New dancefloor material from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sochi expresses doubts about the social sphere it hopes to charm. At least two new hip-hop and house publications refer directly to anxiety and mental illness.
Regular gatherings of young hip-hop producers in Minsk help to show the local resonance of that style. From various people and places around the capital, a worldview takes shape that's far from primetime swagger.
These musicians come from various corners of Russia: the Pacific Coast, southern Siberia, and Togliatti. What they have in common is a desire to avoid the pressures of adulthood, often through specific kinds of fantasy.
New bass music from St. Petersburg and Krasnodar turns this week to a series of futuristic motifs. Compositions from Clapan and BMB (aka Space Kid) both employ some time-honored ways of considering events beyond the horizon.
These artists come from very different locations: Moscow, Chelyabinsk, and rural Lithuania. What they have in common is both a shared interest in post-dubstep or hip-hop textures and a penchant for nostalgia. Over and over...
Mako Records (Moscow) and Sub-Line (Yekaterinburg) are a couple of labels specializing in bass music, grime, and/or dubstep. Within those styles - and between the labels - a common worldview starts to take shape.
A couple of young electronic musicians from St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg have produced new recordings that toy with aspects of dubstep. The reasons for doing so lie in their hometown and general career prospects
Moscow musician Bitscrapped has published some new material for the Datenbits label that questions the role of dance music as a form of social protest
Fifteen new wonky tracks from all over Russia, brought together in celebration both of the genre and its philosophical underpinnings.
Last week, the Lithuanian net-project Mondayjazz released a new mixtape/set from Moscow beat maestro Dza. It's currently promoted, in Russian, as "a mash-up made from tracks by all kinds of hip-hop performers, both from Russia and further afield. Banging beats for ya ears!"
Indeed.
It come...
