The problems of an ailing music industry are considered by several young projects. The solution to a depressing social realm comes in treating music as a tool of self-improvement.
New Siberian releases suggest that the five senses are a poor guide to reality. Beneath a veneer of orderliness lie countless, invisible phenomena. Those unnerving ideas travel all the way to Petrozavodsk...
Four recordings from Kiev, Grodno, Moscow, and Samara speak with fondness about life's simple joys. Divorcing "immaterial" happiness from daily hassles, though, proves to be a considerable challenge.
The Belarusian electro-folk ensemble Rusya is publishing some reconsiderations of pagan song in a modern setting. That same yearning for some lost fruitfulness appears in very different places.
A new side-project from St Petersburg jazz composer Arman Sidorkin inspires a romantic tone of approval from audiences. Other recordings, however, need to push harder against reality.
Novosibirsk's Echotourist organization has published a new album, designed to showcase a range of Siberian electronic artists. The worldview emerging from sixteen projects grows increasingly bleak.
Two labels from Vilnius and Yekaterinburg have published compilation CDs in celebration of their work and worldview. Both come implicitly to the conclusion their ideals are - ultimately - ineffable.
Worries over time's swift passage inform a number of new electronic releases from four Russian locations. As it transpires that such fears are inherently material, a freedom is sought from physical experience.
Various sources of inspiration try to compensate for paltry normality. They include drugs, nostalgia, and staring at the sky. One young musician from the city of Penza hopes to bring those fleeting solutions together.
The theme of hard work emerges in some new electronic releases from Moscow, Krasnodar, and Kiev. These musicians either struggle to fund their creative "free" time, or they resort instead to nostalgic reverie.
