Soarele şi Luna by Pasha Parfeni.
It’s lovely Pasha from 2012! Who wasn’t beguiled by his Pied-Piperesque Lauter as he led us all a merry dance around the Baku stage. It’s the only time I’ve been to Eurovision and stayed in the same accommodation as a competing delegation, although perhaps that said more about the Moldovan budget than it did mine. Imagine having to rough it with us in the Miracle Apartments on the outskirts of town.
There’s an earthiness to this song, despite the fact that its titular bodies are both astral; the sun and the moon. Pasha’s singing about a marriage as he gambols about a midnight forest glade. There are Pagan elements, or at least those common through European folklore; nymphs, beasts, and antlers as headdresses. There are one or two elements that used to crop up in a particularly disturbing recurrent dream I used to have when I was unwell as a child.
Musically it’s this year’s ethno-banger. There’s a history here you can trace to France’s ill-fated Fulenn last year but this feel more coherent to me, and hopefully Pasha will have learned from Fulenn’s rather erratic staging mistakes.
Pasha’s accompanied on stage by a dancer with a restricted height condition. I feel it’s not widely known that he’s an established and respected flautist, Sergiu Bors (picking up the Eurovision-esque nickname ‘Epic Flute Guy’). He’s decked out in the themed regalia and has a role that visually positions him as a dancer, albeit one playing the flute part. The delegation would do well to get his experience as a musician more widely understood as I fear many people may interpret his participation as something in the sideshow tradition where people with the condition have experienced a long history of exploitation.
This one’s going to be an eye-catcher, and mostly for all the right reasons.
My marks: 8 points