Shakespeare & Friends 2000

After the (thematic) inclusion of two thirds of the project D'Un Chateau L'Autre in the promotional album Omina Prima in 1999, the next year was dedicated by Nomen Est Omen to the integration of the (remaining) eight songs in a album that would highlight them properly. These are the dances and the ballets of Robert Johnson (c. 1583 – c. 1634), composed for the play of William Shakespeare, The Tempest. The resulting album, like the previous two, is one not for sale, for promotion only. The idea of his name, Shakespeare & Friends, was inspired by a concert held by Grave Muller Consort in Göteborg, where Mihai Plămădeală attended; that concert repertoire consisted of compositions by George Frideric Handel and some of his contemporaries. On the album Shakespeare & Friends, along with the mentioned suite of Robert Johnson were included works from the Elizabethan period in circulation during the life of “the Bard of Avon” and that he possibly, even likely, might have heard it. The additional songs are from Nomen Est Omen’s concerts.

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Omina Prima 1999

A number of changes in the relation between parties led to the fact that at the ending of the post-processing and mastering of the 60 minutes album, D'Un Chateau L'Autre, the interests of the studio, as a service provider, of the talent agency who assumed the obligations (and rights) as a producer and of the band did not coincide anymore. The legal status of the sound material recorded by Nomen Est Omen in the fall of 1998 remained uncertain, a fact amplified at one moment by the declaration of the loss of the project from the database. The subsequent transaction of the devices on which the album was recorded, together with the studio and the company, seemed to seal forever the loss of the tracks, in fact the work of the studio and performers. However, materials occurred  at a time, in a decent stereo version, much better in quality than the mono version which was previously in circulation. TV producer Doru Ionescu (Remix, Timpul chitarelor electrice) who made a series of interviews, broadcasts and a clip of the band, came into possesion of the post-processed material and returned it to Mihai Plămădeală. Without the legal or ethical rights to officially release the album, Nomen Est Omen, in a partially changed formula, used the files only as a demo, making at the same time a thematical division, as it was planned at the beginning of the recordings for the two CDs. Therefore, the album Omina Prima received a title, forty minutes of music, a cover and benefited from a logical playlist in 1999. It is the first material of Nomen Est Omen that gets out of the lo fi sign, but remains in underground. The main desire of the band was that, in the absence of gains arising from copyright, at least the performers to be recognized.

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