meant what the spider makes,” Li-
beropoulos says.
The club’s musical programme was important. Roma-
nia was “obsessed with pop music,” Liberopoulos says.
“You’d hear the same hits everywhere you went” and
people complained whenever anything “other than a
pop record” was played. The Web Club, therefore, was
set up to be different, with a focus on what he calls
“more sophisticated” music, including drum and bass,
reggae, Goa trance, and classical. He shipped over his
arsenal of over 1,000 records and these became the
soundtrack to The Web Club.
Doors opened in March 1997 and stayed open 24
hours a day, seven days a week, with people welcome
to come and go as they pleased. Numbers grew fast as
word spread—and the Web soon became a gathering
spot for this small pocket of society marked by its un-
derground attitude.
Liberopoulos puts the club's success down to “right
time, right place.” One effect of the communist regime
was the sequestering of culture. Because of constant
surveillance from the Secret Police, people could only
enjoy defiant music, art, and culture within the con-
fines of their own homes. The Web Club was different.
“I think that’s where the legend of The Web Club comes
from. Rather than the club itself, it was the fact that peo-
ple there were free for the first time,” Liberopoulos says.
By 1998, it had become a hangout spot for many bud-
ding DJs. Liberopoulos turned the largest room into a
dancefloor by removing the billiard table. This sponta-
neous change became permanent, and The Web Club
emerged as one of Bucharest’s most prominent night-
spots, with two turntables, a mixer, and its loyal, bo-
hemian clientele. Friday and Saturday nights hosted
musical genres ranging from minimal, Goa trance, and
trip-hop to drum and bass, breakbeat, and reggae. Res-
ident DJs included Petre Inspirescu, DJ Vasile, and DJ Ion Liberopoulos
Marika, with the latter two as the main protagonists.
Rhadoo also visited on occasion.

38
For over a decade, The Web Club was a focal point of the
Bucharest music scene.
Following ongoing problems with its neighbours,
doors were closed on 1 January, 2008. The building
owner ended Liberopoulos’ lease with the intention of
renovating, but the onset of the financial crisis scup-
pered his plans. The building remains today in its orig-
inal shape, but empty.
1998—
Karma: The Birth of Club Culture
Studio Martin and The Web Club established the foun-
dation for what became a small, alternative clubbing
scene. Initially born out of spontaneous, after-hours
parties that got going after the main venues powered
down, the late-night scene began on Sunday morning
and continued well into Monday, with heady flights into
exclusively non-commercial dance music.
The first of these late-night drops was Zerillo’s. Small
and intimate, Zerillo's opened its doors in 1997 and
anyone interested in electronic music flocked there from
the various other spots in the capital. Club Space, DV8
(a 250-person basement) and The Office, a classy club
where Rhadoo was employed, followed. Then, in 1998,
came Karma Club.
Karma Club was the first venue to play house music
all night long. It boasted a big sound system, qual-
ity production, and an 800-person capacity. Resident
DJs were DJ Raoul, DJ Professor, and later, Rosario
Internullo and Rhadoo. Founded by a Romanian lo-
cal named Sorin Sapunarescu, Karma Club was open
from 10pm through 8am every weekend. But its doors
were often locked and music continued into Sunday
afternoon; even then the inexhaustible crowd moved
on to an after-party at Zerillo’s. Sapunarescu divided
his time between Amsterdam, Miami, and Bucharest,
a triangulation that positioned him as a key player in
sourcing a wide range of music, and he’d often return
from his travels with cases of new records for local
artists to play.
La Mania / The Mission
The turn of the millennium brought various other small
spaces in Bucharest and beyond as demand grew. Of
particular note were Kudos Beach Club, run by Rosario
Internullo; La Mania, an infamous club on the Black Sea
coast that remained open until 2011; and The Mission.
The Mission, led by Razvan Opran and Ionut Stanciu-
lea, threw parties in Bucharest and at Constanta Ulti-
ma Playa after 2004. It was instrumental in nurturing
the country’s young DJs, including Demos, Gubanu,
Petre Inspirescu, Pagal, Kozonak, Cezar, Rhadoo, and
Raresh. From Bucharest to the beaches, these are some
of the names that would help define an international
electronic music scene.
This was the birth of clubbing culture in Romania.
1999—
Catalin Ghinea “Tati” and Sunrise
Catalytic in this movement was Catalin Ghinea.
Strada Gheorghe Petrascu lies in eastern Bucharest,
and is not among the most charming of streets in the
capital. The surrounding architecture seems a world
away from the beautiful interwar constructions that
adorn much of the capital’s more central districts.
Besides a police station and a large hospital, the area
is predominantly residential, with small houses and
apartment blocks hugging the roads—not a place to
write home about.
But inside one of these anonymous buildings is a
cluttered three-room apartment: the unsuspecting
home of Sunrise Booking, the company of Catalin
Ghinea. What started as a one-man band, headed up
by Ghinea, has evolved into an internationally signifi-
cant, 11-man operation that sits at the centre of Bucha-
rest’s music scene.
Ghinea himself is a compelling character. He’s tall and
athletically built with a strong jawline, though his de-
fining facet is a slick brown ponytail that flirts with his
shoulders. A charismatic man with an imposing pres-
ence, he exudes confidence. Collaborators, employees,
and colleagues in his orbit refer to him as a “Tati,” Ro-
manian for “Daddy.”
Ghinea, and ultimately Sunrise Booking, started with
fast-moving consumer goods. Born in 1974, Ghinea
graduated from school and married in the early ‘90s.
Earning only minimal pay as a bartender at Club A,
he began looking for work to support his family. After
floating around in various sales gigs, he took a national
marketing position for a growing energy drink brand,
which meant spending his days driving between cit-
ies within the company distribution network. With a
comprehensive black book of Romania’s discotheque
owners in his pocket, he soon added something new to
his product portfolio. He was no longer peddling just
energy drinks.
The Bucharest electronic music scene, at the time, was
in its infancy, encompassing only around 50 people.
Ghinea’s presence, as both party-goer and bartender,
meant he had contact with all the DJs in the scene—in-
cluding DJ Raoul, Rhadoo, and Rosario Internullo, who
became his first clients. Recognising their talents, and
39
the demand for music in discotheques, he began pro-
moting them to club owners.
