Easterndaze is a project that aims to document and connect new DIY music scenes in Central and Eastern Europe. Until recently, Eastern European culture – be it music or other forms of art – has been presented through the lenses of exoticisation and ideological narratives. It is often historicised and mythologised in the shadow of the past, while the present remains elusive.

More out of necessity than out of fashion, DIY has become the primary modus operandi for independent musicians, labels and initiatives. Bucharest's Future Nuggets, for instance, recontextualise their country's shunned musical past (with its styles like manele) under a fake palm tree to soundtrack the turbulent present and uncertain future. Belgrade's No Basement Is Deep Enough release beautiful tapes in a region where tapes never really went away. Samčo, brat dážďoviek subverts Slovak nationalism and xenophobia in his Dadaist music videos in times when right-wing tendencies in many CEE countries are on the rise.