Fresh off the recent November release of the new 5 Way Split album (w/ Ria, Piet Onthel, Scenes We Have Missed and Children of Boredom) in collaboration with Mevzu Records, Romanian experimental screamo / post hardcore band BASTOS are back to our pages with their new video for the multifaceted 9-minute track “Willow”. We asked the band to give us an update on their project, their creative development, and more.
“Willow” comes from the the 5 Way Split “The Breaks”, released on Noveber 16, 20202 via Mevzu Records. The split will be co-released by Longrail Records (IT), Missed Out Records (US), Mevzu Records (TR), Beach Buddies (RO) , Dischi Decenti (IT), Les disques Rabat-joie (CA), Khya Records (SRB) and Huge Major Label (DE).
The video for “Willow” was put together by Vlad Stoica, a local musician from Bucharest. He puts out music under the name Schwab. You can listen to some of his elevator music here. The movie is about two lovers fighting fascism in 1940 Romania and was filmed during communism regime in 1965.
Bastos has been around for some time now, but the current line-up came together in early 2019. “Working with existing ideas and developing some new ones, we shifted the direction and sound towards something more abrasive and diverse while keeping the overall aesthetics we enjoyed in this type of music.” – says the band.
“The chemistry was there from the very beginning, so we definitely felt more ambitious about the way we wanted to approach song writing, and 2019 saw us keeping busy with working on several new songs, which we plan to record this year and hopefully release by the end of it. 2020 was definitely a bummer, coming off of our first show together in November the previous year, we were getting our passports ready to go on tour in Eastern Europe and Turkey, when it became clear the world was about to change for the worse and we would not be able to do the things we loved in the same way, so we waited and took a break while things developed, worked on our own projects and relationships, wrote new music on our own, played new instruments, read a lot of books.”
“After the tour we were supposed to record a song for the now 5 Way Split on Mevzu Records, thanks to Mutlu Oral. We really started revolving more and more our friendβs house, Dan, where we do our rehearsals and record the music. Pulling more of an effort in terms of gear and recording knowledge. He is also the person behind Beach Buddies Records, the label that put the 5 Way Split βThe Breaksβ cassette in Bucharest. Here are some of his releases and more to follow.”
BASTOS are inspired by quite a diverse palette of music and the new track is a perfect display of this eclectic creative approach.
“Willow was written and recorded in a fairly short time in the second part of 2020, we pitched ideas and worked on it sporadically and most of the time separately because of the COVID outbreak and our own personal lives.” – comments BASTOS.
“Instrumentally the approach was that of a sweeping, overarching and, in a way, story driven song, the length shows it, this was also the main inspiration for the lyrics, which were more set on telling the story and setting the mood.
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“We feel weβre still honing our craft and the band has a lot to grow, not only as a group but also as individuals, weβre hoping that things free up for musicians and music everywhere, and as the pandemic starts to become less of a strain, we can begin playing shows again and having that sense of purpose.
The local scene of Bucharest, just like many other spots worldwide, has kept very quiet in 2020, and the pandemic definitely took its toll and not much music was played, but BASTOS enjoyed some albums that came out in 2020 from across the world. Here’s their top picks:
Soul Glo β Songs to yet at the sun
Gripping, emotional punk with industrial rap mixed in . Essential.
Stormlight β Natoma
Killer songs by some of our favorite artists and people in this genre. Amazing drumming, original takes on instruments in general, bright guitars and acidic screaming.
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