Future Nuggets – “Sounds of the Unheard from Romania” vol. 2

Published January, 2015
by Easterndaze

I stumbled across the mysterious tumblr Future Nuggets five years ago, which professed to champion “psychedelic sounds and obscure musical hybrids collected from the dark and hidden corners of romania”. The calling of the wild, the touch of Orient, Romania basks on the thresholds of East and West, and during our repeated visits – first in 2010 – and then later in 2013, we have met many people who have managed to make their positioning on the double periphery an advantage (periphery within Eastern Europe and Eastern Europe as a periphery of Europe, in general).

Future Nuggets have excelled in extracting the idiosyncracy of their motherland, fond of the oft denigrated manele – a popular Romanian music genre that mixes elements of Turkish, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian or Arab musical elements, which for a long time, has been shunned by the educated elites for its lowbrow nature and association with poor/lower strata of society. Maneletronics, a concoction of manele and modern electronics, has become their trademark, most prominently, via their Steaua de Mare project. “The border area has been as fertile as ever, the cross influences around the Danube ebbed to the shores of Bucharest and merged into a body with many names.”

Future Nuggets – “Sounds of the unheard” vol. 2 is a continuation of their first effort of this kind, presenting a compilation of their affiliates. Plevna, for instance, is a solo project of Steaua de Mare member Horatiu Serbanescu. The drum pattern appear on the backdrop of a soothing melody and suddenly, the breakdown – “optimum balance between eighties delicate nostalgia and contemporary local oriental melody all bouncing on bulgarian 9/8 groove”. There are other projects presented, with names such as Delusion Men, Concentration Band or Deceptionist. A breezy, airy sonic/space unravels, imbued with retrofuturist nostalgia and delayed carefreeness.

“This is a new beginning in many ways but as always in the Outernational realm, the future is never reliable.”

Read an extensive interview with Future Nuggets’ Ion Dumitrescu here.