DJs, at this time, worked for clubs as permanent em-
ployees—meaning it was the same DJ playing every
night of the week. Ghinea wanted to do it differently,
so he decided to set up what he calls an “organisation to
party,” an events and booking agency of sorts. In 1999,
he started Sunrise, the name of which came to him as a
“joke” one morning with a friend on Celentano beach.
The likes of Marco Brigullia and DJ Pagal soon joined
the line up, but Sunrise remained an underground op-
eration: there were no website or advertising; nobody
even knew who else Ghinea was working with. “Catalin
[Ghinea] would just pick up the phone and call you,” one
artist explains. The fees at this point were only modest,
around 100 Deutsche Marks or 100 dollars, meaning it
remained a labor of love. But the first steps had been
taken towards Ghinea’s “dream.” He explains: “I knew
I wanted to start a company and run parties with inter-
national artists to show to the Romanian public.”
Juggling Sunrise with his day job proved challenging.
Monday to Friday was spent on the road, meeting cli-
ents, selling product, and persuading venues to host
parties with his DJs. At the end of the week he would re-
turn to Bucharest, pick up any artists whom he'd man-
aged to book and then get back on the road to deliver
them to the discotheques. The quintessential self-start-
ing entrepreneur, he did it all; one city on Friday, anoth-
er on Saturday. Only on Sunday, after a full weekend of
partying, would he return to Bucharest, sleep, and then
return to his day job. Between 1996 and 2001, he racked
up over one million kilometres.
Ghinea’s roster grew over the ensuing years. A lack of
competing agencies allowed him to acquire any Roma-
nian DJ, from the underground figures to more com-
 40
mercial names from the radio. Then, in late 2004, he
quit his job and began throwing his own Sunrise events,
bringing in names from overseas to play to Romanian
crowds for the first time. Preference for supporting act
slots was given to Ghinea’s underground names, leav-
ing his more commercial clients disgruntled. In 2007,
many of these bigger-name artists left the agency, put-
ting Ghinea and Sunrise in a financially vulnerable po-
sition. But this proved to be a necessary step towards a
grander vision: Ghinea could now focus on the “boys,”
a small group of young DJs with an insatiable hunger to
learn the "craft" and spin the best music they could get
their hands on.
The Boys and Their Music:
A Community Forms
Radu Bogdan Cilinca (a.k.a. Rhadoo) was the first of
these boys.
Rhadoo is as elusive a character as they come. Born in
Galati in 1975, he was among the first generation of DJs
to pop up after the revolution—inspired by DJ Vasile
and Vladone. He began performing at Club A, where he
played tapes two nights per week throughout the ’90s,
later gaining more experience and visibility at Zeri-
llo’s, The Office, and Karma. By the early 2000s he had
secured his own weekly radio show and was traveling
across Romania to play. He is a legendary figure—and
is, in many ways, the orchestrator of everything that has
developed since. Yet little more is known about him.
Despite his reputation as one of the world’s finest DJs—
and a global fascination with the minimal scene he in-
stigated—Rhadoo has not once spoken publicly. The sole
exception was a brief exchange with the online Fabric
blog that was contractually obligated around a release.
Recent years have seen him become one of under-
ground music’s must intriguing characters—an enig-
matic icon for this group of artists. He simply does not
interact with the media, or indeed with much of the
outside world; rather he remains in the background,
watching the seeds he planted blossom into the artistic
community that he so deeply craved during the post-
communist years in Bucharest.
Ghinea met Rhadoo in 1990 at Club A. They spent en-
suing years partying together and a relationship of mu-
tual respect developed. Rhadoo soon began looking to
outsource the business side of his budding career and,
recognising Ghinea’s business acumen, he encouraged
Ghinea to start an agency. Ghinea in turn became
Rhadoo’s unofficial tour manager, even though neither
of them really knew what a tour manager was at the
time. But they spent entire weekends on the road to-
gether, driving the country from one city to the next—
and it was during these many hours of riffing, ram-
bling, and sharing of ideas that the blueprint of today’s
community was formed.
Rhadoo’s aspiration was simple: he craved the artistic
community that was painfully absent during the early
post-communist years in Bucharest. He also recognised
that just playing music was not enough, and so he sought
to provide a platform for those around him. “In order to
achieve a bigger goal, you need to work with someone,”
he adds. "We needed a community that shared our val-
ues in order to create something bigger.” It’s difficult to
fathom exactly what these values are, but it seems that
at their basis is a commitment to push underground
electronic music. He explains how he respects DJ Vasile
for the sacrifices he made in this pursuit.
This group structure is perhaps, in part, a cultural re-
sponse to Romania’s communist past. Those who lived Catalin Ghinea
under the regime have learned the importance of like-
minded groups or tribes; it was the only way they could

42
force change and be heard. A well-known Romanian
phrase roughly translates, “Where there are two, the
power increases,” and the visions of Ghinea and Rha-
doo plugged into each other with electrical results:
that magical cultural cohesion and often overlooked
necessity of parties and music. It didn’t take long for
the duo to recognise the symbiotic nature of their
goals: a strong community of local artists would sup-
port musical events, and the events would in turn sup-
port the community.
But the formula had to be right. “You have to find the
right ingredients to create the results,” says Rhadoo. “It’s
a practical thing: if you want comfort then you have to
minimise the stress.” The objective was to work with
people who would not try to raise their heads above ev-
eryone else, who would think in terms of what they can
do for the community rather than what the community
can do for them. “We brought people in who understood
this. And we made it clear that although this didn’t di-
rectly affect them they would benefit from it if they put
their efforts into it,” Rhadoo explains.
Arpiar:
Rhadoo, Petre Inspirescu, Raresh
Rareș Ionuț Iliescu (a.k.a. Raresh) and Radu Dumitru
Bodiu (a.k.a. Petre Inspirescu/Pedro) were among the
first to connect with Rhadoo.
