Festival gallery by Viviana Ball/Viva Music

Musical encounters in Bucharest tend to be predictable and arouse their general cheering from their quite separate niche crowds. Luckily, more and more niches are being provided entertainment – a sign of normalcy that was less obvious in past years and now seems to be in itself a norm everyone takes into account when screening an event list. There are, however, events that defy any event rubric you had in mind and get you into a very special kind of mood. This was the case with a very genuine event, Future Sounds Festival 2012 – Winter Edition – the future editions of which are a must for your urban wanderings. Brazenly scheduled for a night that took pride in other seven enticing events, the festival was organized by FRONT and deployed seductively in a venue worth checking out, Safe House (82B, Popa Nan St.). It provided a lineup thought up to tempt the novelty curious crowd; but also to persuade it – two international and two local acts were set up in the festival: Sunrays and Yoon (RO), as well as Selebrities and Slow Magic (US).

Future Sounds Festival 2012 Winter Edition page on Facebook

Sunrays

Genre: chillwave, drone, psychedelic, shoegaze | Sunrays are: Dan Serbanescu (guitar, analog synthesizers, analog drum machine), Color Nurse (visuals) | Sunrays on Facebook | at Bandcamp

Sunrays –  Promo Video for Future Sounds Festival/2012 – Winter Edition

Sunrays are a recent date project of Dan Serbanescu and Color Nurse – but its recentness has nothing to do with the clarity of the direction they are headed to. A delightful and very inspired opening act, Sunrays provided a well-rounded experience of sound and visuals. There were moments that played very emotively with sound and light, and others that advanced fearlessly and blatantly, evoking the scorching stillness of summer, but also the melancholy that comes with fall, the multifaceted ways in which light is filtered by the mantle of leaves of trees; but also joyful resplendence. And with minimum stage movements and moderate lighting, you would think that the atmosphere had a diminished impact, but it was, not surprisingly, enhancing both visuals and sounds to a very electrifying effect – one a made-up word such as electrophany would best describe. Great job, Sunrays!

Yoon

Genre: electronica | Yoon are: Ionut Moraru, Victor Mihailescu | Yoon on Facebook | Yoon’s official website

 Yoon – video – The Mirror Can’t Hear You

Yoon’s show was probably the most heterogeneous of the evening. Their very stage productive mix of genres was surprising – sometimes clashing, sometimes fusing into great crowd pleasers; but at all times offering a superb quality of music – intelligent, respectful of their commitment to music and very diligently performed. The crowd, however select and still emerging, took the hint and got more and more animated. There were moments when you could not discern through the fine concord of crowd and musicians – they were old new friends. Yoon were at ease on stage, and you could tell this is a defining moment for them; their looks were transported and connected to a different reality, yet at the same time with both feet on the ground. It is not far fetched to believe that many of the festival goers recognized in Yoon a new band to follow around.

Selebrities

Genre: voguish summertime goth/Pop/New Wave | Selebrities are: Maria Usbeck (vocals/synth); Jer Robert Paulin (guitar(s)/synth); Max Peterson (production, drums, synth, synth bass) | Selebrities on Facebook | on the web

Selebrities – Night Heat (Official video) – to be released on Mar-20 as a single:

Selebrities were of course greeted more enthusiastically, as it often happens with acts that have a first show in Romania (and Europe – their 3 Romanian shows were actually the first in Europe as part of their tour with Slow Magic in 2012). The enthusiasm did not recede, and although timidly in the beginning, there were people who knew how to carry a Selebrities tune and even the lyrics to some of their songs. Their set was engaging and diverse, and the spontaneous reactions from the crowd really did tell Selebrities they were doing the right thing. And what is more, their choice of tracks was a confident and inspired one. Among played tracks we could give a thumbs-up to “Time” and “Night Heat”, but the entire set was unequivocally intense and purely cathartic. Add to that the quite calm and generally undemanding music of Selebrities – and you get a very cozy and atmosphere setting kind of set. It was unanimously enjoyed by all attendees and toward the close of the set you could tell the degree of satisfaction was really high.

Slow Magic

Genre: dreamwave | Slow Magic on Facebook | at Bandcamp

Slow Magic – Toddler Tiger

Slow Magic was as advertised and expected a magnificent experience. It did not take a lot of warmup and neither did the crowd need too much of an invitation to get into the right feel for the show put up by Slow Magic. It was an illuminating, sensitive and generally joyous in miniature outbursts, but with decisiveness that makes you feel at the same time protected and abducted from your known realm of reality. “Slow Magic is the sound made by an unknown imaginary friend”, the lines we read prior to the show on one of their band pages made a lot of sense while witnessing the unchained fluid energies of the show. Most of the set was inductive of great vibes and the overall feeling was replenishing and truly special. In the very end, we felt as if Slow Magic was that show you would definitely want to invite all your friends and feel together the complex goodness of life, well-being and closeness.