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Beatowski (Jekabpils, Latvia): "Beat Tape, Vol. 3" (2011)
This spring we came across the work of Constantine Mineikis, the Latvian artist responsible for the Beatowski Beats project. Mineikis, as we mentioned before, has been playing with samples, loops, and beats for the last eight years - and he offers us a timeline en route. A solo career was initially considered, using Fruity Loops as the software of choice. After a few collaborations with other local artists and more social enterprise, he would then return to the considerable benefits of solitude. Now armed with an Akai MPC 1000 production station, he is again publishing individual tracks. This dalliance with solitude will continue to be important.
His basic back catalog can be enjoyed at Bandcamp, where the enthusiasm for his craft always shines through. While he often draws upon classic ballads such as "Ain't No Sunshine" or "Georgia on My Mind," Mineikis nonetheless maintains a healthy distance from any cliche with his upbeat approach to cutting and editing. The joy of buffing and polishing audible fragments is manifest - and not only from the fingerprints or coffee stains that mark many of his album covers.
Increase the volume to the max and feel the boom-bap vibe!
Together with some of those Bandcamp recordings we find the following - and inviting - phrases: "These classic samples are finely chopped and then added to the raw, boom-bapish drums we all love. So... let the music speak for itself!" Or, elsewhere, we're advised to "increase the volume to the max and feel the boom-bap vibe!" Something appealing lies beyond "ourselves" - and within forgetfulness.
Jekabpils, Latvia
These affirmative, audible mosaics come from the Latvian town of Jekabpils, shown above and founded in the thirteenth century. Wars between neighboring Poland and Sweden were often played out on these same streets, but reconstructive efforts never faltered. No matter the damage done, bits and pieces were put back together.
Jekabpils even became home to Russian victims of religious persecution in the seventeenth century. The traditions and cultural norms of the region have consistently proven themselves flexible enough to admit many unexpected outsiders; minor forms of difference have played a more important role than loud political grandstanding or intolerance. The temptation to draw parallels with the tool box of Constantine Mineikis is considerable! If, however, we remain unconvinced by such distant linkages, his sampling technique today certainly continues in the same spirit.
He currently has a brand new and positive beat tape available, which can be downloaded for free. Having established a biographical context for us earlier this year, he now has nothing more to say... That dalliance with absence or anonymity continues to be reflected elsewhere.
Fake Ferda (Aleksandr Popov, St. Petersburg): "A Little Sad. A Bit of Fun" (2011)
Take, for example, the work of "Fake Ferda." That stage name alone keeps biographical fact well hidden - within fiction. Our hero even toys with some mock "celebrity" artwork, showing himself and a young lady in a chauffeured car. The dramatically angled shot suggests there's some pushing and shoving involved among members of the press - yet who might this person be? It's possible to reveal his identity as Aleksandr Popov, but he spends considerably more time and effort describing his sounds, rather than himself.
Framing the newest recordings we find an elegant description of Popov's escapist, big-beat enterprise. The following Russian-language text celebrates the appeal of forgetfulness - i.e., of a deliberately sought absence from the here and now. "Fake Ferda is a compilation of electronica, jazz, trip-hop, and big beats - combined using homemade samples. The result is a chain of sounds and images, the inspiration for which comes from a multitude of sources. These are thoughtful melodies, fastened onto 'heavy' and multilayered drum patterns. Everything runs parallel to a reckless kind of improvisation - worthy of any young hooligan!"
Thoughtful melodies, fastened onto 'heavy' and multilayered drum patterns
He continues: "The electronic textures on display are crammed full of jazzy elements: together they create a synthesis of acoustic and sampled sounds - the kind you might associate with minimal or glitch recordings." More appealing, says Popov, than any authorial statement is a managed network of sounds, many of which are borrowed from distant sources. Put differently, fluid acoustic patterns hold more appeal than strident individuals(!). The arrogance of fixed identities means little when placed beside the charm of audible change.
That same idea emerges this week in a new album from Artem Jahzovyi (or Dzhazovyi), who lives in the town of Rudnyi, Kazakhstan. Jahzovyi's last effort was entitled "Recollecting Asia." It came with a lengthy, antique text that mused upon the relationship between sweeping sentiment and wide open spaces. Jahzovyi, on the periphery of Russian-speaking practice, often feels himself to be on the edge of some ineffable plentitude, too, as he peeks above urban triviality. Where to find unfettered movement and a sense of liberty? A consideration of preindustrial spaces - belonging to nobody - does the job nicely...
Save your ideas for schoolbooks and frustrated materialists!
His earlier promo-text began thus: "What do you really know about Asia? That it's the world’s largest region and bounded by three oceans? That it hosts 60% of the planet's population? Save that stuff for schoolbooks and frustrated materialists!" Beyond common sense - or prior to modern pragmatism! - is something much grander... and vaguer. Freedom of physical and mental movement is sensed in terms of changing locations, homelessness, and an endless - happy - flight from specificity.
Jahzovyi (Rudnyi, Kazakhstan): "Gentle" (2011)
The newest material from Jahzovyi is entitled "Gentle" (or "Мягкий," in its Russian form). Published this week, it also comes with a small paragraph that celebrates the benefits of so-called "softness" in terms of philosophical malleability - of being open to other ideas. "Soft and pliable matter is [always] reshaped by master hands, in order to create a new essence - and new nature. Your own mind should act similarly, displaying an eagerness to reconstitute itself under the influence of new knowledge. Only this way do unexperienced, alchemic connections come to be."
Only through a lost identity is another, superior version brought into being. Anonymity and philosophical "alchemy" support one another.
Only firm people can be truly soft
Jahzovyi ends these new musings with a quote from François de La Rochefoucauld (d. 1680): "Only firm people can be truly soft." (The original reads: "l n'y a que les personnes qui ont de la fermeté qui puissent avoir une véritable douceur.") In other words, it takes considerable conviction to relinquish one's convictions. Rephrasing things yet again, one might say that only through an admission of one's mistakes can truth come into being.
These games with loss, absence, and anonymity played by Beatowski, Fake Ferda, and Jahzovyi all harbor a romantic view that within the nameless passage of music resides something better than the cocky claims of insistent individuals. As Jahzovyi himself says: "Being 'soft' means being consciously determined... It means not depending upon... [your] opinions, stereotypes, words, or people. It means being real."
Above the angular rooftops of Rudnyi is a gentler, more impressive display of nature's networked alchemy. It belongs to nobody.
Rudnyi, Kazakhstan
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