Although one of the younger members of this “broth-
erhood,” Raresh is the most celebrated of all the Roma-
nian DJs, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of music
has earned him the nickname “Google.” Growing up in
Romania’s Bacău—a 300 kilometre drive from Bucha-
rest—Raresh first heard electronic music in 1997 via
an illegal tape of The Prodigy’s The Fat of the Land. In
1999—aged 15—he began DJing at local discotheque
XXL, and in December 2000 became a resident DJ
at Zebra, the only real house music club in town. He
played every weekend, soon connecting with Rha-
doo and Petre Inspirescu, both of whom were regular
guests. Raresh held a residency at Zebra until he fin-
ished school and moved to Bucharest to study Chemical
Engineering in 2003.
Ghinea had been waiting for Raresh to relocate to the
capital. Having identified Raresh’s talents one night at
Zebra, he hoped to sign Raresh to his agency. Ghinea in-
sisted that all artists on the roster reside in the capital;
otherwise creating this community would have been
impossible. Raresh dropped out of school in 2006 to
join Sunrise and focus on music. He describes Rhadoo
as a “father” to whom he looked up during this years—
just as Rhadoo had done to Vasile several years earlier.
With the community in its infancy, Raresh played at all
of Ghinea’s events, opening for the main act and then
continuing at the after-party. It was the most formative
part of his career.
Hailing from Brăila, a small town 200 kilometres from
Bucharest, Petre Inspirescu joined in around the same
time, having met Rhadoo in 2002 via a residency at
The Web Club. Together, they’re known as RPR (Rha-
doo, Petre Inspirescu, Raresh), a DJ collective and label
formed in 2006-7 that is credited with releasing the
community's seminal electronic music productions.
Several other names—including Ali Nasser, Demos,
Bogdan Barea (a.k.a Boola) and Gubano—also connect-
ed with Rhadoo and Ghinea at the turn of the millen-
nium but left before the Sunrise group solidified.
The Community Grows
Cezar Lazăr (a.k.a. El Cezere or Cezar) was next to join
in. A soft spoken but essential member of the family—
and one of its oldest—he runs the record label Under-
stand, and Ourown, a distributor and booking agency
founded with Rhadoo. Not far behind were Serban Go-
anta (a.k.a Kozonak/Kozo), Florin Cuntan (a.k.a Pras-
lea), and Mihnea Opartan (a.k.a Herodot), followed by
others—many of whom made the move to Bucharest,
leaving home to join this swelling movement. And
it was during these early years in the capital that the
foundations of today’s community were laid: those who
were there became part of this success; those who didn’t
missed out. “We were all trying to make it bigger,” one
artist says. “It became our mission.”
Ghinea’s Sunrise agency and the events that surrounded
it had become the heart of the community, with more
names joining soon. It was a very natural process: like-
minded artists attracting like-minded artists. Sunrise
had evolved into a communal platform in a nation oth-
erwise bereft of musical infrastructure.
Ricardo Villalobos:
A Light Shines In
In 2006 the wider world began to take notice.
The first support came from Ricardo Villalobos, the
Chilean-born techno pioneer. Ghinea brought Villalo-
bos in from Berlin to Bucharest and scheduled Raresh
to open for him. Recognising Raresh’s flair and skills,
Villalobos insisted that Raresh continue playing before
joining him later in the night. The duo played back to
back until the early hours at an after-party organised
by Ghinea. Upon his return to Germany, Villalobos ad-
vised Cocoon—his booking agency at the time—to add
Raresh to the roster, and the agreement was confirmed
within 48 hours.
Villalobos and Raresh spent the next years touring to-
gether, sparking a national interest in Raresh and the
scene that had launched him. Villalobos was both influ-
43
ential and, sensing their dedication and passion, highly
supportive of the Romanian artists. “He introduced
us to the world,” Raresh explains. “This is how people
found out about our music.” His work, in turn, has had a
considerable impact on both the attitude and sound aes-
thetic of the Romanian artists.
Around the same time, Petre Inspirescu and Rhadoo
signed on to Luciano's Cadenza booking agency and
released their first tracks on the label—a relationship
that stemmed from a legendary party with Luciano at
Escape Club in 2005, and a highly credible move for the
artists. The ball was now rolling and picking up speed.
A Common Style
By this point—in 2007—an identifiable musical aes-
thetic had taken shape within the community.
There’s been a lot of discussion around this style, so
much so that there are various loosely-adopted sub-
genres associated with it. Some simply label it the “Ro-
manian sound,” which is slightly misleading given that
it originated in Bucharest before spreading. Nonethe-
less, at its core is a foundation based on loops and novel
sequences of rhythms. The music is subtle and ethereal,
laced with delicate intricacies over a minimalist base-
line. The tracks are long and hypnotic with no explosive
breaks and little melody. There also tends to be only a
few elements, hence the term “Ro-minimal.”
Those involved deny any notion of a common style. But
one could argue that there is a thread running through
their work. The reasons behind this unified sound are
explained by various theories. Some point to produc-
tion; the most common explanation is that at the basis
of all early Romanian tracks is a beat occurring in the
middle of any two bars of a four-bar loop. Another the-
ory is that the kick drums are mastered before produc-
 44
tion, lending a distinctive sound. Some go so far as to
suggest that multiple artists follow uniform templates
for studio setup and production.
Likely, there is no single explanation for this common
aesthetic. But this last theory is certainly a contributing
factor: in the early days it was a common practice for
artists to share basic studio setups.
This uniformity has since been reinforced by the com-
munity. As Rhadoo explains: “When music becomes
the only currency in a group of people, this happens.
We have this community of artists that love music. If
you share something with someone and you don’t hear
anything back then you get turned off quite quickly.
This exchange of information has been fundamental
to the community we’ve created.” Ideas, records, and
even specific production techniques are continuous-
ly shared within the group, meaning that there are
certain “in-house” secrets, all of which contribute
to a similar sound aesthetic. Raresh says that this is
only natural in a “family of people who cherish the
same things.”
The country’s isolation in the 2000s also played a part.
Although the communist barriers to the wider world
had been broken down, access to music remained dif-
ficult. There were no record stores in Romania, mean-
ing that locals had to look elsewhere. Rhadoo and Petre
Inspirescu often made trips abroad to shop for records,
taking longer than 24-hour train rides to Budapest,
Prague, or Istanbul.
The expansion offered by online commerce was slow to
change things as well: many websites did not include
Romania on their drop-down menus until after it joined
the European Union in 2007. And even when they did,
payment was complicated. A lack of formal online pre-
cautionary measures saw a rise in credit card fraud in
Romania, leading many online vendors to preclude sales
to the country altogether.
