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A couple of days ago, a rather telling article appeared on the website of Moscow journalist Aleksandr Gorbachev, in which his colleague Grigorii Prorokov made the following observation. Prorokov noted - both clearly and correctly - that Russian songwriting/popular music today operates in three fundamental and discrete spheres, if we examine matters from a quantitative viewpoint and simply count the people involved.
These, in other words, are the different levels of Russian songwriting that rarely, if ever, overlap; movement between them is extremely difficult.
"For most people there exist three or four levels of Russian music. The upper level is patently obvious to anybody who watches television or listens to the radio - at least for now. The second level is made of 'big names,' at least from the standpoint of club audiences... these are the kind of outfits that can [on occasion] gather a thousand concert-goers. Then there's the layer of small club ensembles..."
For those people with very good eyesight, a fourth realm also exists, somewhere between one-man bands and village discos: "Underneath those three plateaus there's also a kind of universal 'underground' activity going on, where concerts pull in not a hundred but maybe twenty people."
Two things are important here. One: these various levels assume that difference and innovation will increase the further one is from the center (i.e., from Moscow); put differently, distance is synonymous both with maximum creative freedom and minimum income. Two: these plateaus need to be recognized and understood, but they should not - under any circumstance! - be adhered to.
Their grand, generic rigidity is the death of innovative performance. The history of Russian popular music throughout the twentieth century is, thankfully, rich with performers from cultures and nations along the "periphery" of what was the Soviet Union. Those performers destabilized the traditions and expectations of Moscow audiences because of their distance from rhetoric and rant. Big changes came from small places.
It's worth remembering here a famous remark by the Soviet big-band leader, Leonid Utesov, when trying to introduce daring syncopation and experimentation into pre-WWII songwriting. "If American jazz is based on Black folk music, then why shouldn't we be using Georgian, Armenian, or Ukrainian traditions?"
It was the very assumption that Ukrainian, Armenian, or Baltic acts were "peripheral," "minor," or "provincial" that granted them creative power; their minor status meant they were imbued with future and unnerving potential. They were dismissed out of hand by the canon and - therefore - paradoxically free (or potentially able) to threaten the status quo with healthy degrees of novelty!
Underlining the dangers of stiff grandeur or sameness may sound an unnecessary activity, and yet many small ensembles in Slavic popular music refuse to engage the mainstream in any way and thus limit their development. They dismiss their colleagues on the "upper level" of the entertainment business as residents of another, slightly vulgar community. By doing so, though, they simply establish a glass ceiling above their own work.
If, in short, potential, innovation, and difference are wantonly/potentially disconnected from the mainstream, they are pointless. A refusal to recognize or challenge primetime practice is nothing but proud (and self-defeating) isolation.
In that light, from Armenia - via Moscow - we today present Deti Picasso (Picasso's Children), who advertise themselves as exponents of a "dizzying, incisive sound, built on strong ethnic roots, psychedelia and a hypnotizing energy." Those roots are felt most often through the use of ancient Armenian chants and traditional instruments. The band has an immediately recognizable sound, full of surprise and the kind of "exoticism" that appealed to Utseov so long ago; these are the noises that remind Russian viewers of a place where familiarity comes to an end - either geographically or audibly.
a dizzying, incisive sound, built on strong ethnic roots, psychedelia and a hypnotizing energy
Those noises mark the edge of terra firma, in several senses, where security fades and potentials begin - which brings us to the literary origins of the band's new album.
Deti Picasso first came to public attention in 2002 with a debut CD and major press awards; they have now produced a fifth studio recording, entitled "Gerda." It forms half of a two-CD package, the other half of which will follow in a few months and be published as "Kai." The second album - available in purely digital forms - will be a remixed, reconsidered and "nosier" version of what you hear in this post.
The two works, as we might have guessed, are named after the children in Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen." The project as a whole was recorded in Budapest, together with Western colleagues from Einstürzende Neubauten, Laibach, the Norwegian ensemble Schtimm, аnd several well-respected Russian folk exponents such as Vladimir Volkov and Zventa Sventana.
The result is offered to all people "who miss the fantasmagorical and misty atmosphere of childhood fairy tales"...
...Where expectations and normality are knocked sideways.
In essence, the CD follows the narrative development of Andersen's tale. The opening track sets the tone well, telling of a "dangerous doll," who lives in a cupboard and considers herself "queen of the room." That very danger comes from being small; it's the doll's peripheral status as a "mere plaything" that makes its threats both unexpected and effective. The distance covered from "outsider" to "major player" is that much more dramatic because a full, latent potential has been realized.
The members of Deti Picasso, while discussing "Gerda," have recently talked of their music's ability to bring that doll to life with "frightening naturalism." What results from these creative experiments are songs of maximum metamorphosis, originating in a small ensemble from an "outlying" nation - who are therefore best positioned to speak of remarkable transformation and unexpected sounds.
Just as the artwork shows at the top of this post, a miniature spirit straps itself to a major force - and dismisses all possibility of limit. The changing tones of the cover express that challenge boldly.
As we know, Gedra and Kai in the original story are able to overcome the Snow Queen's insistent, "frozen" dictates with their love. A power for constant inclusion and forgiveness - nurtured in small, "peripheral" figures - undermines the Queen's monolithic stature. In fact the final line of Andersen's tale comes directly from the Bible, celebrating the unique ability of little figures to enjoy the greatest victory of all: "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of Heaven."
Only the outsiders will win - precisely because they are sidelined. The smallest figures win the biggest prize.
The smallest figures win the biggest prize
The entire "Gedra" project, therefore, is a (very dramatic!) celebration of happy subversion, brought by small outsiders into the house of the mighty. That potential is found not only in Andersen's tale, but also in the patchwork of sounds we hear from Deti Picasso - and in the possible future of alternative songwriting.
The first line of "The Snow Queen" reads: "When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now." That knowledge comes only from going beyond convention and habit, and through the levels listed at the outset of this post. Primetime platforms should not be dismissed; they're ripe for the taking. As they say in Russian, "courage conquers cities." It does the same for snowy castles and TV towers.
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