Weed

Weed is a group centred on Cristina Handrabur and Dan Handrabur. The name has been used by several different acts, including a Vancouver noise pop and shoegaze band, a German hard rock and heavy psych group from 1971, and an electronic project billed as +++WEED. The Handraburs’ project is separate from those earlier acts.

Members and background

Cristina Handrabur and Dan Handrabur are husband and wife. Both are born in Bucharest, Romania, and later live in Geneva, where they meet while studying. Dan begins violin and classical music training at an early age, and also develops an interest in tape machines, reversed tape sounds, short-wave radio signals and the phasing effects created with a short wave receptor.

At sixteen, he wins a scholarship to study at the Conservatoire de Geneve. He spends time in record shops, meets DJs, and gets involved in club culture, including work as a resident DJ at Club 58. He later leaves musical studies and college, works odd jobs, and buys a Korg synthesiser and a Roland beat box, moving towards electronic music production.

Move to Canada and other projects

After graduation, Dan moves with his family to Toronto, Canada, and Cristina joins him a year later. They marry and begin collaborating musically. After relocating to Canada, Dan becomes known in the early 1990s Vancouver electronic music community, which is more closely linked with Detroit techno, UK techno and ambient music than with the industrial sound often associated with the city.

His other projects include Outersanctum, Floatpoint, Vuemorph, Mere Mortals, and Off and Gone. In 1999 he returns to Romania for a visit and settles in a mountain village, where Outersanctum Studios is based. He continues to produce albums and tour in Europe.

Style and recordings

As Weed, the pair combine ambient, psychedelic, trip-hop and electronica, with Cristina’s vocals as a central feature. The project is associated with the albums Hard to Kill and Visionary Sessions.