Chikiss: "Untitled Vitamin"

Several months ago, a very quiet album appeared from the small northern town of Primorsk, not far from the border with Finland.

That's not a locale to inspire noisy music.

The recording came from a trio known as Chikiss after its vocalist, Galia Chikiss.  The other two members were - and remain - Aleksandr Dubrovin (on guitars) and a second "Aleksandr" - Belkov - on drums.  Their combined efforts were inspired by a multitude of phenomena, including "nature, silence, and green noise."

Musical influences were numerous, too - in fact more than forty are listed on the band's website - but among the most telling are the Scottish duo Boards of Canada - equally rural exponents of an audible interface between mud and music.

The wispy, layered recordings are full of background noise, clunky Soviet instruments, and dotted with samples in the style of People Like Us from the other end of the UK - another admitted influence.  Altogether this makes some of the most delicate, thoughtful music on the Russian scene today.

One of the compositions is a very fitting introduction to the merger of craftsmanship, ambient sound, and an ongoing ecoaesthetic:  "Devushka zemli" (A Girl of the Earth).

Nothing says "nature" more than a face full of bugs.

This overlap of land- and soundscapes was always part of the band's modus operandi.  In their earliest practice sessions, Chikiss made use of the famous turn-of-the-century church in Primorsk.  It's so close to the sea that in many photographs it appears to detach itself from terra firma altogether.

In their own words and self-definitions today, these time-tested natural links endure:  "Chikiss are one of the most colorful, beautiful, and lively phenomena on the Russian music scene.  It's not exactly a standard lineup;  in fact it's pretty minimal..."

Chikiss are one of the most colorful, beautiful, and lively phenomena on the Russian music scene. It's not exactly a standard lineup; in fact it's pretty minimal...

"...They combine the specificity of electronic instruments with live, [acoustic] work.  This produces a wide, varied scope of sounds: sheer noise and ambient sketches alternate with dance-rhythms and soul-warming, spacey love lyrics..."

..."Everybody can find something [of relevance] in Chikiss' songs, something either concrete or abstract.  They can catch a fleeting moment, a feeling - a high, a low, a crush on someone, or sheer angst.  There's both joyful euphoria and universal sadness.  All three members of the band and their sounds merge harmoniously.  They interact musically, just as a single organism."

Any questions after that?  Yes, Miss; you with the insects.

The filigree of "concrete" and formless patterns in the band's output, the music and the white noise or hushed, almost pointless loops, have nicely coincided in Galia Chikiss' recent birth of a daughter.  These events are well documented on her blog, full of messy home recordings, pictures of crumpled laundry, childlike drawings (as above), and the type of happy, hopeless DIY photos that we see at the top of this post.

The clicks, blips, and drone of the world around Chikiss make their way into the band's life and produce songs like "Lullaby."

They also mean it's time to go shopping for baby food.

Nice lino floor; very hygienic.