Exposure began to evolve in 2001 with the availability
of dialup Internet in homes. While it did not cater to
streaming, it allowed people to share links to recorded
sets and tag artists, labels, and genres within them.
There were two leading Romanian platforms for this:
understand.ro and nights.ro. The former was set up by
Kozonak and his peers and operated as a smaller forum
that boasted around 300 promoters, critics, and artists
at its peak. It was a meeting point for anyone in Roma-
nia to talk and share their thoughts on music. Nights.ro
was also a larger resource for finding club nights, but it
was not focused on the underground. Some of the art-
ist aliases today—Herodot and Kozonak, for example—
were their forum usernames.
It wasn’t until later that these artists had access to a
wider musical world. Late 2004 saw the introduction
of broadband Internet and the implementation of peer-
to-peer file-sharing networks. It was a breakthrough
moment for the scene: the combination of high-speed
Internet, poverty, and an entrenched sense of isolation
triggered a big download culture. This was the only way
for Romania to synchronise with what was happening
abroad. Between 2004 and 2006, the Romanian public
began to explore a world of new genres, artists, and la-
bels, and DJs critical to the music scene began exchang-
ing their collections with one another.
This shared insularity contributed to a certain unifor-
mity. “We were all blank canvases,” Cezar explains, add-
ing that it created a population of “sponges,” all looking
to absorb the newfound musical influences to which
they were now exposed. But their respective influences
and the informations were almost all the same; access to Rareș Ionuț Iliescu
wider music and information had been heavily restrict-
ed for so long and within this community was a lot of

46
online and offline music exchanging. Learning to pro-
duce music and DJ is something you can do via others,
and it just so happened that this community all shared
the same education—they attended the same parties
and were exposed to the same music. “We all attended
the same school,” one artist explains.
The Minimal Connection
The introduction of broadband Internet educated the
masses to the wave of progressive house music that
was sweeping across Europe—and they soon began
requesting artists from this realm. Foreign artists like
John Digweed, Sasha, Danny Howells, James Lavelle,
and Lee Burridge soon became frequent visitors, of-
ten playing all night to packed crowds, as the sound
of Bucharest began to conform to Western notions.
Influenced by these parties, this small community of
Romanian DJs began experimenting with styles, play-
ing any music they could get hold of. Praslea was play-
ing hard techno, while Rhadoo was playing a hybrid of
techno and breakbeat. Many even began experiment-
ing with production, frustrated at the lack of material
for their sets. “You could only find a few tracks to play
out,” Cezar explains. “We were like five DJs, and we
didn’t have any material. Everybody was playing the
same 100 tracks.”
But soon the artists began searching for a “new way to
express themselves,” with many experimenting with
more breakbeat and electro sounds. The answer then
came from Petre Inspirescu and Rhadoo via Ibiza.
Ibiza
Petre Inspirescu arrived in Ibiza in 2002 to stay with
Stefan Cosma, who had left Bucharest after losing his
job at MTV. Looking to make ends meet, Cosma be-
gan working as a photographer for Space Ibiza and as a
writer. He was well-connected on the island, and found
some bookings for Petre at a bar and at private parties.
Petre began to pick up more gigs towards the end of
summer 2002, and by 2004 had become a known name
on the island. He was joined by Rhadoo, who had made
the trip from Bucharest, and soon both became key fig-
ures at the DC10 nightclub.
Minimal techno was sweeping across the island, which
impacted Petre Inspirescu and Rhadoo. DC10 was still
an after-party place of sorts, often filled with Italians on
a Monday morning, pushing a minimal sound with “a
low tempo and steady groove,” Rhadoo recalls. “There
was so much energy in the room from the moment you
went in,” adding that this gave the DJs a freedom with
the music that they could play. “And there was also not so
many elements in the tracks,” he adds. This inspired the
duo to begin searching for music in this sound aesthetic,
both online and when they were on the road. As Ghinea
recalls, this is when the “vinyl cases started to change.”
Residence in Ibiza also gave the artists access to records.
The introduction of digital DJing software like Serato
and Traktor encouraged many DJs to sell their vinyl re-
cords, much to the delight of Petre Inspirescu and Rha-
doo. Many artists sold their collections to Vinyl Club, a
record store run by DJ Luc Ringeisen. With demand low
for underground vinyl, there were boxes upon boxes of
old and unwanted records, many of which found their
way into Petre Inspirescu and Rhadoo’s record bags
over the course of the season. “We couldn’t afford to go
out, so we just searched for music all day, every day,”
Rhadoo recalls.
Minimal Arrives in Bucharest
It didn’t take long for these sounds to reach Bucharest.
Each October, Rhadoo and Petre Inspirescu would re-
turn to the capital with bags full of new records focused
on “minimal-sounding dub techno” with “flavours of
Chicago deep house,” explains Cezar.
These minimal sounds were only presented in the
small after-party scene, but the music resonated
within this small community. Rhadoo was one of the
first Romanian electronic producers to have success
abroad, so it was “natural for people to start emulat-
ing him,” one local explains. “If you’re a success abroad
then Romanians will follow you. They knew there
must be something there.”
But timing also seemed to have been a factor: the Ro-
manian DJs were searching for a more interesting mu-
sical direction and a minimal sound ticked all the box-
es because it allowed for mixing in a more “attractive”
way. Cezar recalls, “You can do more tricks with this
sound; you can change from one track to another and
to another in one minute.” He continues, “We were just
into progressive house music until something more in-
teresting appeared.”
The country’s lax licensing laws were also a factor. Par-
ties in Romania could, and still do, go on for well over 48
hours, provided they do not disturb the public outside.
And sonic arcs of this duration don't lend themselves
to explosive moments; rather they give DJs the time
to build the narratives up slowly and then maintain a
steady state of flow. Minimal music is a more suitable
soundtrack for these conditions.
There was now a template.
