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SORE IN

Frozen Water

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When the phrase sore-in came up for the first time, it was meant to transcribe the pronunciation of the musician's first name - Sorin - for the benefit of his English-speaking penpals. Later it was adjusted to the form S$SORE+IN and was firstly used while participating in national scrabble contests. Unfortunately, it turned out to be descriptive to his owner, the $-sign explaining the main reason for the sorin'... As that form turned out to be a little visually aggressive, it was simplified to SORE IN.

The way music could be coded by notes fascinated Sorin when he was a child. All the music theory he knows is from what he learned in school or on his own. He sang in the school choir and went solo in some high school and college shows.

As his English got better (in his teens), he began "surfing" the radio ocean searching for music. Shortly the BBC World Service became his favourite stop. He learned about pop listening almost every week to the Top 20 Show with Paul Burnette (since he was about 15) and then with Tim Smith (Multitrack). The British Singles Chart has been his longest-lasting hobby. He also was listening with delight to Dave Lee Travis's A Jolly Good Show, where he got himself 2 requested songs played, despite what they said about the Romanian Securitate (the so-called Political Police) being oppressive and censoring. He also was once The Week's Penpal in the Sandi Jones Show and had another requested song played.

As a student he was a talented DJ at student parties and a good dancer too. He wrote poetry also. But firstly he was a stand-up comedian. He produced some student shows and toured some student summer camps (Costinesti, Busteni). The only show "abroad" he took part in was the one in Chisinau (the neighbouring Republic of Moldova). Right after graduating he was banned from some stages because of the critical remarks against the communist regime included in his numbers. As the sore in Romania was growing and growing (the going got tough) he found fewer and fewer reasons to be cheerful. He became more meditative and introspective, which showed up later in his music.

He is a computer engineer and programmer. After graduating he worked as a computer hardware technician but longed to be a researcher in the field of sound and video processing. For some years he's been earning his living by teaching English (TEFL).

In 1993 he wrote music articles in local newspapers and the next year he produced and presented the best local pop music radio program (TopSprezece).

SORE IN decided to take music making more seriously only a couple of years ago. He did it in unbelievably restricting financial conditions. You may have heard many times the phrase starving musician. Well, this time you can take it literally... and imagine what your life would have been, if you had had to live for many years with less than 100 USD per month!...

His music isn't influenced by any particular artist(s), but by what they call the British Pop (80s and early 90s). You can also sense his interest in the classical music (Mozart, Vivaldi, Chaikovski). He isn't sure about how to describe his style: it's basicly pop-rock, but you'll find occasionally a faint flavour of funk, jazz, reggae, or a soupçon of hard-rock, dance, electronic, (Romanian) ethno or classical. That is why some label it alternative. Also he uses many instruments of various types in his songs. People who had listened to it (and himself) found that difficult to define. It's not like from outer space, but it's so mixed up (and messed up !) that you can't put your finger on it... A little bit of this and a little bit of that, some melody, some rhythm, and some nice lyrics for the flavour. English lyrics, of course, because the music was meant from the beginning for the international scene. Should you listen to only some tens of seconds of the album you'll have no idea of what is going on in the other sections of it! You like it or you don't, but it does not stay unnoticed. It's so "original" sometimes that mostly people with an intellectual mind have a favorable reaction. He even thought of calling it intellectual pop !

He doesn't play any real-time instrument, though he played many times with keyboards and guitars. So he is mainly a studio musician. He doesn't have plans for concerts for the time being, for his vision is too complex, therefore too expensive.

His main objective is to go Top 20 in Britain or in USA. If he makes any money, his nearest goal is however... catching up with eating (!), then, on the long run, organising the Romanian music industry. Meanwhile he is looking for a Maecenas ! He is also willing to help newcoming musicians with his artistic and technical abilities (demo tapes, orchestration, negatives). Since Sep 1999 he has been the most popular Romanian artist on Internet. His MP3 songs were downloaded by hundreds of international surfers.

As a Gemini person (his birthday is on June 8th), Sorin had many hobbies: collecting stamps, tourist maps, picture postcards, correspondence, reading a lot, playing chess; he played badminton. He was a National First Division scrabble player - in Romanian. Occasionally he played in French and English (he was National Vice-Champion in English correspondence scrabble). He did a computer program for playing scrabble. As an amateur astrologer he runs the only Romanian astrology organisation listed in international directories - Biroul Est-Roman de Astrologie -, and he collaborated at the best Romanian astrology book ever written - Astrologia in noua era. He used to like travelling, especially mountain hiking. He was a volleyball referee (he still is crazy about volleyball players, female players that is !). Besides Romanian he speaks English and French, understands Italian and knows isolated phrases in many other languages.