Description

Liveland Festival is a music festival that militates for the restoration of man-nature harmony.

Music proves to be an ideal bridge tool in reaching the general public and raising awareness of green issues. Liveland aims to gather a public that responds to artful music and cutting edge artists.

In this particular context, Liveland’s aim is to bring forward to the public live performances of bands and musicians with an influential contribution to modern music.

Eco-themed movie screenings, showrooms of alternative technologies & practices and bio food products, will be highlighting the benefits of ‘thinking green’.

We attempt to set quality standards in regards to cultural and music events in Romania, to change mentalities and widen choices, to educate the local public by offering a valuable selection of musicians in a cultural setting that combines education and information with entertainment.

ECO Strategy

Liveland plans to become an environmentally friendly festival, with a minimum negative impact on the environment:

• Only green ware will be used
  
• All waste resulted will be recycled
  
• Showrooms providing latest trends and practices on alternative technology, Alternative energy, slow-food/organic growth
  
• Alternative transportation
  
• Bicycle Parking

Programme

Tickets

Tickets for LIVELAND FESTIVAL are limited and can be purchased online from www.myticket.ro and www.eventim.ro, or from the Diverta network, Carturesti bookshops, Orange, Germanos and Vodafone shops across Romania, at FRONT (Calea Rahovei, 196A, Bucharest), and from the following locations: Control Club (Academiei, 19), Pe Baricade (Radu Voda, 23), Club Tago Mago (Sperantei, 21) and Off the Record (Blanari, 14).

Prices are as follows:
-3-day pass – June 17, 18 and 19 (limited to 500 passes) : RON 75
-Day pass for Thursday, June 17 : RON 35 (first 500 tickets) and RON 50 (next 500 tickets)
-Day pass for Friday, June 18 : RON 35 (first 500 tickets) and RON 50 (next 500 tickets)
-Day pass for Saturday, June 19 : RON 35 (first 500 tickets) and RON 50 (next 500 tickets)

During the Festival (June 17-19) only day tickets are available for purchase at the entrance, price 50 lei/day. Doors 8 pm, concerts start at 9 pm on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, doors 9 pm, concerts start at 10 pm.   

Artists

The Whitest Boy Alive

Now a Berlin-based pop folk quartet, The Whitest Boy Alive started as an electronic dance music project in 2003, and slowly developed into a band without any programmed elements. Praised for its “capacity for slowly, subtly getting under your skin” (The Guardian), the band is made up of: Erlend Øye(Kings of Convenience) - guitar and vocals, Marcin Oz - bass, Sebastian Maschat - drums and Daniel Nentwig - rhodes and crumar.

Whereas their debut album, Dreams (2006) is made of tracks to dance to and can very well be enjoyed on a sofa as well, the new release, Rules (2009), recorded in a Mexican beach house, sounds mostly as if the band wanted to capture on tape the enthusiasm The Whitest Boy Alive usually experience during their concerts. The tendency is: less indie pop, more disco, sometimes even a touch of house.

“The group gradually evolved into a laptop-free band, with the emphasis on live instrumentation rather than samples and pre-programmed beats” (Dazed)

“Shifting from Kings of Convenience's acoustic pastoralism to the plugged-in, dance-friendly pop of the Whitest Boy Alive, Oye seemed like he was aiming not for bars or nightclubs, but the headphones of people walking down empty streets.” (Pitchfork)

www.whitestboyalive.com

Xiu Xiu

Originally from San Jose, California, Xiu Xiu is an experimental art rock band, the brainchild of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart, who has been its only constant member since its inception, in 2000. His current bandmates are Angela Seo and percussionist Ches Smith. Xiu's music draws heavily from several disparate genres including post-punk, '80s synthpop, noise, ambient, techno, Asian percussive music, modern classical, and folk. Musically, the band often blends cacophonous percussion and experimental structures with lush hooks and diverging lyrical styles.

