Shamanic Trance

Nomen Est Omen – The sound on the fly (photo: Mihai Plămădeală)

Shaman means wizard in Tungusic language. Yet, the term is known by his meaning of ideologist of ecstasy. The drum is the vehicle through which the shaman goes over the physical boundaries, in order to find and fight the demons that troubled the balance of the most beautiful world possibly  – the one we live in. The truth is that if you wildly beat a percussion instrument, the spirit that invades you at one given time raises up to the euphoria of the extreme sports. Rivers of endorphins cross the body of the “scrapper”, to the despair of the detached witnesses, most of the times. Sometimes, as it was the case at the “Transylvanian Fortresses” Festival, Sibiu 2010, Nomen Est Iulian, Tania & Anca raised over the Lesser Square, riding on a darbuka, flied over the Liar’s Bridge and landed on one of the nearby terraces, for a beer. Gabriela and Mihai waited down for them in order to fasten hair, respectively to take a picture for the archive.

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The Mercenary Trap

Emil Hartmann and Mihai Plămădeală (photo: Victor Velculescu)

Sibiu, August 2011, Captain's log: The meeting with Emil Hartmann in front of the Ibis Hotel, the ex Conti(nental), represented, whitouth any doubt, the event that reminded us of the movie made by Sergiu Nicolaescu four decades ago, The Mercenary Trap. One of the mercenary of those days, the most handsome, smart and strong one, today a movie/theater insider and a master in swordsmanship somewhere in Germany, is Emil himself. The movie (as we recall) starts or ends with him. Nomen Est Mihai did not met the nobleman Hartmann for seven years, since the band wore, in a series of concerts, costumes and clothes from the past provided by Emil. The joy of the recap was authentic, unaffectionate but also in fighting trim, according to each other’s infinite vanity.

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Soprano & Base

A magical exchange  (photo:  Bodor Sandor)

The children are our future and the future sounds good (or at least we would like to think so). Asked by many parents to make a picture with their children, as a fairy, princess, entertainer or actress as those from the Mall, Nomen Est Anca once made a magical exchange with a little girl from Sibiu: she gave her the drum and took in exchange the flute. Thus resulted twenty seconds of musica universalis and an nice picture. After this artistic moment, the kids probably went to bed, dreaming to grow faster, while we went to The Owl, where we ate pancakes with vanilla – fantastic as the Wonderland of Alice.

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After the Parade

What you see from outside, you don’t see from inside (photo: Victor Velculescu)

It’s easy to be wise after the parade … The parade of the “Transylvanian Fortresses” Festival from Sibiu was impressive in 2010 and 2011. It is a great feeling to march in front of a wide public of (tens of) thousand of people, on a central route three-four kilometers long, to be finally presented on the stage in the Grand Square, in all dignity, as a participant artist. Nomen Est Omen, as many other bands, ensembles, reenactment groups or theatre companies, was photographed by many cameras, more or less professional. Finally, when the party was over, we took a picture for our hearts, to have it in our own collection, but also to find out how we looked in that evening. “What you see from outside, you don’t see from inside”, as Dorian Radu (he is a friend of ours, we don’t think you know him) said (in a song from 1989).

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An Arc Over Time

The Northern side of the Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral from Sibiu (photo: Victor Velculescu)

2011 was the year of Nomen Est Omen’s tenth consecutive participation to the festival “Transylvanian Fortresses”, Sibiu. Scheduled, by tradition, in the last weekend of August, the medieval gathering makes our band to associate the end of the summer with the presence in the beautiful gothic city on the Cibin river. To find again and again, in the same season, the Grand Square, the Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral or the Liar’s Bridge, gives you a keen feeling of time jump. “The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older”. We promised ourselves to take a picture in 2012, in the same relative position we took a year ago, in front of the northern side of the Lutheran Cathedral, dressed with the same costumes. That is, if destiny has not already decided that we will skip Sibiu next year. As an old saying says – the devil laughs when the man makes plans. 

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Past Time With Good Company 2010

In 2009, Nomen Est Omen has set up a home studio and went to the stage of self recording. From January to March 2010 records for the album Past Time With Good Company were made, concentrating on wind instruments (to which were added guitar and percussion) and postprocessing was done until August, at which time the album was released in the Medieval Festival Transylvanian Citadels of Sibiu. The version putted into circulation was not the final one, but an intermediate unmastered by professionals. Nomen studio kit consists of devices dedicated to recording, but sound engineering involves a different specialization than that of singing. Past Time With Good Company 2010 is for now a calibrated and panoramic version of an album that will see a significantly better technically edit in the future.

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