Railway

Sinaia, mon amour (photo: Mihai Plămădeală)

Coming back in our capital city from the Sighişoara Medieval Festival 2010, the train stationed no less then three hours in Sinaia. Meanwhile, Nomen Est Omen took delight in blackberries wrapped in paper cornet, peanuts in bags and many more wonderful things. Nobody bought a key trinket with compass or a thermometer (shaped as a deer), nor a fanny pack tailored as a shoe, but everybody felt ok even so. From the platform Mihai took a picture of us standing at the window; we took him some pictures from the train, while he tried to keep the balance on the railway. His picture came out much more convincing, hence the idea that in life it’s better to look up.

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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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1600 (compilation + bonus tracks) 2007

The album 1600 was built around five songs that were recorded for Witchcraze and not entered in the final CD, because they had not found the right place in relation to other pieces. These are two compositions by John Dowland, one of Fabritio Caroso and two dances composed by anonymous authors. Besides these, on 1600 have entered a previously recorded suite by Robert Johnson in 1998 for the concert album From the Castle to Another and then in the same year in the studio for D'Un Chateau L'Autre (eventually published in Shakespeare & Friends), and seven studio tracks appeared on previous albums, plus a live piece. The album is unified, despite the fact that the material belongs to several recording sessions and are conducted over time in different studios. The compositions are from year 1600, as shown by the elliptical title chosen for the album. The material, gathered under one name, aims to integrate in a consistent CD some parts already completed, but also to mark the collaboration with several musicians who had passed through the band without having appeared on any album.

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Stella Splendens 2005

Stella Splendens is another album already out in conditions typical of Nomen Est Omen, namely a project carried out within five days, between two tours. The Ensemble performed some concerts extremely well received by the public in the Hunyad Castle from Hunedoara, many people asking, later inquiring about albums. Being the first contract in that city, for a first edition of the festival, stage appearance was not accompanied by the usual media campaign or stand for compact discs. Public interest has led to the idea of multiplying a new batch of albums Witchcraze for next weekend's festival, where Nomen Est Omen was to perform several concerts. Returned to Bucharest in a Monday just to leave next Thursday (evening) to Mures, Nomen Est Omen members have decided to remain in the studio and started to record another album, with songs from the tours repertoire because three years had elapsed from the previous one, anyway into circulation from some time ago in Targu Mures and Sighisoara. For the new project was contacted old friend and collaborator, George Pătrănoiu, that did the postprocessing of the first Nomen Est Omen nine years before. Recordings were made over three days and nights in July 2005, a period of hot weather with temperatures above 40 degrees in the shade. A fourth day was intended for mastering, making the covers and multiplication of the first few hundred copies. The album was put on circulation the following days, at the famous medieval art festival in Sighisoara, again freely distributed. The contracts signed in the near future, some indirect result of the album Stella Splendens, have covered the costs of production. A notable event of this discographic step was that just before recording the first seconds of music, the lamp of a microphone burned, without any logical explanation to be found then or later. Microphone, a Brauner VM 1S, perfectly in function when tested before, could not be repaired anymore.

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