Andra Zlătescu on music and witchcraft

Romanistan

Andra Zlătescu is a musician, performer, and illustrator, who performs as part of the band Willow Switch, Spindle Collective, and as a solo performer. Andra plays the singing saw (a carpentry saw played with a violin bow that evokes the haunting wail of the wind in the trees), banjo, guitar, and sings. Andra is passionate about creation that serves to act as a spell to open the doorways- to honour the land, their ancestors and traditions, to celebrate the bodies’ connection with the cycles of the seasons and death//life//death; To invoke the daemons of the crossroads- crossroads of paths meeting, of ancestry, of the past and future as they simultaneously exist within the present moment to weave our stories through time and sing us into the ancestors we are in the process of becoming. Andra premiered at TIFF as one of the main subjects in the documentary COVEN, a film exploring the relationship between Witchcraft and feminism. Willow Switch just released their first album on Samhain and completed two music and pagan Festival tours across Ontario. You can find them on Spotify and Apple Music. Andra is currently in the process of recording a solo album at Half Moon Studio in Toronto.

The Romani crush this episode is Mariska Veres, lead singer of Shocking Blue.
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Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens

Conceived of by Paulina Stevens

Edited by Viktor Pachas

With Music by Viktor Pachas

And Artwork by Elijah Vardo

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1. Andra Zlătescu on music and witchcraft (00:00:00)

2. Romani Culture, Witchcraft, and Music (00:00:09)

3. Ancestral Memory and Witchcraft Journeys (00:04:53)

4. Navigating Romani Witchcraft and Ancestry (00:16:07)

5. Music and Witchcraft (00:23:23)

6. Navigating Witchcraft and Cultural Appropriation (00:29:16)

7. Spirits, Appreciation, and Future Projects (00:41:28)

8. Connecting With Romanistan Podcast (00:48:37)