“We now had an idea of what we wanted our music to
sound like,” Cezar explains. Purchasing all the neces-
sary gear that their budgets would allow, Raresh, Petre
Inspirescu, Rhadoo, Cezar, Kozo, and Praslea began
replicating these minimal sounds, all the while giving it
47
their own personal touches. Praslea, having moved from
Sibiu, resided with Cezar and the two spent all their
time “learning and teaching themselves musical tech-
niques,” with a common goal in mind: “work out how to
do these [minimal] sounds,” Cezar adds. The sampling
of old minimal records was a commonly used practice
during these years.
In what was a small yet inspired community of art-
ists, a vanguard of pioneers worked together to find
aesthetic solutions to a personal and social demand.
It was a formative time for this Bucharest under-
ground movement.
Minimalism: Deeper Roots
Victor Plastic is one person who sees it differently. An
ardent follower of the minimalist movement for many
years, Plastic has had one pressing question in mind: is
the minimalist aesthetic itself related to Romania’s po-
litical and socioeconomic background?
The link he sees is based on culture rather than music.
He believes that the musical style stems from a Roma-
nian interest in minimalism. In other words, Roma-
nians want things to be archetypal. “We want to take
things, strip them down to what is necessary and leave
only the purist content,” he explains.
The root of his idea lies in an underlying minimal-
ist trend in Romanian art, starting with Constantin
Brâncuși in shape, and George Enescu’s modernism
in music. “Minimalism was a national sport before
the revolution,” he explains, though it wasn’t called
minimalism at the time. He believes that this art is
a “manifestation of ideas” that are “deep-rooted”
in the Romanian psyche—and what is called mini-
malism today has long been expressed by Roma-
nians through their art. Stretching the idea further,
 he perceives the ’90s and early ’00s as just a “gap”
where society began exploring different areas—be-
fore reverting to an old Romanian minimal trend.
He dismisses any connection with the international
progressive house movement.
Plastic's theory is supported by anthropologist Vintilă
Mihăilescu. As he points out, the growth of Romanian
minimalism occurred in parallel with Romanian cin-
ema. There is a similar reductionist tendency in both
movements, and the same question can be asked: is
this is related to the crisis in post-communist Roma-
nia, or rather is it an aesthetic choice?
Regarding cinema, Mihăilescu points out the obvious
restraint in budgets: “The conditions were so that these
artists could not afford a huge production,” he says. But
he also suspects that this is only a part of a larger pic-
ture—that these films were made with a post-commu-
nist approach. They used communism as a foundation
and looked to make a statement. “If I want to make a
statement about what’s going on in our society then I
don’t want it to be complex,” he says. Minimalism is
just a more direct form of communication.
Sunwaves: The Next Step
Sunwaves Festival was the next step forward for this
movement.
In 2007, with a wealth of budding musical talent on
his books, Ghinea wanted to show them off. The plat-
form was Sunwaves, a four-day festival with a lineup
featuring artists from the Sunrise booking roster.
The venue was to be Crazy Beach in Mamaia, a small
resort on the Romanian Black Sea coast, and the date
was 1 May. Ghinea had thrown two parties in the
area, both at Motor Club in 2006, so he knew this
was his stage.
Cezar Lazăr
49
But it wasn’t going to be easy. The Black Sea coast
had cultivated a nightlife scene long before many
of the major cities, and its nucleus lay at La Mania
Club—an “amazing, never-ending” place to party,
Ghinea recalls. Between 2000 and 2007, La Mania
Club organisers had monopolised the 1 May date—
the official start of Romanian summer. Everybody
went there to party; there was simply no other op-
tion. Until Sunwaves.
Given La Mania’s success, everyone advised Ghinea
against Sunwaves. “But I had to try,” he recalls. It
was what he calls an educated experiment: he rec-
ognised the talents of his own artists, and his skill
in beckoning artists from abroad for the first time.
“I had been dreaming about doing this for so long,”
he continues. So he took the risk. Working with the
local authorities, he purchased a tent and construct-
ed a small stage in a carpark next to La Mania. The
event ran for four consecutive nights, presenting in-
ternational names alongside Rhadoo, Raresh, and
Petre Inspirescu.
In August he went back for a second round: Sunwaves 2,
this time featuring more artists from the agency. Each
Romanian artist was allocated a slot before or after one
of the headlining international acts. It was a savvy, prac-
tical model, but only a stepping stone in Ghinea’s eyes.
With each edition, Ghinea added more of his DJs to the
lineup—and by Sunwaves 5 in May 2009, the Sunrise
artists had their own stage where they played one af-
ter another for four full days and nights—without any
break. “It was our marathon,” Ghinea says. With Sun-
waves his vision had become a reality.
The Sunwaves model and experience remains similar
today, albeit with several thousand more people in at-
tendance. It is now considered by many to be one of the
finest musical festivals in the world. Running twice a

50
year, in early May and the middle of August, Sunwaves
marks the official start and end of the Romanian sum-
mer season.
Both editions feature a long line of international art-
ists on five or six stages, but the main showcase is
the stage where all the Sunrise artists play non-stop
for four days and nights before heading to an after-
party, which continues for another two days. Loosely
referred to as the “Romanian stage,” it’s a long, thin
dance floor covered by a beautiful wooden structure
with a beautiful, bright orange canopy draped over.
At the front of the stage are stacks of Funktion-One
speakers, a prefered sound system to properly com-
municates the intricacies of the music. It’s a special
arena to witness these artists perform, and in many
ways iconic of this sub-genre with which the nation
has become so strongly associated.
Sunwaves also provides the wider exposure that the
scene needed. International music lovers travel to Ma-
maia intent on seeing their favourite foreign acts only
to discover the captivating minimalism of the Sunrise
crew. Those on the agency have always been inherently
averse to media attention. In a time of information over-
load, the Romanian artists are a bold exception. Even to-
day, one is hard pressed to find any information on the
artists, with a select few who know even the real names
behind their aliases. Around 2010 the situation was
even more extreme: the tracks themselves were even
more rare, released exclusively on vinyl with a limited
pressing. Without a copy it was virtually impossible to
hear the music. It was that simple. Sunwaves Festival,
for many years, was the only portal into Romania’s rich
yet much undiscovered musical world.
It didn't take long, as Ghinea recalls, smiling, for the in-
ternational bookings to begin rolling in. “Ro-minimal”
was going global.
