These musicians from Russia, Ukraine, and Lithuania all have new recordings to announce. They also embody a happy indifference to a surrounding world of public failure.
A series of downtempo, wonky, and bass recordings from Russian industrial cities look for superior values. Nature's flourishing networks offer more appeal than factories and smokestacks.
Given the challenges facing young Russian musicians today, the theme of risk often arises. The unknown - be it financial or geographic - both unnerves and intrigues.
Various electronic recordings this week from Kiev, Ulan-Ude, Ekaterinburg, and Gomel speak less of free creation than of the search for verity. Local experience, however, does not always help.
A new garage and idm compilation from Moscow reemploys some motifs from classic science fiction. Both the music and its literary inspiration juxtapose private dreams and public reality.
As a young musician from Krasnodar does much to hide his/her gender and location online, some other electronic artists find equal appeal in vague, distant realms. "Somewhere else" looks better than home.
The Origami Sound label has announced a celebratory compilation LP, gathering one hundred tracks from two years of work. Among the Russian contributors, a collective worldview takes shape.
Various freedoms, both social and emotional, are pondered in some new electronic recordings from Russia. As the pressures upon liberty increase, one of the artists coins the generic tag "drowntempo."
New compilations from Moscow and Novosibirsk reconsider some assumptions regarding Russia's "provinces." Addresses far from the capital are investigated with romantic irony.
The phenomenon of vaporwave has been gathering critical traction in the US. In a Russian context, though, the same sounds recall a very different social reality.
