Romanian psych legend RODION G.A. is a synth visionary and one of music history’s best kept secrets. In the mid-70s Rodion started creating a dense, colourful mountain of sound with his banks of tape recorders, handmade electronics and drum machines.
After walking away from performing live in 1987, it wasn’t until 2012 that the world got its first chance to rediscover his incredible music with the timely release of ‘The Lost Tapes’ on Strut Records.
httpv://https://youtu.be/RSJ77zI1tGU
34 years ago in Romania, Rodion Roșca founded a group that came to deliver an alternative sound that was completely unique in the claustrophobic cultural landscape of those times. With only two tracks ever having received an official release (via a compilation LP on the State-owned Electrecord label), the music of Rodion Roșca’s band – composed and recorded almost entirely by its leader – has been secretly kept on dusty tapes ever since. Unheard for decades, it is finally being made available as Strut, in conjunction with Ambassador’s Reception and Future Nuggets, presents the first ever retrospective of Rodion G.A.
Rodion’s music dug a subterranean niche completely opposed to the polished surface of the mainstream sound during the stifling atmosphere of Romania under the Ceausescu regime. Rodion himself was an enigmatic figure. Half-Hungarian and half-Romanian, he grew up during the brief “open” period of 1965 to 1972 when American and English rock bands, jazz legends and international pop stars were regularly played on the radio. He lived near the border with Hungary, in Cluj, a city with a healthy music culture that spawned important prog rock groups including Cromatic and Experimental Quintet.
httpv://https://youtu.be/aAMxGBxtN-g
Here, Rodion managed to find vinyl and, during the ‘70s he became known amongst friends as “King Of Records”. As such, he became steeped in the major Western artists of the era – Hendrix, The Beatles, The Who, Zeppelin – and discovered many of the more progressive and electronic bands from both East and West like East Germany’s Karat, Yes, Jethro Tull, Syrius and Skorpio from Hungary, Kraftwerk, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Matador out of Czechoslovakia and many more.
From the start, Rodion was concerned with his own style of composition and set himself apart from the rock template that dominated Romanian music during the late ‘60s. Technically and in his compositions, he was obsessed with every detail of his sound. His first sessions, as a teenager, were recorded on tape during 1969-1972 – simple, sparse and haunting pieces using reel-to-reel recorders and based around vocals, guitars and improvised drums.
Rodion G.A.
Thursday, 04th December 2014 | 19:00
Madame Claude | Lübbener Str.19 | 10997 Berlin/Kreuzberg
Rodion G.A. on Strut Records | Rodion G.A. on Discogs | madameclaude.de
