CDCY007

Not much connecting has been going on since the last issue, obviously, and the timelessness of the situation sustains. It’s hard to know how things will unfold, as each nation continues to deal with the crisis in its own way, creating a complete lack of any sense of coherence between music scenes around the world.

In a way that mirrors the last issue, we are in a special moment of re-emerging from the quarantines, and after a year and a half of difficulty and isolation, we enter a moment of social recombination. There is a lot of anxiety and nervousness about what is going to happen.

In Cyprus, it is a time of relief; the border between North and South has reopened, ending a year of paranoia and separation. There were times when it really did seem impossible, and that some of these damages would last. Certainly this is common dialogue heard amongst depressed ravers: “whatever that was, that we had then, its over, its gone”. Perhaps, and perhaps for the best. After all, it is not an interest in music that has been lost, people still want to party, but we collectively know that we have to do things differently. We can no longer take certain things for granted, some of the people who proactively made things happen, are no longer in a position to be so active, previous institutions remodel or adjust, leaving a social vacuum in its place. As can be expected, that social vacuum will be filled, by whatever there is, and whoever is first to the punch now could well bury themselves within the heart of any future or emergent culture here.

It is time to be thankful to those who stand up and do something, whether it be radio broadcasts, record production, events, club nights. We are lucky that there are still people with a drive to go on, despite all of the drama and stress of the last year.

Thankfully, there was a pilot study conducted in liverpool which found no spread of covid in nightclub events without social distancing regulations, so it appears there has been a premise establish upon which indoor events, with the requirement of rapid testing of vaccination proofs, are clear to proceed. This initial study is a basis upon which event organisers can feel confident in pursuing all plans to reopen. All the missed festivals can be planned again, all the lost raves can be reimagined. It is going to be interested to see what exactly is different this time, with every rearranging and reforming as we speak.

It is hoped that the re-exposure to each other will sooth the anxieties and paranoias that we are all experiencing in relation to quarantine conditions and a year of isolated employment or furlough. We can afford, now more than ever, to be gentle with each other, and to remind each other why we ever used to do this music thing in the first place, which was, beyond just a love for music, a love for being social with a community of peers, and a mutual love for certain modes of organising social interactions and events.

While there are some shout outs in this issue to some memorable moments lost within the quarantine, this issue can be defined by looking forward to what is new, while looking as far back as possible. For the first time since issue #1, we look again at the prehistory of electronic music in Cyprus with an endearing interview with Sobamonk, a pioneer of early electronic music culture. It is a good moment to see both the beginning and the forthcoming simultaneously, to use the pride and wonderment of nostalgia to reinforce our motivation. You could imagine a music scene like a little sapling, and who better to teach us how to water our plants than our very own dr. greenthumb?

Thank you, and welcome back

EVENT : Members Only

Someone had to try something, it was a desperate time. In amidst some of the most anxiety-inducing and precarious times of covid conditions, it was so rewarding that some people put this together. It had been 4 months to party for some, and the risks where high.

When we talk about the importance of those who actually stand up and make something happen, there has to be credit due to those who came together to make this happen.

There is no point in describing it, we all attended, it was a mirror into our collective excitement and anxiety, but that in itself is a profound experience.

A big thank you to… well, you know who.

Loooove. #savetherave

EVENT : BINH!

This was actually unreal. For some people to pull Binh to Cyprus in the middle of a quarantine was a legendary move. Not only that, but the location was so informal for what felt like a rare booking here. The metal gate separated us from any sense of exposure, and for the had an event with a top DJ, behind enough closed doors for people to actually feel safe enough to let go. Binh is huge, with releases on Cabaret and a strong connection to legendary Tokyo Technique record store; connections rule

in Cyprus, and we have to be thankful for the connections our scene has built with the outside world. We do have familiarity with Binh from KlubD but this kind of artist is exactly what we need to see from time to time. We are lucky to have the connections we do, and it is clear from this how valuable connections are. Part of our local scene evolving will depend on collaboration and learning from other scenes. p.s // Something funny happened at the very end involving me, and while it is best left to memory, for those who saw it, the track was “I got 5 on it”, remixed by SIS.

NEW : Miltron Corps

The mind behind XRC has created a new space for something different. The alias made a debut via a self-released EP called “Welcome to Miltron Corps”. This is a person worth giving time to.