Xiu Xiu has released no less than 10 studio albums to date, including The Air Force – winner of “Avant Garde Album of the Year” in the 2007 PLUG Awards. The band's latest release on US cult label Kill Rock Stars, Dear God, I Hate Myself (2010), delivers a look at responsibility, fear, healing, and societal roles wrapped in rich gothic pop music. The result is a record that proves that art can be pop and pop can challenge you to look inside yourself.

“Over the last five years, Xiu Xiu has come to make an utterly original mixture of home-studio goth-pop, confessional singer-songwriter outpourings and chamber music.” (The New York Times)

“On Dear God, I Hate Myself, new listeners will be immediately confronted with a couple of very catchy, horror-laced new wave anthems about fatal beatings and bulimia, and make that perennial first-Xiu-Xiu-experience decision: Do I buy this?” (Pitchfork)

www.xiuxiu.org

The Cinematics

The Cinematics are an indie rock and roll band from Scotland. Scott Rinning (Vocals and Guitar), Larry Reid (Guitar), Adam Goemans (Bass) and Ross Bonney (Drums) use echoing, buzz-saw guitars, analogue synth-lines and disco-funk rhythms to paint sonic pictures of their violent dreams.

The band have released two studio albums to date - A Strange Education (2007) and Love and Terror (2009) - and are soon to record their third long-player in Berlin. They have performed headline tours across three continents and have appeared live on American network television. During their 2009-2010 European tour, The Cinematics made a partially-live record of new songs. The five-track Silent Scream EP will be released in May 2010.

“New Order by way of the Killers is the star by which the Cinematics steer.” (The Second Supper)

“Joining the rising talent pool of Scottish bands such as Snow Patrol, Belle & Sebastian and Travis, The Cinematics are their latest proud addition to the rock scene.” (Music Under Fire)

www.myspace.com/thecinematics

Fenech-Soler

Still only in their late teens, but bursting with techno-pop potential, Fenech-Soler - Ben Duffy (vocals, keyboards), Ross Duffy (guitar), Dan Soler (bass, keyboards) - are a synth-bass-guitar outfit from a tiny village near Peterborough, in the UK, but they sound as though they've just stepped out of a hi-tech recording palace in LA, Paris or London with someone expensive at the controls. Although they cite Michael Jackson circa Dangerous as their sole influence on their MySpace, they sound more like Italian-French pure electronic artist Vitalic, Aussie synth-pop crew Cut Copy or one of those Franco-funk pop troupes with an 80s fetish like Daft Punk or Phoenix.

With a firm grasp of club dynamics combined with an acute pop sensibility, Fenech-Soler have managed to create a big, thick sound on a strict budget, all magisterial, fizzing keyboards, buoyant bass and treated, delay-drenched guitars, topped off with disco cowbells, computer FX and attractive teen-boy vocals that sound as though they could have come from anywhere but the middle of nowhere in the middle of the UK. Their newly released single Stop and Stare is currently a hit on BBC Radio 1 and ready to take over Europe as well.

“If they're not huge stars by next year we’ll eat our hat” (The Guardian)

"The future of white dancefloor-scorching electro-funk" (Time Out)

"English electro-pop wonderkids" (DJ Magazine)

www.myspace.com/fenechsoler

Hugo Race & True Spirit

Founding member of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Hugo Race is an explorer whose musical style is constantly evolving. His sound is an experience hard to define, strongly influenced by punk and jazz, rock&roll and electro. Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Hugo Race was the founder of art-punk band The Wreckery, then, in the late '80s, started his musical journey alongside his band, True Spirit, as well as a series of collaborations that bear witness to his eclectic style: Sepiatone, an experimental pop band with Marta Collica, psychedelic country outfit Lilium, with Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower, Woven Hand) and electronic pop effort Rogall & The Electric Circus Sideshow, alongside DJ Rogall.

Hugo Race & The True Spirit have released 13 studio albums, their latest being the critically-acclaimed 53rd State (2008). Impossible to pigeonhole, Hugo Race is a complex figure encompassing bits and pieces of some of the most iconic rockstars of the past 30 years: some of Iggy Pop's unsettling vibe, a sound similar to Nick Cave and the psychedelic prowess of Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes) and David Eugene Edwards (16 Horsepower).

