Two new albums from Ukraine and Kazakhstan have just been released in ways that link trip- or abstract hip-hop to the slow and comfortable workings of nostalgia. // "Современный инструментальный хип-хоп – вещь тонкая, требующая особого подхода. Казалось бы, сэмпл лупом, бит, бочка – и произведение готово, а рунет покорен." Вот антидот...
Nick Tremo is the stage name of a fundamentally anonymous musician/DJ from the ancient Ukrainian town of Uzhgorod. He has been responsible for a couple of releases this year, both offered through the net label/aggregator Qulture. More specifically, in mid March a one-hour, fifteen track instrument...
Subwise Records is an independent netlabel, based in St Petersburg, to whom we've turned on numerous occasions - for a wide number of reasons and releases. Now, as when the label began, it specializes in electronica from new or little-known artists, often from northern Russia.
The project’s...
The Siberian netlabel Electronica has just published a 24-minute downtempo, very wistful EP by St Petersburg's Nocow, aka Aleksei Nikitin. Available for free, it maintains the high standards long established by Sasha Khizhnyakov's web project. Entitled "Koona," the EP is accompanied by a diminut...
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...
The central figure amid the various projects listed in this article is Siberia-born DJ Aleksei Devianin, aka Pixelord, who's perhaps best known under the pseudonym of Gultskra Artikler. That strange moniker is used to encapsulate a long-lived project described to Russian audiences as “melodic,...
On occasion we find ourselves brought (back) into the unpredictable release schedules of Moscow's How2Make records, which is always a surprise - and a pleasure. The label was formed six years ago by a couple of hard-working local musicians, Dza and Escapo, with the initial goal of publishing s...
Masha XII (aka "Masha Dvenadtsat'" or Masha 12) is a young poet and lyricist from Moscow. Her texts, often delivered personally, are used for a wide range of trip- and hip-hop tracks scattered around the web. As DJ Max Tau recently remarked in his Vrashchenie podcasts, she is less of a solo perf...
Several days ago we documented the recent work of Max Tau (above), conducted in support of burgeoning Russian trip-hop. Part and parcel of his efforts over the last few years have been the appealing and well-informed podcasts known as “Vrashchenie” (i.e., “Rotation/Revolution”), designed...
Max Tau is a Moscow-based musician, whose real name is Maksim Il'iakhov. Born in 1988, he is one of the capital's most discerning champions of downtempo, trip- or hip-hop, and the art of turntablism in general. What is surprising is that Il'iakhov charts the development of his broad professional...