Thanks for the music available on miltroncorps.bandcamp.com all credits to Miltron Corps mastered at Purgatory Studios, Larnaca

Tephra is really something.

It’s an album modelled around an all night b2b set, with 4 tracks from each producer, totalling 8, with each representing a different hour in a rave. They commented that this format was a great reason to produce a range of styles that reflect the different kinds of worlds you find at different times in a rave; there is space here for build ups, main sets, come downs, whatever. Edith Progue did this back in 2000, and without exaggerating, that is one of the best electronic music albums of all time. Not to say the format in of itself is the perfect formula for an album, but it’s a concept that seems to recognise something unique to the electronic spectrum; its infinite plasticity. In terms of anti-auric art, this kind of reinforced association between work and a particular moment in time and space, not only creates a strong sense of “jetztzeit” (obedience to a sense of recognisable or relatable time and place), but allows works to be juxtaposed against themselves to: what happens if you play midnight at midday? Electronic music is not only plastic enough to mould to a moment, but these interpretations of moments can themselves be moulded to another, revealing the rhizomatic web of potentiality that lies underneath.

It’s been a long time coming, this first out and out Techno record from Moneda. It doesn’t disappoint either, it’s a collection of affective, refined productions, energetic without resorting to progressive movements. We had the pleasure of hearing one of these tracks at a rave recently, and it hit the spot.

Congratz on a great album

RAW SILVER B2B OSWALDO III available on monedas.bandcamp.com

CROSSDRESSING DIOGENES DEBUT RELEASE POLY [CDZP001]

BY NIKO MAS & EZILI-I SABBAH

concept album. We invited a major inspiration of ours, Ezili-i Sabbah, a.k.a DeRayling, Bill B. Wintermute, and more.

Ezili-i Sabbah is an associate of Mille Plateaux, a damn impressive label that has a reputation for its involvement in the pioneering of glitch aesthetics, and conceptual electronic dance music, and electronic listening music. Mille Plateaux has always intended point out the hypocrisy of an everincreasingly totalitarian electronic music and rave culture by presenting what electronic music could be like if people were actually as true to their liberal ideals as they claim to be.

POLY [CDZP001] can be previewed and purchased via Bandcamp. It is available in a number of forms: (1) as our signature ZINE/CD combo, with the 7 tracks burned to CD and housed in a 30-page zine that includes artwork, descriptions, original writing, illustrations and more; (2) as a Zine/Digital download card; (3) digital download only.

We wont say much now, as the release comes with a zine that entirely speaks for itself. It’s a proud moment for us to be Thanks for the support.

I/Os routed Sound checked Begin Transmission

It is too early to run a full exploration into the new project, but as the schedule settles down, and the residents and guests begin to build their envisioned hours, we will watch the blooming of this particular flower.

For now, we wish Barking Cats Radio the brightest future, as it is hard to put in just a few words, how important these investments and hubs and platforms are for music scenes. Techno and Rave culture are translocal subcultures, varying in manifestation around the world, but unionised in underlying ideologies. Berlin and Detroit are different, but they both share the techno >form<, and the variants of techno forms around the world fuse together into a far reaching cultural network. Local scenes interweave with international, and the international techno electronic movement depends on each microcosm opening up, and radiating or transmitting their response to the original echo. Broadcasting is a major part of how this larger network communicates, and it is unimaginably important that some people have taken up the difficult task of setting up, not just

a series of sets or streams, but a 24/7, 7 days a week transmission; a permanent, uninterrupted, multidirectional flow of cultural information stored within the aesthetics of the music we breathe in, and breathe out. We take tracks from Berlin, Romania, America, and we absorb the contained ideologies and values just like our bodies extract oxygen in the air we breathe. We exhale modified air, we exhale modified culture. Those tracks and ideas we take are ‘repressed’, or re-figured in our format. The kick remains constant, but the context evolves, and the global techno cyborg audience use the replicated form of the kick and snare to understand what defines the uniqueness of our techno. It is the peripherals that define our approach, and that define us.

They always say that Hip-Hop is a culture, a lifestyle, and that different people hip-hop in different ways. It is the same with Techno. We “Techno” in Cyprus. In this sense, the radio becomes a call to their response, or our own attempt to reach out and say “hey, we are here, and we have the techno. Is anyone out there? Is anyone with us?”

BARKING CATS SHOWS

with niko mas

BARKING CATS RADIO

Welcome to Mind Control, a weekly one-hour show from CDCY with our operator, niko mas.

Mind Control started on April 8th 2021. In the beginning we experimented with voice overs, reading from interesting books, which was a lot of fun, but quickly we realised that what we wanted to achieve with Mind Control is best left to a full focus on track selection.

It’s called Mind Control simply because we recognise music’s affectivity, and the deployment of well selected tracks can achieve that inescapable affectivity. It’s called Mind Control because we hope to grab your attention for just long enough to leave an impression.

Additionally, as we prepare for launching our label, Mind Control serves to present the kind of sounds we forsee CDCY encapsulating. We have already aired a number of sets so far which have been labelled “Manifesto Constellation”, acting as a sonic summary of our interests, from Mille Plateaux to Barac, Marco Shuttle to Mushkilla & Dampe. Most of our broadcasts are available on Soundcloud, through CDCY or Barking Cats directly.

Recommended on soundcloud: “niko mas live at Barking Cats Studio: Scorpio Rising birthday stream”

Catch us every Thursday at 10pm on Barking Cats Radio, broadcasting 24/7 from Nicosia.

SPOTLIGHT

>> The broadcasting entity known as “+4” is almost unrecognised in its contribution, and its ubiquitousness. It has become so normalised that we might even forget to give it recognition. Everyone was aware of it, we all knew how special it was to end up at that spot, under that camera, with that +4 television in the background. Everyone involved in the radio station has been influenced by +4, either through the development of WDIT, or the countless times these guys have performed with +4.

Broadcasting and Radio play a huge role in subcultures, with pirate radio being an integral part of the history of the growth of underground electronic music culture. Electronic music was the sound of piracy, and it was a sound only accessible through piracy. In this sense, and many others, the culture of producing and communally listening to Electronic music is of the same countercultural essence as pirate radio. Even little satellite islands like Cyprus were taken by these practices, with one young master seemingly at the core of all things underground radio, our very own Grandmaster P. Sobamonk. Simply put, +4, has been streaming and broadcasting for 10 years now, on an adhoc

basis, pretty much whenever someone can play. Perhaps the most recognisable or iconic feature of +4 was the streaming; there was a single camera set up in a now sacred room, somewhere in nicosia, surrounded by speakers and records, and importantly, an old TV which looped an animation of the +4 logo. Sobamonk was one of those “can do it all” ravers, perhaps not professionally, but whether its raves, production, djing, animations, radio set-ups, streaming; whatever needs doing gets done.

More than just providing these things, it’s fair to say that +4’s activities had a huge role in the scene, being a central node out of which the whole Cyprus minimal movement came. It is not about saying who gets credit for what, as everyone contributes to movements, even if it’s through presence or dancing or smiling. If no one was there to dance and smile, no one would bother to do these things, but it’s fascinating to think that mixing certain people in specific rooms, movements can be amplified greatly. +4 is a part of the history of WDIT, I.O.D, Alternadiva, KlubD, Barking Cats Radio.

We spoke to Master P about life leading up to +4 and after:

INTERVIEW:SOBAMONK

Sobamonk: Whats up my man

niko: All good, just been to do my rapid test.

S: ugh, I haven’t had to do one yet..

N: Burns more than a bump of m

S: Haha, well .. you know I’ve been totally off the drinking for a year now?

N: So you’re the Sober-monk?

S: Yes, haha, again

N: Again? It happened before?

S: Yes, that’s actually how the name came out, because I had a period of sobriety when i was in London.

N: Oh right! I actually thought i was just making a pun, I didn’t realise it was part of the name on purpose.

S: Yeah, because in London sober is

N: SOBA

S: yeah, and you know, I like those Shaolin Monks; they know the secrets of sound levitation, and they’re vegan, so powerful and sober, so you know I named it sobamonk.

N: Ah, are you vegan?

S: No, but I would like to become.

N: Yeah, there are a lot of like, addictive chemicals in animal products. You know they always say about cheese containing chemicals similar to serotonin or that act in similar ways. A lot of people giving up meat and cheese really struggle with the cheese, man.It’s addictive.

S: Yeah, I mean i want to try, but you know I really like cheese.

N: Haha, yeah, I have been vegan for almost 6 years now. Honestly one of the hardest things about being vegan is actually having to block a lot of things out, and to not participate in very normal things like communal eating.

S: It must be. I’ve tried to not eat meat for a week, it was the hardest thing ever. I tried everything else, I’m not gonna drink, I’ll be sober.. But the food? Oh my god.

N: One step at a time man, one step at a time.

S: Yeah I guess its part of my awakening I guess. First the sober thing, now my food.

N: it must be rooted to your interest in plants?

S: Exactly. The thing is, i’m in the

up my own food forest to grow my own food. And when I start having fruit and vegetables that I know are full of nutrients and that are organic and bio and so on, I can try being vegan, as I can trust the food more. What we buy in stores is not the same.. Trying to become vegan when you don’t trust your food is forest, then I can make some transition with what I eat.

N: Well, you know, the idea of this food forest does more than just garden, or hearing about the garden offers some positive doing this shows that this stuff is possible. Community gardens are radical, and collective practices. Like, for example, I’m really excited about the new radio station coming out for electronic music. While it’s new and will take time to grow, just having something to collectively be involved in and around the station. Community gardens are the same situation; techno is a lot to do with counter culture,and doing things differently, and the collective gardens are the same.

S: yeah, which radio station do you mean?

N: Barking Cats Radio, you know with the guys downtown.

S: Ah the online radio

N: Yes, I assume it will be a bit

if you know it.

S: Yeah, there were some nice online radio stations in the past. Proton Radio in the states. I also had a +4 radio stream on my site. When I had the +4 site it had 24/7 music playing.

N: Oh wow, how did you organise that?

S: I was using that orange-skinned program

N: You were just streaming through VLC?

S: No, not VLC re, before that. I don’t remember the name...WINAMP! I just set up a server and played through that. You know, I had mixes going on, some playlists, playing 24 hours a day on the site.

N: Oh wow, when was that?

S: I don’t know, like 10 years ago, though it didn’t get much of

N: Yeah..

S: You know I was paying for the site, not much money coming in and so on.

N: Well I don’t know how much an independent radio can make money,

S: Yeah it’s self funding.. I invested so much time on this haha

N: haha me too, spending all my money on CDCY just to do something

S: Yeah well be careful, you might wake up one day and wonder if it was worth it. It’s kind of sad, I’ve been DJing since I was 15,

playing electronic music from a child… put my whole life into this

N: You had electronic instruments so young? How did that happen, did you have a cool uncle or something?

S: My mother was a pianist, my dad played violin and guitar. I started learning piano, so I had a small casio key board. When I was like 9 my dad got me like a big keyboard, a Kawai K20 which had you know 4 tracks of memory. I could make like 3 tracks a day, but then I had to delete them, and the next day make new ones. Drums, Bass, Chords, Melody. It had 3 memory banks. I had a memory card but I was too young to know how to use it, so I just 3kept deleting them.

N: You don’t have any recordings at all?

S: No, I never knew how to save them.

N: Damn, I would love to someday compositions with like Bossa Nova drums S

N: How did this turn into DJing? Were there people DJing electronic music back then?

S: Well my Mum and Dad had records, disco, soul, rock, so I used to play them on my grandfather’s turntables. When I was in secondary school, they showed us how to do electronic circuit boards and I had a passion for doing that; I made some lights that had microphone inputs so they would respond to the sound. I found an FM chip and started doing pirate radio off of that.

N: when was that?

S: Early 90s. The band was like 2km, the antenna I bought. I built the transmitter, and I put the antenna on the top of my building and called my school mates to check it. I had two synthesisers for the jingles, I had a mic, and a tape player.

N: So you would play tapes and MC?

S

start broadcasting all day. The feeling was amazing to just broadcast something.

N: It really settled in then, this love for broadcasting.

S: When I was 15 I started a show radio in Nicosia playing english music (english speaking, popular music).

N: What did you play back then?

S: Mostly electronic, actually it was mainstream pop and electronic, radio show on Radio one. Then in ‘95 I had the idea of creating who was like 35 at the time, a DJ. I would go and watch him, how he mixes and so on.

N: Where was that?

S: In a club in Nicosia, he was playing Disco and House records. We became friends. I used to go to Paphos with my parents, and I had my headphones you know. When you pass from Limassol to Paphos, for some reason you could pick up lebanese radio, so for around 30 minutes I could listen to “Radio

N: there was no Kiss FM cyprus then?

S: No. I used to listen to Kiss FM greece when I was going to Athens,thats where

I would go to Athens.But I came home and I was telling this guy, lets see if we can set up something like Kiss Fm in Cyprus. Kiss FM wasn’t so cheesy back then, there was a lot of space to play underground sounds.

N: Like as a franchise?

S: Yeah, so we called Athens, and asked them about getting a license for Kiss FM in Cyprus. So he found an old radio station in Lakatamia that played greek music. This guy had a karate school and above it he and he was selling it. He wanted a fair amount for the frequency. So my friend asked me to put in some of that but I couldn’t really put in at the time. So I told the guy I would help set it up, as he couldn’t speak english and didn’t know much about computers and so on. So I was able to assist him in the set up phase.

N: At 15?

S: No, I was 17. I was broadcasting for maybe 1 year by myself. On to melbourne and had a slot there. I played at underground parties, clubs and in DJ competitions. I was exposed to underground there I think, and I came back with a different sound.

N: I think that speaks a lot for itself. Before your generation there was literally nothing of what we’re doing here today,this underground electronic music situation.

S: Yeah. I helped start some of the some early ones in a club which was opened by that friend I did given one night to make underground parties. I remember I set up two TV screens, and one Playstation 1 with animation; I also had some UV lights.. came. Slowly, 10, 20, 50 and more. After this, someone I knew opened English guy opened that bar, playing music with his wife. I offered to DJ for him and it became

semi popular, so we started making beach parties, after that the scene was growing up to 1500 people, maik was playing there sometimes too. We ended up bringing DJs from Greece.

N: You were playing the kind of music you were buying in Athens.. And this english pop music.. did you play garage?

S: Yeah. Garage! The night was called we made back then N S N

S

opened the club as a bar but after a while it closed.So I suggested to him that we open a club, and of course he

At that time I was invovled in Alex Pascal. Yeah, they had a summer club in Ayia Napa. At one point, as I said, I went to Melbourne but I was coming back each year to play at Cream. Cream is from Liverpool, you know, they make big parties around the world, and they opened a club in Ayia Napa and I was resident. I was given a tour of cream in Liverpool, and I was inspired a lot by the DJ booth there, that I want to make this DJ booth with subwoofers inside, a fridge.. That booth was opposite the last one. At having warm up DJs as that wasn’t a thing in Cyprus.

Back then I had a DJ school, and one of my students was Alex Tomb, and he was so interested and and the last out of all my sets. I was always playing techno towards the end, and he was always asking me what these tracks were. So I brought him in, and managed to pursuade Danny to put him on for warm ups. Unfortunately the club closed, I moved to London. It took about 3 years after that until they re-opened with Tomb.

After that the club evolved due to alex’s sound and due to him involving other DJs.

N: When did it become more technooriented then? After Alex Tomb stepped forward into KlubD?

S: Yeah, as I said, I would always play techno at the end of the night; I liked techno and underground sound for a long time, especially since melbourne and the hard techno I played back then. We couldn’t really play hard techno all night in Cyprus before then, the crowd needed to be initiated into it, to be educated about it, so I would work up from more vocaloriented, dancing house towards harder techno. Alex was really into that sound, so naturally when he was got his chance to play, there was a crowd ready for what he was into.

N: What about other DJs back then? are there other DJs who were involved then that are still active? I don’t know, Manic Maik for example?

S: Well everyone kind of knew each other, some were in Limassol, some were doing more commercial things, but we were aware of each other and some of us would invite each other. Some time back then there was a record store (byzantium studios) that all the DJs would visit. There were new records every Wednesday so you know everyone would come.

N: A big convergence of DJs on one record store.

S: And you know a lot of us played at similar clubs, for example, me and Maik both played at Versus at some point, and some of us knew each other from Kiss FM!

A lot has changed actually, but there was a lot going on then. was somewhere else, Leoforos Lemesou, then they moved to the capital centre (‘94 onwards); that club that started accepting gay people and dress you could how you want and so on. House music.. The freedom. Everyone was learning from the gay community, as they were so open, and they were

travelling and learning stuff in other places. Actually they taught us a lot of things, about music and more. So that was Versus, after the original owner sold it, it changed a lot, and it wasn’t the same, not in a necessarily bad way, just being curated by someone different. I suppose a lot of the DJs you recognise came with the minimal movement.

N: Interesting point, you might be right. When did you get into the minimal, micro, less-bpm, less vocals thing?