"Enigmatic and unsettling, yet almost irresistibly attractive and appealing, like a knife wrapped in silk." (The Big Takeover, USA)

"The shadowy territory of an infected blues streaked with a poisoned restlessness, through desolate, dimly lit scenarios and melodies gone bad. Experimentation, obscurity and minimalist atmospheres. The rest is splinters of far away worlds, skeletal visions, petrified deconstructions..." (Liverock, Italy)

www.myspace.com/hugoraceandthetruespirit

To Rococo Rot

To Rococo Rot is a Berlin-based trio who combine electronic and acoustic elements to create instrumental post-rock and electronic music. The group is composed of bassist Stefan Schneider (ex-member of D¸sseldorf-based group, Kreidler) and brothers Robert (guitar, electronics) and Ronald Lippok (drums, effects). The band's name is a palindrome, as it can be spelled the same both forwards and backwards.

The group's debut arrived in 1996 in the form of an untitled picture disc (subsequently reissued on CD by Kitty Yo), with the more widely distributed Veiculo (released by UK indie label City Slang) appearing the following year. In 1997, the group recorded an album's worth of material with producer David Moufang. Following a move to Mute Records, the band released The Amateur View in 1999 and Music Is a Hungry Ghost in 2001, followed by the critically-acclaimed Hotel Morgen in 2004. Their latest full-length album, Speculation, was released in March 2010, on Domino Records.

“The German trio turn electronically-tinged, instrumental rock music inside out, their enthusiasm for recombining and recontextualising familiar sounds and genre traits seemingly undimmed.” (BBC)

“To Rococo Rot blends analog effects with warm, electronic drones and mechanic percussion for a sound that's unmistakably digital, yet 100% human.” (Pitchfork)

www.myspace.com/torococorot

Kissogram

Founded in the late '90s by Jonas Poppe and Sebastian Dassé, Kissogram released their first proper record in 2003 - The Secret Life of Cpt. Ferber (Louisville Records, Berlin). The album is praised by musical critics, who label the band New New Wave, Electroclash and Bohemian Disco Wave.

Later on, Kissogram turn to blues, Arabic music and Lauren Bacall movies for inspiration, encompassing all these influences in their second album, Nothing, Sir!(2007). Their live shows become noisier and more aggressive, as the band trades electronic sounds for guitars and amplifiers. The new sound, labeled Rock'n'Roll Disco, sweeps off Europe, and Kissogram's tour includes Bucharest, in 2007. On the road, the Berlin musicians team up with London photographer Joe Dilworth of Stereolab, a new addition to the band.

For their latest release, Rubber and Meat (2009), Kissogram aims at a rougher, stripped-down sound to encompass the band's live energy. The record was produced in Stockholm by Pelle Gunnerfeldt (The Hives, The International Noise Conspiracy) and released by Louisville Records. Last year, Kissogram opened for Franz Ferdinand in Europe and Japan. In November, the Berlin band played their second show in Bucharest, at FRONT / The Ark, setting the crowd on fire with songs such as Cool Kids Can't Die and I Am The Night Before.

“Hungover melancholy electronic pop” (NME)

“Discosound with sweating rock 'n roll” (Tagesspiegel)

“Rubber & Meat, the third album by Kissogram, breathes the late night air of the city, when the lights in the club are on, the streets are crowded and the air is cool and fresh.” (Monochrom)

www.myspace.com/kissogram

Kleerup

Rising to fame after producing Swedish pop queen Robyn's 2007 no 1 hit With Every Heartbeat, Andreas Kleerup got into music at a very early age. A multi-instrumentalist, the Stockholm-based artist spent time in both a trash-metal band and a symphony orchestra, remixed indie acts such as the Shout Out Louds and the Concretes, and even worked with Cindy Lauper on her latest album. In 2009, Kleerup released his self-titled debut album, recorded in rehab, that features a roster of unique and magnetic female singers such as Robyn, Lykke Li, Titiyo and Marit Bergman, resulting in a powerfully emotive one inch punch of a pop album.

