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Although the St Petersburg outfit inVerse have been in operation since 2005, an air of (constant) future enterprise hangs over their catalog. Most of their web venues declare that a debut album "is" forthcoming in 2011, but a number of smaller recordings are instead on display. They consist of some 2009 live work, an EP, and a November single. All of them can be downloaded for free. In short, much effort and enterprise lies ahead. The band continue to assure fans at Vkontakte that something bigger and/or better is coming very soon indeed...
En route to a bona fide CD, inVerse like to define their output as a melange of “conceptual post-punk and dream-pop, tinged with elements of post-hardcore.” The question then arises, willy-nilly, as to what exactly that concept might be. A brief consideration of the band's own biography helps to build something of a meaningful context around this ensemble and its members' collective raison d'être. In more specific terms, we're looking at the shared views of Ilya Rybakov (vocals), Max Rassokhin (vocals, guitar), Mike Dolgov (bass), and Eugene Kulikov (drums).
Conceptual post-punk and dream-pop
By their own admission, inVerse's initial participants began - six years ago - playing in an "amateur, indie-pop" register that eventually started to sound worryingly fey. It wasn't so much that these callow performers were trying to mirror any Western penchant for a shambling schoolboy aesthetic: they simply couldn't play well enough to sound professional. Time, experience, and effort led, however, to "the emergence of a really thoughtful style - combined with earnest and personal lyrics." This relationship between effort and self-expression will become increasingly important.
Those twee, early days are now in the past and - as we hear - a much bolder manner has instead been embraced. Recent fans have even praised the group's newest recordings as a real "punk" display. That parallel development of private thought and increasing noise can be explained further if we turn briefly to a kindred outfit from Belarus, Avias. This Minsk foursome views its own songs through a similar, yet more explicit series of references. Thus far we see a connection sketched for us between lyricism and loudness: why, though, would those two trajectories be extended at the same time? Why might self-expression and decibels both increase?
Avias' creative biography is explained as a "gravitation" of four strangers towards one another. Whereas inVerse advertise the benefits of hard work and on-stage practice, the members of Avias are more inclined to speak of destiny. Nonetheless - and whatever the evident differences between predestination and effort(!) - an important overlap exists between the two bands' worldviews.
There's no such thing as a 'lucky accident' in life (Avias)
Our St Petersburg quartet holds that experience, over time, has led to an ear-splitting, often confrontational sound - against the backdrop of which they perform "earnest and personal" narratives. From Minsk we learn that any such changes, be they private or professional, are always fated. Put differently - individual, voluntarily expression will always grow harder over time, because fate slowly reveals its (grander) designs. As time goes on, volition starts to look increasingly unimportant. Hope begins to take a serious battering.
Quoting from Avias' own biography (with a little editing), we might find the following admissions and declarations: "Early in the summer of 2010, four young people came together through a twist of fate. They planned to work hard towards a great and common goal. None of them knew what the future would bring, nor could they indeed predict anything. (To this day, they're unable to do so!) Nonetheless - little by little - the musicians' plans are starting to mature. And, simultaneously, their [professional] activities are starting to take shape - so their levels of interest are increasing, too." Here, though, the same bond transpires between (struggling) free will and (ascendent) fate.
The musicians talk of unflagging effort, big plans, and growing interest - but still they add: "There's no such thing as a 'lucky accident' in life. All 'coincidences' in time and space occur because they have been predestined." If so, then the significance of concerted effort certainly seems moot. Diligence grows - sounding louder as it does so - but private plans fade quickly in the grip of providence.
All 'coincidences' in time and space occur because they've been predestined
Kismet as a similar thematic constant has long been evident in the work of Togliatti's "Klad Yada" ("Poison Trove" in English, perhaps), of whom we've written before, following on discussions of band member and painter Mikhail Lezin. Here we find the sounds to accompany life's dramatic deceleration - and the loss of hope, even. Lezin's audio work often maps a slow breakdown from lo-fi rock instrumentals to pure electric tension; guitar chords are manipulated to the point where they eventually become long, drone-like textures, bordering on white noise.
Those some monotonous soundscapes are now used to fashion a worldview not dissimilar to that of inVerse and Avias.
Klad Yada: "Transmodernism" (2012)
The roots of Klad Yada actually go back to the early 1990s, when Lezin was working with playwright Iurii Klavdiev - but only in recent years have regular recordings appeared, thanks to the additional help of bass player Vladimir Maleletkov. Yesterday the band published a brand-new album with the telling title of "Transmodernism." The artwork consists of a rather miserable and seemingly old image: a ramshackle cart lies in a snowy hollow, presumably left to the elements. Whatever the owner's plans, the cart proved insufficient to see them through. Certain forces made continued effort pointless.
Considering these textual and visual statements, a telling juxtaposition appears. The album's title is positive: documented social reality is not. The former speaks of hope, the latter of hopelessness.
A little more detail would help. Transmodernism is (or was, one might argue), a notion designed to bridge the gap between modernism and postmodernism; it was supposed to find some commonality between "progressive" enterprise and the loss of tradition en route. Transmodernism hoped to advocate a balance of (future) desire and loss (of the past) through a series of optimistic, inclusive, and occasionally spiritual syntheses. Both tradition and progress would hopefully coexist in the future society envisioned by transmodernism's advocates; the line between globalism (as material practice) and universal religious syntheses would likewise be removed - partly through a respect for environmental or ecological programs. Parallels were often pointed out between natural networks or syntheses and some possible human "congregation."
Through these and other happy harmonies, the destructive impact of prejudice, estrangement, and so forth would be radically reduced. Society would strive to merge, not "progress" with dubious haste.
Klad Yada: Mikhail Lezin and Iurii Klavdiev (Togliatti)
Against that background, Klad Yada's artwork - as mentioned - gives us a dark image of hopelessly retarded - or redundant - machinery. Is there, in other words, any real hope that the unifications promised by transmodernist optimism will happen in local lands? No, there isn't. The antique appearance of the album's cover only increases our sneaking impression that things have always been this hopeless. And so we see the theme of (bad) fortune once again.
Extending that pessimism furthest of all this week is another St Petersburg project, Slow Suicide. The name alone tells us all we need to know. A death freely chosen is slowed down, leaving plenty of time for reconsideration (and a happy ending) - but the process continues, because it seemingly must. Free will slips into the deep waters of predestination - all to the slurred sounds of gloom, doom, and witch house. The central figure behind Slow Suicide - Danila Kholodkov - used to play in Panda Bear Outfit and Lemonday. Beyond northern anti-folk, therefore, and the demise of anything resembling a rural tradition (or a decent cart!), lies an inexorable descent into gulleys - and further still.
According to the views, sights, and sounds of these Slavic ensembles, that same "preordained" decline is the force against which inVerse play very loudly indeed. Whether, however, karma and kismet pay attention is another matter.
Slow Suicide (St Petersburg): "Ghost (Gost')" (2012)
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