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Drum & bass has never enjoyed much love or respect from primetime radio in the West: its slightly feistier, antagonistic overtones sit awkwardly with advertisers' remits. Selling cars is difficult if someone's slapping your ears at 180bpm. In Russia the style has played an enormously important role in the development of a locally specific club sound. Within that sphere of influence, perhaps the prime mover and shaker amongst female DJs has been Salamandra.
She prides herself on being the only woman DJ in Russia's capital who not only plays regular live sets, but works as a vocalist and produces her own recordings. Born in 1982, she in fact spent her earliest years working exclusively as a singer. It wasn't until 2000 that the idea of laboring behind the mixing desk started to appeal more - a desire that led to a shift in tastes (from trip-hop to drum & bass). Her public work as a DJ began in 2002.
Much of the d&b recordings that make their way onto hard media in Russia are (a) provinical - in the literal sense - and (b) pretty angry with the world. Typically the artwork will involve some post-industrial landscape, peppered with rusting cars and skinny dogs. Salamandra's mixes, conversely, manage to capture the incredible joy of which drum and bass is possible. Proof of that infectious happiness can be found here.
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