Vive la Résistance!

Friday evening, at Orange Concept Store, the favorite “mall” of electro-hipsters, a gig began with Star Wars theme song and ended with Dallas series theme song. No, it wasn’t a nostalgia jukebox tribute to the unexplainably camp 80s. Not just because, somewhere during the event, there was also a tune sampling some dull words of the surreal creature Gigi Becali and how 2008ish campy can you go? (The musicians cut some sentences between his ideas so he concludes like a Freudian Flaubert: “I …am my mother”).

In fact, we are talking about the amazing pastiche aesthetics of the Romanian blitz-geek duo Rezistenta Materialelor who, despite the recent apparition, have already garnered some totally deserved awareness (the consequence of their awesomeness? hmm, quite possibly). Supported by a live brass trio, the guys did a great show which also contained some smartly coordinated video projection: on the big screen behind them and also, simultaneously, but with different visuals, on their t-shirts (the beating hearts images impressed me a lot). I guess the visuals are their creation, one of the duo being currently a student at Architecture; the geometrical appearance of most of them is, no doubt, proof for their origin; I also noticed their obsession with national symbols and figures put in an ironical light (Romanian coat of arms- their logo, Stefan cel Mare, etc.) and with actual consumerism utopias of the newly born middle class: Ikea (a read fragment of the brand catalog over some groovy beats) and malls (a perverted carol announcing the launch of a new commercial building).

Rezistenta Materialelor’s music style is quite eclectic, combining 8-bit sparks with shades of minimal techno and more accessible shakes of electro-pop. The long applauses at the end of the gig were the normal side effect of the whole affair. Just go see them.

(courtesy of Julien, and much appreciated)