Passion. So underrated nowadays when time seems to get shorter and shorter while inflation skyrockets, spoiling our creative souls into betraying the art for making money. As the underground finds its way to the mainstream shallowness, fewer artists are guided by passion while many of them turn into sellouts. Who are these few artists? Where can you still find them? Well, you have to dig deeper into the undergrounds, knock at the doors of dark recording studios and ask for permission to shoot some questions. That is if you want to know their whole stories.

 

 

George Găvănescu (better known as George G or more recently Floog) is part of this rare breed of artists who are still driven by passion when it comes to electronic music. Hard to describe in words the energy released by his live performances or the music he releases on Floog Records, so the best thing to do is to listen to his productions.

 

 

Born in the late ‘70s, Floog’s musical taste in his teen age years was built on the MTV culture, a real deal for a kid who spent most of his childhood under the sordid censorship of Romania’s communism. Depeche Mode still lives as a central point for his creative expression and from here to producing electronic music was just a step. Actually 3: It was a gradual thing actually but these are the three crucial moments when I felt I want to do this all my life. First one is when I start listening to Depeche Mode in ’91. In ’93 I’ve already wanted to do a band like them with some friends.

 

Fast forward to the early 2000s, when the electronic underground started to get traction in Romania while the progressive house wave got bigger and bigger in Europe: In 2002 I met Roby and found out about the underground clubbing music, I wanted to do that as well. 5 years later, things got brighter: Winning the Heineiken Thirst Studio global competition in 2007 alongside Livio & Roby as Monochrome gave me the last sparkle to go just to this direction.

It was about the same period of time when a new sound started to get shape. Call it whatever you like it, ROminimal or Romanian Techno, but we’re pretty sure that George G and his musical projects had their contribution on this sound. How does this special sound look like from Floog’s studio? Hypnotic, repetitive, resonant, introspective (speaking about the original style was made, not the one that we hear now that is more tech house than minimal).

Monochrome turned into Premiesku, a complex cross-genre live act and studio project that made its way to some of the biggest festivals in Europe, until the moment when George decided to start his own project as Floog.

I want to transmit the same feelings and enthusiasm I had when I made the music in the studio, that’s the ideal situation.

If you ever wondered what elements made his music unique, this is his special ingredient. This and, by all means, his eternal love for Depeche Mode. My inspiration comes from Depeche Mode & progressive house (the first underground electronic music I was into), and somehow they related very well ‘cause the prog producers at that time were heavily influenced by Depeche Mode.

Now that we know the sources of inspiration and the drive for his passion, it’s time to reveal his creative flow when in the studio. Well, it depends: I can start with a simple kick (tho the less inspiring start :D ), or with a voice, or with a modular riff, or with a youtube sample, or with a preset on a synth, or with an original track that I want to edit. Then comes those looooong studio hours spent to craft the perfect beat: Lately, I just start one project and work on that till I like it, so this can take up to even 10 days. I don’t want to make 5 tracks in a week anymore, this will not gonna help me at all now especially because I will start playing as hybrid / Live DJ set and I will blend my music with others producers music.

I want to believe that my music fits both a small underground club and a festival main stage, some tracks are more crossover, some are fitting to just one type of a venue. But a lot of times when I played live I morphed a club track (only) into a festival one. Versatile, taking feedback from the crowd and feeding it as an input source for his livesets: it’s the closest to reality description for Floog behind the knobs.

Speaking of knobs, wires, pads and strings, this is what George uses in his studio: a Macbook Pro with Ableton Live, hundreds of plugins (both instruments and effects), 3 eurorack systems, a bunch of analog, digital and hybrid monophonic and polyphonic keyboards, three drum machines, one vocoder, sound card and monitors, a bunch of midi controllers and a 16 channel mixer. Impressive, right? Now only time to produce is missing in order to transform his studio into the ideal one 🙃

 

Humans are hardwired to evolve. From Monochrome’s heavily prog influenced grooves to Floog’s obsession for the perfect beat, you may wonder how does the future sound like for George: My sound has changed over the years but for sure from 2023 onward my music will have more masses appealing, while not being quite minimal than previous years. I want to incorporate much more voices into it, as this the thing that inspires me a lot in the present. And, why not, touching other substyles of house and techno.

Swithing from livesets incorporating only his productions to a proper DJ set is one of his latest adventures, so make sure you hit the play button on his most recent set for Origo

In the end, we asked Floog for a label recommendation, not counting Floog Records: For sure, Atipic is the label closest to my heart.