Essentia Mundi

Another initiative of the Romanian musical scene comes from C. Stefan, an artist who does field recordings and uses them in most of his compositions.

First, I discovered his label Essentia Mundi (www.essentiamundi.com) by chance, one night, and I was surprised to see that it actually is a Romanian label carrying not only his own releases but also of international artists sharing the same approach on making ‘music’.

ABBILDUNG

Afterwards, I discovered his personal music project ABBILDUNG (www.abbildung.ro) and I was impressed by the mystery he knew how to create, by the strong philosophy (mainly Wittgensteinian) and his musical ideas that oscillate between science and The Unspoken, an approach not at all common in our country. So in order for the circle to be complete (together with the photographer L. Stefan), the photography part of the website makes a completely relevant project, developing a great attitude and vision, unique at this moment in Romania.

A mathematician by studies, approaching, as he says, a DIY attitude for a continue self-development, C. creates long, dark, ambiental drone music and even doom-ish oriented soundscapes (field-recordings included), an atmosphere that gives freedom to the souls of the listeners and offers them start points for a lucid meditation. He is using the recorded sounds to create his own mystic sound world, in which the audible gestures that personalize factories, train stations, churches, specific corners of the cities, are merged into a sonic magma amplifying their iconic imaginary potential – but at the same time retaining a primary musical structure.

Abbildung – live Brussels and field recordings set on soundcloud.

C.fieldechoes

The name under which he releases his field recording creations is C.fieldechoes. The project started in 2007 after realizing the symbolic potential of the pure recorded sound. By merging a couple of ideas and concepts, he came up with the term “transiental soundscapes” for describing his work where there “are certain and essential manifests at the frontier of form and function of sound”.

The field recording materials releases include a free release at the Wandering Ear netlabel and the audio and photography installation “Transiental City” in Brussels, concluded into a CD release.

I hope that C. Stefan’s work will develop in time and – even if there are no local institutions or organizations to acknowledge his mentality and creations through the global network of sound-recordists and artists – he will find a community, a place, an external motivation to further self-development.