The outsider of outsider artists: the Romanian experimental hero, Rodion Rosça
Western audiences often focus on musical icons like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. While these British acts broke ground by challenging their era’s rigid social mores and pioneering musically—and Hendrix accomplished this while navigating the endemic racism of America—the Western perspective on music remains one-dimensional. It rarely considers legends outside its immediate sphere of influence, such as Romanian folk hero Rodion Roşca. An innovator, outsider artist, and cultural icon, Roşca’s contributions remain a testament to the richness of musical history beyond the Western mainstream.
Roşca, who passed away at the age of 67 in March 2021, was not only a pioneering Romanian musician but also a technical wizard and master of the Tesla Sonnet reel-to-reel tape machine. Decades ahead of his time, he skilfully blended a cacophony of genres long before it became fashionable. Despite his immense talent, Roşca faced significant obstacles, including authoritarian rule, misfortune, and personal tragedy. Yet, through it all, he remained a true artist, unwavering in his creative spirit until the very end.
Roşca was inspired by the pioneering Western music Radio Luxembourg carried across the continent on its airwaves in the 1960s during Romania’s more “liberalised” communist period. He became a big fan of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, ensuing progressive bands such as ELP and other more niche sounds. Things then turned much darker for Romania after the country’s dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, returned from his state visits to the PRC and North Korea in 1971. As a result of the tour, he enacted a neo-Stalinist reversal of the liberalised culture the country saw in the previous decades.
That year, he delivered his July Theses speech to the executive committee of the Romanian Communist Party, which started a crackdown on cultural autonomy, with the humanities and social sciences violently brought back under the thumb of socialist realism. Naturally, this forced rebellious artists, steadfastly refusing to comply, underground. Roşca came to typify this bold artistic spirit and would smuggle discs from Norway, amassing a collection of Italo disco, psychedelia and metal featuring everyone from The MC5 to Kraftwerk. This collection would perfectly mirror the multifarious sonic scope he would become known for.
In 1975, Rosça formed the band Rodion GA with Gicu Farcas and Adrian Caparu. By that point, he had assembled a vast collection of electronic equipment and had become adept at using it. He would create music on his reel-to-reel records and use an assortment of tape machines to multitrack, utilising early versions of flangers, phasers, drum machines and fuzz. As you might expect, their music was boundary-pushing and, in some instances, far ahead of its time.
While prolific creators, Rodion GA didn’t really release music for obvious political reasons. There was one label in Romania during this era, the state-owned Electrecord label. They recorded two tracks during their first recording session with them, which eventually made it onto the Formatti Rock Volume 5 compilation. At their second, they recorded five, which were never released. Luckily, though, the sound engineer felt gregarious and allowed Rosça to record them onto his tape machine from the main mixing desk.
He then used these as the basis of new songs, some of which made it onto Romanian radio and topped the charts. That was it for the time being, though. During the 1980s, they toured extensively, as recording was seriously impeded by the state. They cemented their cultural status on the road, popularising their unique, cult sound through custom-made PAs and amplifiers bearing the group’s logo. They were a singular unit in Romania and the wider world, and their refusal to use traditional popular music aspects like “yeah yeahs”, which set them apart, was mainly meant to evade state censors. This innovation was a matter of existential importance.
In 1987, Rodion GA played their final show at the Mangalia Festival. Then, after Rosça’s mother, Rozalia, died in 1989, he walked away from music and became an outsider artist in the truest sense. He moved from the city of Cluj to the village of Aşchileu Mare, 30 kilometres away. He built a massive metal wall around his cottage, traded auto parts, offered services as a guitar tuner, and kept himself busy. He would make music in the early hours of the morning on his kitchen table, continuing to blend forms and experiment.
This ageing, culturally significant rocker in self-imposed exile would take a while to ingratiate himself with the local community. However, lamping a few local ruffians eventually earned him respect, and he would later find himself on the local mayoral list at official functions and weddings. During these later years, though, Rosça would begin to doubt how he had spent most of his life in his corner of Romania. He suffered terrible health conditions and was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and Hepatitis B and C.
Although he spent decades away from the limelight, Rosça knew his worth. Finally, the world caught up with his forward-thinking experiments, and he earned fans across the globe, some of whom would even trek to the obscure Romanian village he resided in. It all started when blogger and filmmaker Luca Sorin became immersed in his mythology and discovered footage of Rodion GA’s 1980 New Year’s Eve show. After posting it online, Bucharest label Future Nuggets picked it up. In 2012, the band made their comeback and, the following year, finally released their debut album, The Lost Tapes, on Strut Records.
They then gigged worldwide, and later, Behind The Curtain—The Lost Album was released by the British independent label BBE. The record comprises 12 tracks Rodion recorded in his basement away from the state, using several instruments he built.
One of Rosça’s most prominent fans was Mark Stewart of The Pop Group. He said of him: “Rosça was the outsider’s outsider, his was a lucid subversion.” While his work isn’t as discussed as much as it deserves to be, those who are familiar will always be moved by Rosça’s art.
