SPOTLIGHT: GEROGE

Published April 19, 2022

The ever interesting Danish scene for electronic music is thriving because of passion and dedication from all its various actors: DJs, promoters, crews, bookers, audience etc. Geroge is no exception. Friday 22 April he and his crew celebrate MDKrom‘s 1st Birthday in Red Box with an extended lineup. It’s set to be special!

Can we get a little background story to Geroge?

The name “Geroge” is from my childhood when I used to play with words and write my name like this. Now, the “ro” in it anchors me and helps me to not forget where I come from: Romania. I think this is a healthy thing for people to do in general: honor their past.

As an artist, I started playing music as Geroge right at the beginning of 2018 and a beautiful journey followed. I played music at some underground events in Romania and at one of the editions of Pe Coclauri festivals where I also was a volunteer. Since I moved to Denmark, I played a couple of times in Copenhagen, Kolding and Aalborg, always trying to engage the audience with my sets that have a storytelling nature, strong and groovy bass lines, crispy claps and an intricate background sound that controls the mood I want to pursue.

I am always interested in finding the groove with my music and I work mostly with Minimal Techno, Micro House, Acid House and Breakbeat. I am inspired by artists like Priku, Takashi Himeoka, Ion Ludwig, Petre Inspirescu, Barac, Etzu Mahkayah and many others. Among the sets for events or different labels and podcasts, I like to set up a specific mood while playing music and for this reason I am constantly developing my podcast series like GRV (Groove Series), TRP (Trip Series) and soon to appear, DRK (Dark Series).

What motivates you to work with electronic music?

I listened to a lot of music before electronic music, but when it hit me, it was definitive. First of all, I love it because it takes a bit from everything in a subtle way: a bit from the Jazz and the Funk groove, darkness and solos from Rock music, varied bass lines, instruments, rhythms and sounds from Disco, Breakbeat, Hip Hop. Anyways, it is clear that electronic music breaks or softens some boundaries and that is a good aspect of it. As an analogy to how I see myself, it is very well anchored in the past, learning from all the styles before it, yet aiming for the future and accepting change. Plus, it is always developing and something new pops out almost every single day, this way challenging you as an artist to be connected, to evolve and to be original.

Of course, there are the people as well. I do not think it is a coincidence that a lot of beautiful individuals are gathering more and more often around electronic music events. There is a certain vibe and atmosphere created that you can only feel in an empirical manner, by being there.

I believe a lot in every artist that I work with and I feel each one of them has a story to be told. I am a booking agent for DCS4 Booking Agency based in Barcelona since we share the same values and together we support a wide variety of artists that have their own style and unique creativity. I am also discussing with many other artists and promoters and what truly motivates me is to be able to provide an environment where all of these artists and lovers of electronic music can freely express and share the universal passion for music.

Describe the MDKrom project for us, and the story behind?

MDKrom is a project designed to spread the love for minimal and underground music here in Denmark. At its core, it is a concept that welcomes artists and like-minded persons coming from different cultural backgrounds to be part of a beautiful community which transcends any boundaries between people and offer them a safe space for being in the moment.

Everything started at the end of the year 2020 with the group “Minimal Denmark” which I created in order to start spreading the love for the music that I loved. Over there, I met Giuseppe Falcone a.k.a. ZéManilya and in April 2021, together with him and my fiancée, Alina Neagu, we developed the project “MDKrom” since we shared the same passions and ideologies. We are geeks, nerds specialized in particular areas that blend together, always having a holistic approach when doing something. Alina has a background in marketing and business development, Giuseppe in sound engineering and rave culture and me in architecture, design and content creation. We all love minimal and underground music and work together to make the scene grow.

What can you expect from a MDKrom event?

Since the beginning, we established some core values that our events must follow. First of all, quality in terms of sound since the music we are promoting must be supported by a proper sound system that makes the audience feel the frequencies of the music through every atom and element of their bodies which are made of electronic vibrations.