Ro-minimal:
A Global Fascination
International recognition was the natural progression
for Ghinea and the boys. The music had been national
news for some time, with European bookings revving
up in 2010, landing on the east coast of America soon
thereafter. Top-tier artists from the Sunrise hierarchy
had become some of the most in demand underground
DJs in the world.
Ro-minimal has had a substantial impact on the wider
landscape of underground electronic dance music. Not
only has it defined its own sub-genre within a saturat-
ed marketplace, it has also established itself as a global
phenomenon, leading young producers across the world
to copy the music. Just as some set out to replicate the
sound of Berlin techno or Chicago house, many artists
are now following the recipe of Rhadoo, Raresh, Petre
Inspirescu, Cezar, and company. It’s a small circle with
tremendous international appeal.
Much of this success comes down to the quality of
their work: they are tremendous DJs. Ever since this
Romanian wave broke, there has been a tendency
to try to explain it as something mystical—because
it arrived with no backstory from a country with
no roots in club culture. But at the core of it all is a
shared love of music. “There were no expectations;
just emotions,” one artist says.
The insularity of the country and the culture has almost
certainly came into play. “When you don’t have some-
thing for so long and then you have it, then you over-
indulge,” Raresh says, explaining that they all became
“supercharged” for the music. There’s a belief, too, that
the insularity may have removed “the pressures of con-
sumerism.” With no temptation to conform to trends,
their music emerged more authentically. “Communism
allowed you to look inside yourself and that's where you
find the natural self expression,” one artist observes.
All in all, this Bucharest-based community provided
fertile pastures for artistic development. By the time
these artists crossed international borders, they were
already highly skilled in their craft. They had been
performing at Ghinea’s events all across Romania for
many years, but this all happened behind closed doors.
As one artist says: “Some have quick success and then
they have to work hard; we had to work hard before we
had any success.”
Mysterious Values
Interest today is intensified by an enduring mystery that
surrounds this community.
Very little is known about the sound, the style, or even
the artists involved. As one fan wrote recently, “I col-
lect records from these guys but I'm constantly baffled
by the never-ending line of new artists with odd names
releasing on media-shy labels. What’s going on?”
The whole pocket refuses to engage in standard artist
practices. They’ve never sought the fame that they could
easily have embraced. Mainstream promotion is scant.
One can scour the web and find only a few interviews
with any of the artists, all of which are characteristically
cryptic. Only a handful have social media pages, and
none of these are active. They also tend to be extremely
selective about where they perform, often choosing the
more interesting booking rather than the one that of-
fers the most money. “We don’t want to expose our-
selves to people who aren’t going to appreciate what we
do,” one artist explains.
Adding to the enigma, releases often land under un-
known aliases and on unfamiliar labels, so it can be
difficult to determine the artist behind any given re-
51
cord. The music is also almost never released digitally;
rather it is rolled out on vinyl with no promotion and
only a limited pressing—meaning only those in the re-
cord shop at the right time have access to this music.
Once those copies are gone, they’re gone. Some of the
early releases have a market value of over €150. This
entire community and the work that it produces are in-
herently inaccessible.
The underlying reasons for this are hard to determine.
Some chalk it up to marketing: it’s no secret that an
absence of information or the "mystery factor" is an ef-
fective self-generating promotional apparatus, creating
hype in the music and those behind it. Yet this is most
likely a consequence rather than a motive.
Rhadoo explains how he promotes “values” within the
community. He believes that DJing is as much about
promoting an attitude as it is about the music; and that
he has a responsibility to invest as much energy in push-
ing the art forward by remaining unswervingly loyal to
it, and not to the machine at large. For him, media en-
gagement has several adverse effects: it distracts him
from his work and increases his profile—which in turn
brings in high-paying requests to perform at big festi-
vals in front of large audiences. His music, he explains,
does not “talk” in these situations, so it’s in nobody’s
interest to present himself there. “Only some people are
really into what I do,” he says. Self-promotion also leaks
unnecessary information about him, which makes his
art subjective; people then see his work through the
lens he has created.
And by transmitting these values to his fellow artists,
he expects them to follow suit. The long-term success
of the community has been founded upon adherence
to these principles which, in turn, completely evade
capitalist practises. A scene that was once so profoundly
controlled and limited is now exceptionally artistically

52
autonomous by virtue of self-control. It’s notable how
little these values have shifted despite growing success.
A final factor is formatting: vinyl only. While many crit-
icise it for being impractical and elitist, it’s a necessary
means of protecting a rarified community. As Rhadoo
explains, the music is made for professionals; it does
not work when played in the wrong context. It requires
small rooms, a DJ who knows how to use it, and a crys-
tal-clear sound system. Having an unlimited number of
digital files floating around would risk the integrity that
forms the basis of such an intentional community.
The Sunrise Experience
Away from international bookings, the Sunrise com-
munity is supported by events organised by Ghinea and
his team—Sunwaves is just one expression of an entire
Sunrise ecosystem.
Many of these events started around 2008-9 as a plat-
form for those on the agency. Having seen a crash in the
country’s nightlife scene—and with international book-
ings still not in reliable supply—Ghinea began looking
for other ways to support his artists. The answer was to
create his own events, all under different guises.
Happening in places from Guesthouse, a converted in-
dustrial factory located in east Bucharest, to pop-up ven-
ues across Romania, they’re like little else in the world.
The events often span the course of an entire weekend,
ending only when the people stop moving, sometimes
until midday Monday.
Contrary to what the uninitiated may assume, many de-
scribe attendance as an “introspective” experience. It’s a
difficult idea to entertain at first but the atmosphere at
these parties suggests that something reflective is going
on. Rarely, will you see a smile or expression of emotion;
people close their eyes and sway, moving to the beat
with little else. Often they’ll open their mouths because
this creates a resonance with the music and allows them
to hear it better. Screaming, whistling, and even clap-
ping is deemed “disrespectful” to the DJ. Raising your
arms above your shoulders is also taboo. This is a pro-
foundly intimate experience.
