A handful of recordings this week from northern towns ponder the role of dancefloor melancholy. Various sonic and textual kinds of dolor merge to create an original view of sadness - within entertainment.
Four slow releases from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Ulan-Ude turn their decelerated tempo into a consideration of weighty issues. Slowness becomes a vehicle for some musings on destiny in particular.
Music Kollektiv is a Moscow-based organization, often dedicated to minimal and deep/dub techno. We look at some of the St. Petersburg members in MK and their search for grand significance within spartan structures.
A number of producers from suburban Moscow and Krasnodar strive to bridge the gap between daydreams and actuality. As everyday experience refuses to play along, the scale of romantic wistfulness only grows...
Four new recordings from bass and hip-hop producers touch upon the issue of standards. Worried by the growing popularity - and falling quality - of much bass music, these artists ponder a need for new values or virtues.
Russia's branch of the Red Bull Music Academy has just just chosen ten young musicians to join its "Bass Camp" in Sochi. We take a look at some of the newer names, especially among the house and juke exponents.
A quick overview of rappers from southern Russia suggests the existence of some regional traits. Joking about their distance from primetime swagger, these young musicians adopt a special tone for quiet towns.
A number of new house tracks from Moscow, Kiev, and Perm show well the romance associated with that style. Not everybody, however, can imagine themselves in a TV commercial or a Spanish club...
Several Russian synth-pop releases this week draw upon the traditions of the 1980s - duplicating the lo-fi sound of that same decade. As a result, Western glitz, low-grade tape, and late Soviet society all merge.
A well-respected culture magazine in St. Petersburg has just published a list of the city's most promising electronic projects. We look at four dance-oriented artists on that list and consider their common outlook.
