#paradaiz

The 3rd edition of our Berlin encounters brought together collectives, thinkers, ideas and people from avantgarde digital sonics of Conditional vs Serious Serious, to manele vs Brazilian performance courtesy of Paradaiz and Voodoohop to art to techno/electro/acid from Forbidden Planet and Mechta, to talks about the relevance of notions of East and West nowadays, the precariousness of cultural endeavours and necessity to be active and try to change existing societies in the face of adversity (rising rightwing, nationalism, xenophobia, lack of resources, etc). Here are some of the moments.

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. 

THIRD EDITION OF FESTIVAL CONTINUES TO PAIR ELECTRONIC MUSIC COLLECTIVES OF EASTERN EUROPE + BERLIN TO CELEBRATE DIY ARTS & COMMUNAL ETHOS 

28-30 November 2019 Various venues in Berlin Tickets for each event can be purchased directly at the door. The Easterndaze x Berlin festival once again invites artists, actors and activists from the electronic music scene of Eastern Europe to Berlin, pairing them with locally-based labels/collectives for live performances, DJ sets and talks. Established in 2010, the blog Easterndaze (easterndaze.net) has explored and mapped local DIY scenes operating in Eastern and Central Europe. Founders Lucia Udvardyova and Peter Gonda travelled across the region to record interviews and collect perspectives on how contemporary artists and independent music-related initiatives operate in the region and its socio-political context. The initial result was a series of audio documentaries which then expanded to: a label (Baba Vanga); a networking initiative; radio shows (Resonance FM, Czech Radio, Berlin’s Cashmere Radio); and finally, events around the region, as well as the festival’s first two editions in Berlin (2016, 2018). As the fascination with and discourse around contemporary Eastern European culture gradually enters the mainstream, Easterndaze remains one of the pillars of these investigations nearly a decade strong. PROGRAM EASTERNDAZE × BERLIN 2019: DIY MUSIC TOPOGRAPHIES CONCERTS Thursday 28/11 - Conditional (Berlin) x Serious Serious (Tallinn) Venue: ACUD - Veteranenstr. 21, 10119 Berlin-Mitte Line up: