feeder insider w/ Borusiade [en]

feeder insider w/ Borusiade

[ro]

feeder insider w/ Borusiade [en]

Borusiade, Miruna Boruzescu, has been a DJ ever since 2002, and also one of the first female Romanian artists with a passion for music. In 2005 she started producing her own edits and tracks, and slowly her sound turned dark, with heavy bass lines and obsessive themes. If we were to label it, although difficult, we could say there’s Dark Disco, EBM, tropical mutants and a bit of Acid. A member of the Cómeme label, she now resides in Berlin, and you can hear her play alongside Matias Aguayo, Gorbachev or Ana Helder. The affiliation with Female:Pressure can be seen as her desire for a more colorful music environment. Borusiade recently played at the Cómeme Night event in Bucharest, before departing to the Insomnia Festival in Norway. Let’s talk about the past, present and future with Boru!

keywords: unusual, industrial, psy folk, new wave, indie, occult, experimental

Hello, Borusiade!

On sunny days… I charge. Days like that are rare in Berlin
As I was living in Bucharest… I grew up.
In 2020… global temperature will increase by 2 degrees.
I enjoy travelling… with music.
My favourite season is… autumn.
A Romanian movie I would like to see again is… Nunta de piatra.
Morning kicks-off with… an apple juice blended with curcuma, carrots and ginger.
It happens often that I write down… ideas for tunes.
Clothing is… indispensable.
Three releases I recently came across are…

Ancient Methods – ‘Turn Ice Realities Info Fire Dreams’ (Hands Label)
Khidja Never Seen The Remixes (Emotional Especial)
Rionegro – ‘Rionegro’(Cómeme)

feeder insider w/ Borusiade

Alexandru Bogdan: Hello, Boru! We have your first event on our website dating 2005. What made you choose music and what kept the fire burning?

Borusiade: Hello, yes, yes, I believe we are talking about a party down at “Expirat” where Seb and Trg were playing at the time?!

I think it was passion which pushed me to follow what I do today, but everything happened unconsciously. I don’t think I’ve been on this road since 2005 up until today, with a clear goal inside my head, but rather I just did what I felt and things settled in naturally. It often happens that I think of something, I wish for it and then I unconsciously move in that direction. I think this happened with music as well.

AB: Hypnotic and interesting, this is how I feel about the remix you did for Track con Flute by Ana Helder, first to appear on VA – One Night in Cómeme vol. What else do you produce these days? Are you tempted to work on a Romanian song maybe?

B.: The remix is rather a version for the track, it’s actually called that way (Borusiade Version); it was an interesting challenge for me, especially because I had just “landed” in Cómeme and practically hadn’t done a remix before. I played…

I experiment with all that goes through my head without considering any limitations. This is how I keep producing actively; digging out whatever is that flows through my head.

I’m releasing 2 EPs in 2016, one for Cómeme at the beginning of the year and another for Correspondant towards spring.

I haven’t given much thought to remixing some native tracks, but I believe a collaboration with Khidja or Future Nuggets would make me happy.

AB.: Ableton live, synths – what other instruments or software help you create mixes or tracks? What were the required devices back in 2014 when you made your debut through a live set next to Gudrun Gut?

B.:

I believe one first takes into consideration the budget when looking into live or production set-ups and, for me, creating music regardless of the limitations is more important than having a garage filled with tools.

Speaking of production, I’m currently using Ableton Live and a microKorg XL. When I need something more complex, or I want to use a particular feature, or perhaps record an instrument, mix the tracks, I go to the Cómeme studio, the District Union, where I find whatever is missing… I do wish for other machineries in the near future, but right now, I do the work with what I’ve got. When mixing, I pull what I record from the pick-ups or digital sources via Traktor. For the live show, I primarily used a synthesizer and then an APC controller for Ableton.

AB.: I was overjoyed to hear Taraf de Haidouks or Romica Puceanu played at your monthly “Dreamcatcher” radio show for Cómeme. Tell us a bit more about your collaboration with Cómeme and the atmosphere in the District Union.

B.: The Dreamcatcher is, I think, one of the most enjoyable outputs of my belonging to Comeme. As if it weren’t enough I’m part of a label of beautiful weirdos, the radio pushes everything further. There really is no boundary there: the public is invisible, so all the musical ghosts come out to play.

What I generally like about Cómeme, and why I feel so “at home” in this label is because, as an artist, I do not feel forced to resort to any kind of compromise.

I believe that, looking at the other artists in the roster too, this is one of Cómeme’s trademarks. Another very important factor is the special relationship we have between us and the way we interconnect. With all the members I met, the ones in Europe, because so far I haven’t had the opportunity to meet the others, I established an immediate and honest friendships. Our friendship and the connection between us extends to the creative area: we send each other tracks we are working on for feedback, and we even do collective auditions during which everyone’s opinions are voiced and taken into account.

[…] when choosing the tracks for January’s scheduled EP, I had already spent a whole day with Matias to listen and select them, 5 out of about 12. That evening/night Sano, Avril and Gregorio (Gladkazuka) came along to listen to the tracks and each did a top 5 which I took into consideration when choosing the tunes.

AB.: Your music is styled in a peculiar and bizarre way. It is not just the dark sides I want to highlight, but also your capacity to mix a variety of musical genres, thus generating a succession of emotional states inside your listeners. How do you start a mix, does it happen spontaneously or are some designated steps followed?