"Stockholm's Andreas Kleerup, already one of the most internationally successful players involved in Sweden's current reign as global pop incubator." - Pitchfork

kleerup.net

Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab

Best known as the haunting voice and lyricist behind cult French-English pop band Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier comes to LIVELAND FESTIVAL 2010 to promote her much-anticipated solo debut, The Trip, due for release in November. Her special voice and often revolutionary lyrics come alive in this new record, produced in Oxfordshire with members of the French band Momotte and in Portland, USA, with pop supremo Richard Swift. Sadier also plays keyboards, percussion, guitar and trombone and has recently worked with Atlas Sound on their Quick Canal single.

www.myspace.com/laetitiasadier

Decomposer

Emerging from a boiling Greek new-indie scene, Athenian trio Decomposer has built its sound on the relics of British legends of the 80’s era such as Joy Division, The Chameleons, Killing Joke, as well as today’s post punk reminiscents, the likes of Interpol and Editors. The band admit that it was at an overwhelming gig experience, that the two brothers, Ilias k. (guitar, vocals) and Konstantinos k.(drums), finally decided to try their own way in the music universe. With the addition of the solid, placid figure of Nick Giamouris (bass), the band found its balance and came up with an emotionally heavy sound, looking for redemption through dark, spacious, sometimes raw yet atmospheric guitar riffs, deep drum rolls and culminating outbreaks. Before completing its first release later this year, and counting only two years of existence, the band leaped fast over the fence of the local music scene, pursuing its "raison d’être", live appearances and broader audiences.

www.myspace.com/decomposertheband

The Amsterdams

Known as the band that introduced indie music to the Romanian scene, The Amsterdams play a mix of Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party brit-rock, power pop and indie-folk, all coming together into an easylistening sound, as they like to call it themselves. The band has two independent releases, an EP (Automatic, 2008) and a full-length album (Adolessons, 2009), three official music videos (Petrolize All Mice, Chased By The Housewives, Apple), their latest directed by Irina Stanciulescu - member of the post-production team behind Romania's latest cinematographic succes, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle. The Amsterdams have recently returned from their first European tour, supporting one of the hottest indie bands at the moment, Canadians Wolf Parade.

www.theamsterdams.com

Mes Quins

Twas a cold winter day in 2008, when Ovidiu Chihaia and Silviu Gherman decided to start up a band - Mes Quins, a synth-pop effort with disco overtones based in Bucharest, Romania. In his youth, Chihaia, a precocious guitar-player, had been part of various underground Bucharest acts (Pure, Guillotines and Hotel Fetish), thus enriching the band with valuable showbiz know-how that Gherman didn't have. Besides a passion for electronic sounds, Gherman had been acting in various TV commercials and writing books. In fact, Mes Quins' very first concert was at a release party for Gherman's second book. Following such an explosive debut, gigs came and went rapidly for Mes Quins, and in 2009, the two of them hired a bass player (Gina Teslaru) and a drummer (Ovidiu Rusu), played in most Bucharest clubs, opened for Namosh, Handsome Furs, Noblesse Oblige and Kissogram, shocking the audience on every occasion with their overtly sexual image and a total lack of style to support it. They say their sound is like a swear word coming from a wise old man listening to Kraftwerk. The band has released a music video for their debut single In The Land Of The Dead (2009), directed by Miruna Boruzescu. Their debut album, mixed by Dan Serbanescu (Divine Muzak, The Pixels) is right around the corner.

