Applecore: A Trip through Moscow's Roughest Streets

Applecore is a one-man, virtually anonymous outfit from the unforgiving Moscow suburb of Liubertsy, shown below on a typically miserable day.  This part of the Russian capital, at least in recent memory, has been associated with two core phenomena. One of them is the well-known, macho-yet-middle-aged outfit Liube, whose tales of male bravado have admirers in high places. President Putin is evidently a big fan. The band, though, has trouble justifying some of its camouflaged stage shows, full of well-armed imagery, since the lead singer never even underwent basic military service.

It seems reasonable to assume, as with many grim, post-industrial areas of big cities, that such places can create powerful desires to leave... yet produce equally powerful obstacles to make any kind of exit impossible. This vicious circle lies behind the second famous aspect of Liubertsy: the gangs that grew up in local streets towards the end of the Soviet Union - and to some degree inspired the swagger of Liube, no matter how loud their endorsement of decent, stately worldviews.

Liubertsy, after all, is a place where individuals fight for themselves; towards the end of the 1980s, however, many of the area's young men, who had fought in Afghanistan and other awful conflicts, were beginning to doubt whether they were serving or defending a reasonable social system.

This was especially true when the soldiers returned home to little or no social support.

And so there arose the so-called "Liubera" gangs in the late '80s; within a decade, some of Moscow's most notorious Mafia figures were on trial and their links to this same suburb did little to lessen the stereotypes of a crime-ridden corner of the capital. One article in the Russian press read: "Liubertsy has the air of a small town with its narrow lanes, gray five-story apartment buildings and railway station. The suburb's entire life revolves around these structures. Life gets boring here in the evenings. That's why guys around here decide to take up bodybuilding or martial arts... and then they go off to 'fight for their rights.'"

The text goes on, looking back on the 1980s in Liubertsy. "It was all rather fashionable back then. Girls would start hanging around the guys [in the gym], caressing the bodybuilders' muscles... When the area held its first bodybuilding tournament in 1986, it seemed like the entire Soviet Union turned up... If you could hold your own in a fight, you could consider yourself a real man. We understood back then that Russia stood firm behind us. We, in turn, had to defend her, too."

A sense of national pride coincided with the collapse of the nation. The psychological damage was great - as was the subsequent sense of social revenge...

The city still embraces this imagery of escape; its coat of arms is based upon the symbol of a space rocket, tearing away from the earth. A local monument, shown above, likewise celebrates the first Soviet cosmonaut, Iurii Gagarin, who studied in Liubertsy just after WWII - and just before the training that would grant him the fastest, furthest escape from the town possible.

This enduring symbolism of removal lies firmly at the base of Applecore's music. Responsible already for at least six fully-fledged releases (five being available through Archive.org), he remains stubbornly anonymous, yet pens a large amount of downtempo idm dedicated to themes of disappearance or withdrawal. In other words, although the founding figure of Applecore is keen not to speak of his actual identity or presence in a fixed location, much of his music is based on thoughts of abdication or breakout, i.e., of getting somebody out of somewhere concrete - into another, better venue.

Several Liubertsy residents may not yet have the requisite skills to make that exit.

Putting those thoughts into verbal forms is not always easy; a recent attempt by Applecore for the Belarusian label Haze began clearly enough in his own English, but tripped over itself within a couple of clauses:  "Gist of this release [entitled 'Unlimited Knowledge,' July 2009] is unlimited consciousness of everything (consciousness of people, mechanisms, animals in particular) and consciousness of universe, unlimited marvelous knowledge that human don’t come not for a while yet."

Gist of this release [entitled 'Unlimited Knowledge,' July 2009] is unlimited consciousness of everything (consciousness of people, mechanisms, animals in particular) and consciousness of universe, unlimited marvelous knowledge that human don’t come not for a while yet.

Imagining the limits or logic of that "animal knowledge" has taken strange visual forms, too, in some of Applecore's earlier releases.

The most recent attempt at expressing some kind of retreat or removal from lumpen existence has just been released on the Moscow Qulture netlabel with the title of "Nightly Journey." Not "nocturnal," but "nightly." This is evidently the soundtrack of a repeated endeavor. Seven instrumentals, running for just over 52 minutes, fluctuate between states explicitly labeled as "rest" and those closer to residency on some "speed-freak planet."

The album's nocturnal imagery, initiated by the artwork at the top of this post, clearly aims for the same inclusive state that we see celebrated in Belarus; the penultimate instrumental, in fact, is clearly labeled as "World Search." Problems, however, await. The number prior to that world search is called "occasion to alarm." There's clearly precious little time or space between peace and panic.

The opening track of "Nightly Journey," called "Alright," begins with that same word pronounced over and over by a heavily synthesized voice. It sounds like a mantra, repeated (in less than natural tones) as one slips into sleep. The longer it continues, though, the more desperate it sounds. In fact even before the first number is over, that same call is replaced by another: "Incorrect... that's incorrect..."

These idm/ downtempo/ borderline-D&B tracks move towards the final, most complex track, "The Galactic Market." All forms of cosmic wishing have been replaced by a monetized, audibly muddled version of plenitude. The failure of a sociopolitical monolith has brought, it seems, neither the liberal freedoms sought by Liubertsy's ex-servicemen, nor the supernatural or spiritual "world search" evinced in Applecore's cosmic imagery. Instead we're left with the mess of a depressingly materialized universe, the workings of which once produced Liubertsy's Mafia... but ultimately left its members no happier. Applecore would no doubt sympathize with his once-wealthy, tattooed neighbors.

Maybe that same sympathy explains his anonymity. If he can't be found online, a quick check of the witness protection program might yield better results.