Vinyl - Marius Popp - Library Music Crate Diggers

Pre-Orders Only

When trying to understand the idea of underground, how do we define what belongs and what doesn’t, what is underground and what is mainstream, especially in the social and political circumstances of Romania before 1989?

Should we discuss it in terms of mainstream appeal? Genres such as jazz-rock or prog-rock have always been niche when compared to, let’s say pop music. What about censorship? Bands from the Romanian Sounds Unearthed series faced everything: having their songs banned, having their lyrics changed or censored, being declared persona non grata by the state authorities or being forced into obscurity by a state apparatus that had complete control over the media channels. With most of them being young men, the extremely regimented life under the communist rule, with its mandatory military service and the appointed workplace system, ensured that some of these bands would be physically unable to play.

In these terms, we cannot consider Marius Popp to be a member of the underground music scene.

It would take a lot more than this short text just to list all the awards he won for his activity, both before and after the fall of the regime. Marius Popp was (and remains) one of the most important names in the history of modern music, both as a composer and performer, both locally and internationally. In these terms, Marius Popp can be considered niche but not underground, yet that does not change the fact that he was one of the most important figures among the musicians of that era, both in the underground scene and in the mainstream. Not only did his compositions end up on the albums of mainstream artists, he also made OSTs for a number of movies and was a major figure of the Sibiu Jazz Festival, a nationwide event which we discussed throughout the entire R.S.U. series.

Marius Popp had a number of official records with his band, both during the Communist years and after the Revolution but the track versions you’ll find on these records are a premiere, never released in any capacity. Recovered from various national and private archives and restored to the highest possible degree of quality, these compositions offer a fresh, first-time-heard perspective into the oeuvre of an artist whose contributions defined an entire era.

What makes this record one-of-a-kind is not just the quality of the restoration process but the source material itself, the result of a decades-long hunt through various public and private archives. It would also be the first genuine Library Music record to be released in Romania, containing compositions by M. Popp which were made exclusively for film and were never available commercially until now.

Once again the artwork of Lucian George Păiș (previously seen on the 3rd R.S.U. release, “Modal Q”) serves as a fitting visual companion to the audio alongside Antonio Cioarek’s photography. And of course the record in its current, final form would not be the same without the input of Nicolas Simion who served as a music consultant for this premiere release.

As always, R.S.U. continues the effort of bringing this forgotten past back to life and offers you yet another high-quality restoration that will be a thrill for both newcomers and veterans of this series.

(Promotional text by Mihai Alexandrescu)

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Romanian Sounds Unearthed – 11
180gr. DMM (Direct Metal Mastering)
Made in France
MSRP €39