S: Eh, basically when I started doing sobamonk. I think it was around 2007 when I was in London.

N: 2007 is very close to when that situation kind of expanded in Europe, too. There was like Mille Plateaux and Perlon in the late nighties, but then it must have been like 2009 where you see [a:rpia:r] and so on.

S: No, I didn’t really know [a:rpia:r], you know what, those guys.. You know who started the minimal thing? It wasn’t the romanians

N: Where then?

S: The progression of house was Russians helped start the “minimal I think another guy. They had a radio station. Deep Moscow.

N: Deep Moscow?

S: Deep Moscow.

N: Deep Moscow..

S

minimal radio. They were the beginning of the minimal thing at that time. Ah, it’s called Deep Mix Moscow Radio now, previously it was

N: Where do people like Ricardo progression?

S : Well I was never into the Villalobos story so much, he was playing the house stuff like I was, and very much involved in the scene. Yet, I remember I was in London, and we drove to Berlin with my cousin, but I was listening to Deep Moscow. There was basically nothing happening back in Romania then, but Villalobos, you know he connected with the scene, and there was a kind of natural evolution that he and others followed.

Before, it was progressive house, in the evolution of house at that time, but I guess because I was playing it a lot, I felt that progressive house was a kind of cheap era, and I wanted to change that, so I evolved. I had progressive house tracks released and so on but then I wanted to just throw the progressive stuff. I wanted to keep the house because I liked it, so it evolved into minimal. That was the natural progression of house, from progressive to minimal or so. So if villalobos was doing the house stuff, and was around at that time, it was a natural evolution into minimal/micro house.

N : So that’s also when you started producing less progressive stuff? When did you connect with Archipel?

S : With Archipel I released as Sobamonk, so yeah. Well, the guy who had Archipel had another label, kalimari music, which was for underground and deep emerging artists, less known, but some well known names. It closed down but still the releases were there.

an Argentinian label as Sobamonk, and their mastering engineer was the guy who had Archipel. So at one point he asked me to send some music. That’s how I released on Kalimari Musique, a sublabel of Archipel. Later I did however release a live set on Archipel; it was all my original music but assembled into a set. Then he asked me to become A&R for Archipel. I for releases.

N : Where were you at that point?

S : In Cyprus. I had to listen to a lot of artists, you know they would give me some schedule of some people they liked but also said to

N : that’s a really good position, huh? You were doing +4 at the same time right?

S : Well +4 started when I was in London and I saw the new technological capabilities of was ustream, I thought wow I can just stream like this? That was around 2009. Around then I started page, and around 2010 we started broadcasting here on ustream, then livestream.com

N : So by the time you started +4 you were already into this phase of the progression of house?

S : Yeah, so I also took it to Berlin. I went over there and rented out a house/studio for a month (an artists Air B’n’B basically). I invited a lot of DJs from Berlin to the studio, and put them all to play. During that period, I had artists coming every day there. Some of the connections I made in this time helped me get a booking at Club de Visionaire; Maybe 2013? It was a aparty of one of my guests - one of the DJs couldnt play at some event, so he called me and bangladesign to play. from noon to midnight, 12 hour slot b2b. Saturday.

We didn’t have our records with us, so, believe it or not, we used a Traktor Scratch... in CdV. Surreal. It was the mecca for vinyl, and i didn’t have my vinyl... playing a tracktor scratch at cdv was so strange, the owner came down and asked me “wow, what even is this? where are your could sound good without the real it still had all the plants and stuff. Amazing memories.

We got loads of offers after that, people from different countries were giving me their card saying “i own a club here, i love your music, call me, if you wanna come and

N: Was this studio where you streamed with K.atou & Dygas?

S: No, that was in Athens. It was at Cannibal records, we streamed from there and they asked me to help. Actually thats how .. what’s their radio? You know I helped them setting that channel up.

N: Cannibal radio?

S: Haha yeah, we set up cannibal radio through Skype!

N: You were telling them what to do over Skype?

S: Look, the guy who opened cannibal radio was a guest at +4 in Nicosia, cause he played in Cyprus, maybe in Square. I invited him and some others to my studio and streamed them. They liked the idea and asked me if I could help them set it up. So when they went back to Athens, they called me through Skype and I would just explain to them how to set it all up.

N: Haha, I’m amazed to be honest. It makes so much sense but somehow not. Cannibal is still going strong I think. I’ve known it for so long that it became part of the all interconnected with you, +4 and Square, is pretty mind blowing. It’s very.. Cypriot, somehow.

Thank you to Sobamonk for your time.

interview: Sobamonk host: niko mas Love.

Find Sobamonk on: soundcloud.com/sobamonk facebook.com/plusfour

REVISITING ROMANIA

In the last issue there was an article written about Sunrise Hub, which discussed the rise of streaming under covid regulations, and how the situation at Sunrise Hub, as exemplified by the 24h Sunwaves livestream, seemed to offer some sense of future for electronic music. In the year since that article was written, the situation has remained the same, Sunrise Hub now occupies a space in our minds, it became part of many rominimalists’ daily routines, and seems to have always existed somehow. The more you read into it, the hub founded by Herodot and friends really was as auspicious as I claimed it was in the last issue. It was ready for use around December 2019, and became fully functional in January 2020, right around the time the covid situation was getting out of hand. It is not to say, by any means, that they predicted such a thing, but they knew, at least a year before covid, that the future of their artform demanded some growth or development in their platform. It is already impressive enough that the little hub in Romania has become a staple entity within music scenes in other parts of the world; we talk about it, we follow it, we resort to it, we expect it to be the location of the new direction. Yet, what is more

impressive, or perhaps something that is lost in transmission, is how this hub must function within the local scene. To live within proximity of the hub, while being acutely aware of what it is, must be something quite profound. I don’t mean to imply the value is in the cultiness of it, but the idea that there is this studio near you, where people are actually pioneering a culture seems very similar to what we read about endlessly in rave nostalgia texts and stories; people creating culture in a music studio somewhere.

The hub is a jewel for their scene, or perhaps more like a pink rose emerging from thorny bushes, built for and by rominimalists, for the purpose of taking the artform and culture into the future. They saw a potential for this idea to extend into the future; the streaming of Sunrise was not a response to covid, it was already in their plans. People there, participants in the scene, believed they were onto something, a specific variant of a music culture that could actually handle the demands of digital culture. They didn’t abandon the rave, they just reconsidered the state of rave within new socioeconomic

REVISITING ROMANIA

conditions, as perhaps we all should. One of my favourite books, the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, asked the same thing one hundred years ago; the times have changed, and if we believe that art can pursue freedom, we must accept that art must change over time, as to always maintain the necessary countercultural position; when something moves into opposition with the state, the state will move to counter it, or repress it, and it will succeed every time, so that which is counterculture must be dynamic.

You may say, it’s just video mapping, well timed video mapping, but the point is not the quality of the visual experience. What continues to astound me is the vision that they have, and that ability to recognise the future “location” of music. Perhaps nothing can replace a real dancefloor, but Sunrise Hub does seem like the first successful virtual rave platform, where rave-like experiences can be had from anywhere, whether at an after party, or a nuclear bunker.

If countercultural forms must be ready to evolve in order to maintain constant opposition to the ever territorialising-mainstream, we must be open to new forms of rave, even if unfamiliar.

The Sunrise movement haven’t stopped a minute since the lockdown. While the world stands still, their activity just glides endlessly forward, exactly like the music; as unstoppable and inevitable as the rise and fall of the sun. While the world stands still, their activity just glides endlessly forward, exactly like the music; as unstoppable and inevitable as the rise and fall of the sun.

Infact, having this kind of eternal, virtual rave platform online is nothing but a benefit to rave, a kind of auxillary server that keeps the rave alive even between gatherings. Not all sets are recorded to serve the function of extending the rave energy, as these kind of sets require deliberate focus on achieving such an aim, through imagining the wheres and whens and whos; it seems intrinsic to the Sunrise Hub approach to consider how to go beyond just sets, to providing specifically designed and curated e-rave experiences.

We talk about Sunrise a lot in CDCY, and we appreciate that it is just a hair on the head of people’s interests here, it is just sometimes favourable to discuss certain concepts within the framework or context of something familiar to the author. When we write about Sunrise, what examples of your own interests come to mind? We are certain, beyond a doubt, that people have their own go-to reference points, and that what we see in Sunrise, is there to be seen in other places.

We would love to hear from you, don’t be shy!

S//IP is back for a burst of action before the summer takes hold.

Currently this is our only performance space in Nicosia, and supporting it now could be vital.