In addition to having an amazing time at an MDKrom event, you can really feel a sense of belonging to a cultural movement and a strong community. People and artists interact and interesting connections are happening. Every time we curate interesting lineups with a focus on diversity and good underground music. We work with a lot of relevant artists and our network spans all across the globe, therefore you can expect some really cool events coming in the future.

Can you tell us about your inspirations and influences as musician and promoter?

I discovered my passion for electronic music around 2012, after starting to attend a lot of underground parties in Bucharest and a couple of festivals in Romania. It certainly helped being there all the time, close to the underground scene and to relevant artists that you could watch playing multiple times, every week, in different locations.

At first, I was more into techno, attending parties where I used to play artists like Pan Pot, John Digweed, Mind Against, Tale of Us, Nusha and more. I loved it, but I remember it was a turning point, at a specific moment, when I attended an event where Masomenos played in Kristal Club. This funky duo, with their complex micro house and minimal tracks, followed by me going more and more to events where Romanian local DJs were playing, it influenced my perception and my direction as an artist and promoter a lot. The crowd was different too, even though it often was the same people. I think the music just makes you act different depending on what is playing, changing the mood and vibes on the dancefloor accordingly. For me, that was the real deal and I have remained loyal since. The groove, the dancing, the happiness on the people’s faces and the community that was created because of these events had an energy that stayed in my mind and one that me and my partners at MDKrom are trying to develop through our events. What is nice and inspiring for us at MDKrom is that we come from different environments and that we took the best out of them and transposed into our project – for example, my partner Giuseppe has some fascinating stories about FUSE, Cadenza and Perlon which we find very inspiring, too. For example, in order to start playing more, the DJs from FUSE decided to create their own events and 10 years later, they are still going strong.

Being able to see artists from [a:rpia:r] or Priku, SIT, Sublee, Cap, Barac, Nu Zau, Sepp and many more on a daily basis helped a lot on guiding my path. Then it was Sunwaves Festival where I got the chance to see Ricardo Villalobos and all of the Ro-minimal artists playing amazing. I learned a lot as promoter and artist by going to clubs like Guesthouse, Kran, Kristal and some smaller underground venues where the atmosphere was pure fire! At the moment, my biggest inspiration and my favorite festivals are Citadela Festival and Pe Coclauri, both in Romania. Check them out and go if you want, it is an amazing experience spiced by very good artists.

You have a 1-year anniversary coming up how has the first year as MDKrom been?

Full of challenges! First of all, when we decided to make this happen, the restrictions were fluctuating and were threatening everything. Then, the music we were promoting was kind of new in the scene, but we believed in our project and it turned out to be very well received by the audience. This gave us faith and strength to continue.

Since we have started in April 2021, we invited a lot of local artists who were relevant to our concept, but we had also big names like Nachin Searcher (great collector of records and a very good DJ), Markovela, Ida Daugaard, Ada Kaleh, Stefan Baghiu and Cap from Romania/Sunrise. We worked with some really nice venues as well, KPH Volume and Hangaren, and we would like to thank them for having us.

Being from Romania where there’s a big scene for electronic music, how is it different to be part of the scene here in Denmark?

I can say that I miss the 24 hours/48 hours events or at least the after parties and the minimal. Sometimes, you could have been lucky and catch bigger artists playing in afters than in the bigger previous parties from clubs. In Romania there were parties all the time, always with seriously good lineups. A few years ago, I remember it was a new project called Plan and they organized evening events near the National Theatre in Bucharest, from 17:00 until 23:00, on Wednesdays. I was working as an Architect back then and I was restlessly waiting for the moment to be done with daily work so to go out and dance with my friends. Artists like Suciu, Cap, Sublee and Kozo were hypnotizing us with their sets and the vibe was sublime.

Overall, I really enjoy it here in Denmark. I see a lot of potential and resources available, a lot of nice venues and a big diversity of artists just waiting to shine. I think the scene here is indeed focused more on Techno, Psytrance and Melodic House, but I also see that it is slowly opening to other genres as well. People just need to relax, experiment more and enjoy more aspects of electronic music – who knows, maybe they will fall in love. From my side, I feel very welcomed here and I really like it so far.

