The passage of time leads several new electronic recordings to wax lyrical about prior decades. Of particular interest are the 1980s, when a whole generation felt itself part of a fading social fabric.
The British magazine Wire has just published a very important and impressive compilation of new electronic music from Ukraine. Entitled "Zikro," it has been curated by Andrey Kiritchenko.
А sneaking suspicion that actuality is increasingly loud and intolerant leads to the search for other options: quieter love songs, wanton surrealism, or an escape into the realm of virtual bands.
Two Russian electronic recordings speak of the search for "a new language" in the gaps between various genres. They're equated with a civic absence or lack. In Estonia, two kindred recordings take a more optimistic view.
The dark, dense forests of Karelia lead the Petrozavodsk duo Love Cult to conjure an entire universe of alternative dimensions. This tendency to prejudice dreams over urban actuality is found elsewhere.
One of the more enduring assumptions or stereotypes regarding Slavic songwriting would be that of sadness, if not misery. When melancholy does indeed make an appearance, what form does it take?
An overview of five acclaimed Slavic rap projects shows a decreasing similarity with Western fashion. Many aspects of Western rap are overshadowed by a unique and very local philosophy.
The MNMN label from Kostroma does much to promote the philosophically anxious end of Russian electronica. These four projects yearn for silence and solitude, but "fate" has other plans.
Electronic and electroacoustic releases from Moscow, Samara, and Minsk pay attention to a range of hidden significances. Some lie within tiny objects, others lurk on the edge of burial sites.
Several electronic publications look back on a fledgling, post-Soviet internet with nostalgia. The sounds and graphic art of the 1990s recall a time when kinder, more inclusive networks might replace ideology.