Bogdan Paul Dumitriu has been attending these events
for years. Hailing from Galați, he moved to Bucharest in
2003 where he now runs Mad-Piano, one of the city’s
two record stores. He describes these parties as a “ce-
rebral experience” that you “live from the inside out
rather than the outside in.” He goes on to describe how
he “connects” to the music and this gives him a “slow
and steady” release—a world away, he stresses, from the
chemically-induced hedonism that so many people as-
sociate with club culture. “It’s not just a lose-yourself cul-
ture; people want to connect with themselves instead,”
he says. “It’s a medicine for me,” he continues, likening
it to attending church or a cleansing by a shaman. “You
feel connected to the music; it can make you feel scared
and remind you of memories from the past, but in the
end, after all this mess and after all these things come
out, you feel free. There is a spiritual involvement that
exists when you connect.”
The important thing, it would seem, is this connec-
tion. It has even been suggested that this experience
is unique to Romanians because of their troubled his-
tory. This may be so, but the more common consen-
sus is that anyone can “connect,” though the intensity
may vary. Others dismiss the idea of “connection” alto-
gether on the premise that people attend these events
simply because they just want to hang out. This is cer-
tainly true of some people.
Any connection is, however, inextricably linked to a
particular Romanian blend of visuals, drugs, and music.
1. Visuals
Visuals are in real time, meaning a VJ will sit side-stage,
constructing a live, immersive, visual programme. It is
different to the visual mapping found anywhere else:
there is often no ongoing narrative and no audiovisual
beat matching. It’s not uncommon for the bigger parties
to have more than five projectors operating at a time.
There are two names associated with Sunrise: Dream-
rec and Coté. Both are represented by the booking
agency. Dreamrec is Silviu Visan, another elusive fig-
ure and a leader in the field of projection mapping in
Romania. As his name suggests, his inspiration comes
from how the brain uses memory and imagination to
trick us into believing that a different layer of reality ex-
ists. He’s worked closely with the Arpiar trio for many
years, both in the club environment and with the de-
sign of the label artwork.
VJ Coté is Ion Cotenescu, a soft-spoken gentleman
who has played a major role in shaping the Sunrise
aesthetic. He slipped into visual art through archi-
tecture and soon caught the attention of Ghinea,
who has prioritised the visual aesthetics of his
parties. They’ve been working together at Sunrise
events since 2007.
Coté believes the popularity of the visuals can be
traced back to the late origins of the scene, around
1995. Romania was just adapting to its newfound
freedom, and PC computers became a portal to an
outside world that otherwise remained materially
inaccessible. “PC culture,” Coté explains, swept the
nation, with young people spending hours in front
of their screens. “The effect of these visuals is some-
thing that has been inherited from those years,”
Coté explains. “It’s a manifestation of this craze for
visual communication.”
53
2. Drugs
Ecstasy was common during the early years, before
the development of this Romanian school of music.
The euphoric high was seen as the perfect accompani-
ment to the progressive music that was so prominent
at the time—but this began to change circa 2008 as
minimal music took hold and a more specific after-
party subculture developed. Parties became longer;
the music transformed; people needed something to
keep them awake; and the short-lived euphoria of ec-
stasy no longer complimented the endurance experi-
ence. The answer was speed—the most affordable of
drugs at around 100-150 Ron (20-30 euros) per gram.
The benefits are obvious: it suppresses hunger and
keeps the user awake, meaning they can party for days
without having to take a break and refuel. Some feel it
also keeps the mind sharp, consequently enhancing a
connection with the music.
Speed is no longer quite as common as it once was,
since cocaine has come in. This is partly down to
money—more people can afford the additional out-
lay—but it also comes down to availability. Cocaine
is more readily available than it once was. Some peo-
ple also just enjoy it more; which itself may be an in-
dicator that people now attend for different reasons.
“I like speed but it doesn’t click with me,” said one per-
son. For another artist, cocaine changed his whole ex-
perience, explaining that he doesn’t “understand” the
music otherwise. “The tracks have a completely differ-
ent impact on me [when I am on cocaine].”
The other drug that finds its way into these events is
Ketamine, a general anaesthetic. Clinically, it’s used in
the operating room, on humans as well as animals, and
differs from other club drugs because it makes people
feel disconnected from their surroundings. The recre-
ational use of Ketamine in electronic music clubs could

54
be described in the same terms: some Romanians feel
that the profoundly isolating, pain-reducing filter sup-
ports a correspondingly profound connection with the
music. It’s also common for users to blend Ketamine
and cocaine—enjoying the feeling of disconnect with a
quick-fire high – a cocktail popularly known as “Special
K” or “Calvin Klein (CK).” But some locals call it “Coche-
ta”—pronounced “CoKeta,” (for coke and Ketamine),
which sounds similar to “Cochetez” and roughly trans-
lates to “I fancy” – an inside joke and reference specific
to the subculture.
3. Music
The DJ sets will be long, often one artist will play for five
or six hours. The mixing process is also more drawn
out; instead of transitioning quickly from track A to B,
the focus will be on the combination of the tracks. Art-
ists, in effect, will create a whole new species out of two
tracks. “My music, if you hear it track by track, [is] quite
boring—but that’s what I look for,” one artist says. "That
allows me to layer things up so I can choose my timing
based not just on the track itself but also on the room.
It gives me the control to add intensity or dim it down
whenever I want.”
Some DJs will even bring in a third channel, thus
blending tracks A, B, and C. There’s a famous myth
of one person using the Shazam application to iden-
tify a track in Rhadoo’s DJ set only for it to come back
with three different songs—all of which were included
in this composition. In order for this extended mix
to happen, tracks must be long hence why Romanian
productions will normally be over eight or nine min-
utes. Extra care is also taken during the track arrange-
ment to cater for this ethos.
The aim, as one DJ explains, is to create a “spell.” The
music will continue for hour upon hour without the in-
stant euphoria associated with so many other forms
of club music. Rarely will you hear a melody; instead,
you’ll hear a repetitious baseline, a drum, and some
weird sounds. One regular at these shows referred to
the sonic experience as “music that goes nowhere.”
It’s like a “tunnel that never quite gives you enough,”
another local adds. The flow has a knack for keeping
you up on the same level throughout the night, but al-
ways wanting a little bit more. The romantic view is
that the music opens new channels of consciousness
for those who listen; skeptics view it as “simple” music
that lacks charisma.Yet the effect can be profound; it’s
gratifying in a somatic, comprehensive way that is dif-
ficult to reduce or dissect.