B.:

The mixes, or musical films (how I call them, at least those in the Dreamcatcher series) are built in general on mental states or even dreams. I jot down some ideas for the tracks, or hear, or read something which I find interesting as a starting point, then everything emerges from within somehow, each track being a continuation of the other. At least this is how I feel.

The list makes sense musically and theatrically in my head. It’s also that the musical styles are completely relative to my mind and ears…

AB.: We featured Matias Aguayo in our insider series and he expressed his wish to work together with more female artists at Cómeme. I looked up your history and ran into Female:Pressure, the exclusive female network for DJs and producers around the globe. What were those old mindsets you had to face and how did you respond to them? Any recommendations for young female DJs or producers?

B.: It’s an extremely important aspect I unfortunately hadn’t thought about for years. My passion for music in general, and then for electronic music, never knew and still does not acknowledge any gender. I grew up in this world (the club scene) surrounded by guys, each one smarter and more technical than the other; some acted towards me with superiority because I am a girl, others helped me learn things I did not know, others I worked together with and are still my friends.

Personally I did not feel discrimination, only some sort of skepticism when it came to my passion vs. gendre… which is stupid, if I may say so… However, this status of being „the only girl” can be considered a privilege by some, but can also turn into painful solitude.

I left for Berlin where things are completely different: this in-your-face gender inequality present in the club scene was spotted and already alarm signals were pulled which, I believe, generated some changes; some shyer, others more assertive.

Electric Indigo initiated Female:Pressure, part of which I am too, and this problem was first brought up there. F:P did statistics regarding women’s presence at festivals or club line-ups from around the world and the results, I can tell you, were pretty embarrassing… Since then, more attention is being given to this crucial point.

And to make myself clear, Female:Pressure is living proof that women are present in this area of music, producing, mixing, knowing how to handle a mixer or a synthesizer, doing sound engineering for an album, a live concert even, and so on and so forth.

The missing link is the acceptance of the fact that a creative person in a field employing technical means does not necessarily have to be a man.

In the end the audience is missing a lot due to the exclusion of females from the world of electronic music. You have no idea how many talents are hidden there… And there are plenty.

My advice to the young girls, but also for others, grown women, attracted to this field, is to continue passionately doing what they are doing, to enter the Female:Pressure (www.femalepressure.net) website and get in touch with other “sisters”, send mixes, tracks, drafts, make themselves visible in any way they can and I believe with perseverance and passion, they cannot fail.

Honestly, I owe this slowly-won place of mine firstly to passion, stubbornness and the contact I had with other artists which listened to what I did, appreciated and recommended me, propelled me further.

 

Starting with the DJ set I did with Planningtorock, followed by the invitation I received from Gudrun Gut for my first live act and the tracks and mixes I posted on Female:Pressure, which received feedback from Lena Willikens; from here on Còmeme came in and the rest is history. This is how things go down, but I repeat, it takes a lot of patience, passion and perseverance.

feeder insider w/ Borusiade

AB.: You came close to the alternative sphere at the Web Club, then Loggia, Other Side, Ota, Exit and Club Control is for you a special place. What are the pleasant memories you kept from those first events?

B.: First of all, I will never forget that early time when I played at the Web, after I had asked Marika for a while to show me, let me to see how it feels… And he invited me to a party where he played with Vania, and I was meant to do the same with Paul Dunca, the Web was packed and everyone came for Marika and Vania. Half-an hour before the start, Marika showed me how the mixer and the CDjs work.

For the first time in my life I was touching them with my hands. I think I was 19 years old.

People danced, but the next day the selectro forum spilled some nonsense over Marika, that he brought some amateurs over to their precious Web, so much that I told myself I will never play music in my life again. Well, it was not the case.

Even now I am still thankful to Marika, even if we haven’t seen each other in a long time. What followed were another 10 years of parties, I do not remember them all, but I fiercely continued to play music.

AB.: Sometimes we find ourselves inside the perfect energy radiating from a place, we leave full of laughter and ask ourselves how can we hang on to that? What could be the ideal combination for a venue to constantly evolve while maintaining pure and fizzy?

B.:

I believe “man makes the place”…

Of course you’d ideally have a good sound and a welcoming venue, but first and foremost it’s the people that matter, those who come to that place and the energy they release, their motivations and the type of expectations they have when they go to a certain place. From there on, if the people are open, and the line-ups keep getting more and more interesting, everything can reach surprising levels.

feeder insider w/ Borusiade

AB.: I found out about your connection with the world of the movies, a soundtrack for Scor Alb, invitations for DaKino and others. How would you define your current relationship with cinematography? Any plans for the future?

B.: I graduated from UNATC in 2007. I took part in many international events and won a few prizes. Film is my number 2 passion, almost on par with music.

To my mind, the two are not different: when I make a movie, I think about it through music. When I do music, I think about it in film.

No plans for now, I generally let things take their course. I don’t rule out any possibility. At the moment I am making a movie out of music, we will see when I will be making music out of film.

AB.: For 11 years feeder is the news agency of the alternative nation. Do you perhaps remember how you first time found your way to the website?

B.: Hmmm… I remember when feeder appeared and the only editor was Igu. I read his posts daily, he practically represented a compass for Bucharest’s lifestyle back then. It made me proud to discover on feeder flyers from the parties I was doing, I’d even send e-mails to promote them. I think I was one of the first feeder users in Bucharest…

feeder insider w/ Borusiade

insider-signature-1

Words & Translation Alexandru Bogdan

Leave a reply (we review all comments)