What‘s your hopes and dreams for the future of MDKrom?

Since we started, the project grew bigger and bigger and we feel that the sky is the limit now. We hope to grow our project and to make an impact on the electronic music scene here in Denmark. We want to be more than promoters as we respect and admire all parts of electronic culture and the universe it encompasses. We hope this will be achievable very soon and we are focusing all of our resources and effort to accomplish this.

Any exciting new projects in the pipeline for you?

Yes, we have a lot going on this year and ideas for the future, as well. First of all, we will go through a rebranding this year, slightly adjusting our name and logo. As you know, the name MDKrom comes from Minimal Denmark Krom and it implies spreading the love for minimal and underground music in Denmark, while inviting people from different cultural backgrounds to be part of it, transcending boundaries of any kind. The concept is about this, but much more, so the name will change from MDKrom to MDK because for us these letters have more than one meaning. As we said, our purpose is not solely focused on organizing events, but on having a positive cultural impact as well, hence one meaning of MDK is “mere dansk kultur”/ “more danish culture”. The projects associated with this evolution will be made public soon.

We have already started a new project in collaboration with Depot CPH where we have our monthly residency on Saturdays. The project is called “What We Play – An anthology of what artists play in their space” and it is already a great success. Our goal is to provide the artists with a platform to expand their bio in a musical format. The concept encourages the artist to lay back and play the music that really got to their heart, those hidden and forgotten gems that were keen to be played, but never got the chance; the most recent favorite tracks added to their collection or something they really wanted to try out and
experiment. We invite them to be introspective, as well as retrospective, and to open themselves to the radio as if they would play music at home, with no constraints or concerns, just pure joy and passion for music.

This year we will also release our label for promoting music that fits our concept. We have some tracks already prepared, we are in discussion with some really fine artists and just waiting for the right moment to release it. We are working on creating a platform where we will have everything as a whole universe.

We will organize events all year, but we proudly announce two of them: One happening on 3rd of June when we will have as main guests a very nice duo called Soundopamine coming from Romania. They will perform a DJ set with live improvisations and it is going to be amazing! They will be accompanied by another great duo called H2B (Helsinki to Bucharest) formed by Mihut and Melak, plus teams of local DJs who will play back-to-back, among them being our friends PAVI and Kanye Hest. Then, on 1st of July we will host Cipi and Claude from Savana Potente, coming from Italy. This summer is going to be just amazing and we hope to see everybody there!

Do you have any good advice for Culture Box in regards to the future of electronic music in Denmark?

I think you should keep up the good work as I believe you are doing a very good job. You are bringing valuable artists for the electronic music scene, as well as promoting and giving a chance to local artists. I remember I read an article few years ago that was talking about top 5 clubs in Europe and Culture Box was included in this rating, alongside Fabric from London, Berghain from Berlin, Guesthouse and Midi from Romania. Being here, I can say that you are doing just great and live up to expectations.

You are throwing MDKrom’s Birthday Bash in Red Box Friday 22 April and curated a very interesting lineup. Tell us about that, what’s your feelings and expectations?

We are really excited about this as it is an important event for us because we are celebrating our 1st year anniversary as MDKrom. In addition to that, it is also my birthday on 23rd of April and the one of my partner as well, ZéManilya, on 27th of April. We didn’t know that when we first talked and founded MDKrom 1 year ago, so I guess the stars just aligned perfectly. We would like to thank you for this opportunity of inviting us to host our anniversary at Culture Box and we will do our best to make this an amazing experience.

The lineup is spiced by us, Geroge and ZéManilya, and our cool resident, Daniel Naad, together with 2 special guests coming from abroad: Valeria Croft coming all the way from Helsinki, Finland and English Ola coming from London, UK! Expect vibes, groove and a great atmosphere!

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