The Unknowable Now
The Sunrise universe is an experience of extremes:
extreme isolation, extreme ambition, and extreme de-
votion. Rhadoo, Ghinea, and the early group of artists
deserve tremendous credit for what they created; but
the phenomenon can only be fully understood in the
context of its national history: Romania.
Romanians have been oppressed as a people since
the early middle ages, first under the Ottoman
Turks, then under the Phanariot rule, and then as
part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Integrating
themselves in a scene that promotes “beautiful”
music that has been greeted by success on an in-
ternational scale provides a contemporary identity
that is also psychologically, socially, and spiritually
unbroken from the past. This has seen Sunrise de-
velop something akin to a “cult” status with many
following the success story rather than the music.
As one local explains: “Say you’re Romanian and
anyone will think you’re a peasant; but if you say
you’re from Romania to anyone at a party, they’ll
be impressed.”
The success of Sunrise does seem to resonate with
a latent nationalism. There are subtle connections
between the contemporary music scene and inflec-
tions of Romanian folklore: almost all of the early
releases have Romanian titles; and there are lo-
cal instruments on some tracks. Some of the artist
names are derived from Romanian characters: Pras-
lea, for example, is the youngest royal brother in any
story; while Petre Inspirescu is a playful take on the
name of a collector of folk stories from the 19th cen-
tury, Petre Ispirescu. One local explains that the Ro-
manian people relate to this minimal music as their
own, and this act of possession is important after
so many years of deprivation. “There is a pride that
nobody speaks of because they don’t need to,” the lo-
cal continues. “It’s the default state of the Romanian
scene to be proud of your roots because this is true,
heartfelt self-expression at its highest peak.”
Meanwhile, there is a growing body of people who fail to
be so enchanted by the Sunrise bubble. Many begrudge
the elitism in its voice. It’s an extremely male-dominat-
ed subculture, and one that is not welcoming of diver-
sity, especially regarding the LGBQT community—a
strange regress considering that electronic music was
one of the primary cultural forces that succeeded in
breaking through historically authoritarian social bar-
riers. This seems to stem from a surging conservatism
in the church after the revolution. Religion became a
simple answer to a number of complex questions—cul-
tural capitalism not the least of them—and remains a
central reference point of Romanian identity, an identity
that does not readily leave itself at the door.
The scene is not only want for diversity, but for musi-
cal diversification too. Sunrise has a great appeal for
young artists, and it’s natural that they wish to follow
in the footsteps of Rhadoo, Raresh and the rest. It has
become their only functioning model for success. But
55
the aesthetic is radically specific, and the magnetism it
inspires is equally devotional and artistically limiting.
The appeal stems from what Ion Dumitrescu calls the
“outernational condition.” Dumitrescu, a Bucharest-
based artist, explains that much of Romania’s wider
musical landscape remains undeveloped because
Ceaușescu’s regime caused entire music scenes to dis-
appear or radically transform. There is no Romanian
disco or techno scene, for example. “You don’t have an
equal terrain where other art expressions can mani-
fest,” he says. While niches are growing, Sunrise with
its minimal sound is the only scene that has developed
an infrastructure according to Western standards, and
a comparably widespread appeal.
It’s like a loop: “a lot of young producers begin to rep-
licate this minimal sound,” one person says, “and then
promoters want safety, so they book these minimal
DJs because they bring their own crowd.” The result is
an environment that does not lend itself to the growth
of other sounds.
It is partly for this reason that Sunrise is the subject of
criticism. As much as they’ve provided a platform for
these artists, some feel that they’re shunning a respon-
sibility to support the wider musical landscape. “They
should be introducing new sounds and styles,” one lo-
cal stresses. “They have the power to educate people and
push music further in Romania, but they just don’t to
do it.” In essence, Sunrise may have become too power-
ful and therefore, unwittingly, too controlling. It’s a self-
sufficient machine that generates huge sums of money,
but one that refuses to move forward and evolve. This
has contributed to an environment, at least within the
music scene, that is in some ways as closed as the world
that inspired its genesis. Others, including those inside
this bubble, shake off such criticisms as envy; perhaps
it’s natural for those on the other side of the fence to har-
bour such negative sentiments.
 56
Moreover, as much as Rhadoo has tried to protect this
community, the number of people involved now has
grown and many of these next generation “outsiders”
are entering without the originally shared intentions.
“It all started with the right values,” Rhadoo explains.
“That’s how it grew; everyone had the right intention. It
was not just about making a name for yourself; every-
one was motivated by being part of something and we
all helped each other.” When anything becomes popular
it becomes harder to maintain the original ethos. A di-
lution occurs; and there now seems to be some artists
who benefit from Sunrise without giving back. Instead
of developing the community, they’re replicating this
“Romanian sound” without being aware of the cultural
roots they have subscribed to. It’s understandable why
Rhadoo, Cezar, and some of these early figures have
started to focus elsewhere.
Reflecting upon those post-communist years in Bucha-
rest, it’s impossible to deny the success of Ghinea and
Rhadoo’s vision. And what comes next is uncertain.
But across town, something new is bubbling. Situated
in the northeast of the city, a large complex houses the
Ourown distribution and artist management company.
Opposite Page: © Radu Negru
Inside are two enormous, state-of-the-art studios—
one for Rhadoo and Cezar; the other for Praslea and
Raresh. This is accompanied by a communal live stu-
dio and workshop for equipment repairs, maintenance,
and development. It’s a beautiful space with open doors
for any of the artists on the Ourown roster.
Ourown is Romania’s only record distributor for elec-
tronic music. It’s a non-profit organisation founded by
Cezar and Rhadoo in 2009 for the purpose of present-
ing music to a wider audience and it now supports all
aspects of being both a local and global performing
artist. Cezar’s vision and focus formed the basis for
the operation; and working together, the team has cre-
ated an artist ecosystem—a little community within
a community.
Walking around the space, one can’t help but feel this
is what Sunrise once was: a hub of musical activity
and home to a small group of artists intent on building
something for the future. They’ve taken what Sunrise
achieved and made something of their own—or “Our
own,” as they say. You need only to look at the various
jazz and acoustic musical projects on deck to see where
they’re going. It may well be the next step forward.
57