Easterndaze x Berlin 2019 presents Bucharest’s Paradaiz

Published October, 2019
by Easterndaze

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

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

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

Hear their new Cashmere Radio mix below: