Nu Zau — Romanian Minimal Techno and UVAR Co-Founder

Nu Zau — Stefan Gabriel Zamfir — is a Romanian DJ, producer, and one of the people who built the infrastructure that rominimal runs on. Alongside Sepp (Teo Bajdechi), he co-founded UVAR out of Timisoara: vinyl-only, 180g pressings, a label that operated with independence from the Bucharest centre and carved out its own corner of the scene. The music that emerged from that label, and from Nu Zau’s own productions, sits at the darker, more abstract end of the rominimal spectrum — grooves that press without announcing themselves, textures that take time to reveal what they’re doing.

The Sound

If the rominimal pioneers brought warmth and swing as their defining qualities, Nu Zau’s work tilts toward shadow. Not cold — the organic texture that defines the scene is still there — but stripped to something harder to name. More minimal than minimal, if that’s possible. Tracks that move through a room slowly, without obvious handholds, asking more patience than most music does. His 2013 collaboration with Sepp, “Sensul Epic” on UVAR, carried exactly that quality: micro-tribal motion, rhythmic without being insistent. Raresh thought enough of a later production — “Bioco23” — to play it in his fabric 78 mix with the word “[unreleased]” next to it in the tracklist. In this scene, that’s a specific kind of endorsement.

The rominimal artist directory lists his labels as UVAR and Curtea Veche. He’s also a Sunwaves presence — part of the SW27 and SW28 lineups, the first full returns to the Black Sea coast after years of disruption. The kind of name that appears on those bills without needing explanation.

UVAR

UVAR is the through-line. Nu Zau and Sepp launched the label around 2014, pressed vinyl-only from the start, and built it across three series — UVAR, UVARBLK, and UVARLTD — each one doing something slightly different. The roster grew to include Barac, Vlad Caia, Arapu, Direkt, Traumer, and others: a catalogue that treated the Timisoara energy as an asset rather than a footnote. 2018 was a particular year — Nu Zau’s LP landed alongside a Barac EP, showing what the label could contain. In December 2024, UVAR celebrated its tenth anniversary with a compilation that spanned a decade of the imprint’s output.

The full picture of what UVAR has pressed and who’s appeared on it is in the rominimal labels guide. The short version: it’s one of the labels that gave rominimal producers a home when the scene was still finding its shape, and it’s still pressing.