"Mes Quins are one of the most interesting newcomer bands of Bucharest's underground scene." - Time Out Bucharest

"If you haven't listened to Mes Quins yet, it's a must, especially if you're into an eclectic mix of synth-pop, disco-punk and electro-kitsch." - Metropotam

"Mes Quins know how to make their mark, being different not only from others, but reinventing themselves as they go along." - iConcert

www.myspace.com/mesquins

The Mono Jacks

Bucharest-based band The Mono Jacks are the new revelation of Romania's indie-rock scene. Started by Doru Trascau (AB4), the band is made up of Dorian Cazacu (AB4, Blister Blue), Florentin Vasile (Robin and The Backstabbers) and Hasan Nabulsi (Israel Lights). Their seductive rythms and the band's contagious live chemistry are responsible for some of the best concerts on Bucharest's music scene and for topping the alternative charts with their first single, Maria. Independent magazine Decat o Revista recently invited them to contribute their music to the documentary "Making Off DOR #2 Cover" - thus Maria now has a video available online: http://www.vimeo.com/11841275

www.myspace.com/themonojacks

Romantic Jurgen

Romantic Jurgen came into being in 2007, bored to death by Romania's "alternative/indie" scene and the total lack of any electro bands. The direction was quite clear from the start: an electro/wave/post industrial band. After several concerts throughout the country, Bucharest-based independent label Roadrunner Music recorded their first full length album. Dead Bunny Invasion was released in the spring of 2008. Romantic Jurgen is difficult to label: a harsh electro-pop sound with 1980’s industrial elements, mixed with caustic no-wave guitar sounds and powerful post punk female vocals. Their lyrics are greatly inspired by the Dada movement. The unique atmosphere is completed by an explosive live experience and visuals at every concert.

"Romantic Jurgen is a Romanian trio, led by a female vocal directing a sonic guitar and a nervous synth. If Peaches were to form a band, this would be the result." - Exit Fest

www.myspace.com/romanticjurgen

Toulouse Lautrec

Toulouse Lautrec est un groupe Franco-Roumain polyglotte et multiculturel base a Bucarest. La diversite est une chance, cultivez la! Les ToulouseLautrecs come from aristocratic families. They have spent their childhood on green meadows in front of castles and grew up with the sound of horns and the smell of rosy-cheeked countesses. Although meant for academic studies and privileged education, life has thrown them into the lower strata of society. Initially influenced by Rene Pricetau and John Lewis Brown, they found their way among the rebel Bohemians. They are now night club regulars, sharing a passion for women, absinth and opium, spitting into microphones, gesturing on chords at the cabaret where, drunk on success, they break drums and peek under girls' skirts.

www.myspace.com/toulouselautrecband

Robin & The Backstabbers

Originally influenced by Romania's Breban, Gellu Naum and Eufrosina Popescu, as well as by the Borsec resort, Robin and the Backstabbers found their way along the musical sinousness of Smashing Pumpkins and Beck. Predestined for cinematografic and economic success, the stars directed them to a world of sizzling notes and dreamy lyrics. Their sonic manifestations have so far infested a few clubs in Bucharest and the Hand 2 Hand Festival. The FV keeps the guitars in check and The VF grooves. All for the fine and noble art of backstabbing.

www.myspace.com/robinandthebackstabbers

Location

Arenele Romane
Address: Strada Cutitul de Argint 26, Bucharest

Organizatori

Art Promo Cultural Foundation is a non-governmental organization functioning as an interactive cultural platform between Romania and the Western world. Art Promo organizes cultural events and exhibitions in close partnership with Romanian and international institutions.

Art Promo Cultural Foundation organizes cultural events aiming to promote European culture and artistic trends in Romania and also a variety of events meant to get the European public acquainted with the local cultural heritage through exhibitions showcasing its undeniable value.

Art Promo's projects include the Transcities Berlin-Bucharest Festival (in 2007 and 2008), the Lo-Fi Lounge concert series (2009 – to date), design and photography exhibitions and art fairs.

www.art-promo.ro

In a multifunctional space, FRONT takes an innovating stand by organizing avant-garde events meant for those who want to experience something new and take a break from the mainstream.

In the incoherent variety of Bucharest's cultural landscape, FRONT aims to be a generator of cultural energy, a vehicle for refined music, offering alternatives and unique experiences.

www.thefront.ro

Media Partners

Sponsors

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