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Gorq Lana is the collective stage-name of five young men from Tallinn: Boom, Mag, Mf Lef, MoiCirk, and Lauri Täht. With little time for modesty, they declare themselves "one of the best-known and most talented Russian-language hip-hop outfits in Estonia." The original members of Gorq Lana (also known as Gorõ Lana and Горы Лана) had first come together nine years ago and - from their earliest days - admitted a debt of gratitude to some Russians from a prior generation of emigres, specifically to the collective Davlenie Zhizni ("The Pressures of Life"). That project has been in existence since 1999, and for all the modern associations of Estonia with relative peace and quiet, Davlenie Zhizni often emphasize their childhood origins in "the unsafest section of Tallinn."
Extending that sense of drama, some of the Davlenie Zhizni recordings in previous years were dedicated to the "darkest light-source of all - which is black. Black light is spun from the invisible breathing of industrial cities." Listeners were asked to imagine some very imposing cityscapes, whatever the reality.
Our daily experience can sometimes be dull...
Looking further afield, Gorq Lana are now equally happy to admit the ongoing importance of '90s US hip-hop for their own recordings, where the role of ostentatious imagery, set among tall buildings - or tall tales - can be just as great. Actuality demands a response: drudgery begs to be spruced up on occasion. There comes a point, though, where homely tedium simply makes R&B cliches sound laughable. For this reason, as opposed to Davlenie Zhizni, the members of Gorq Lana admit that much of their poetry comes from daily experience, "which can sometimes be rather dull."
Since bona fide security has nowadays come to the streets of Tallinn after the instabilities of the 1990s, this distance between US urban narratives and Baltic actuality only grows. Some recent artwork - below - shows the domestic setting in which much of the group's music is written. We're a very long way from the bullet-strewn streets of Los Angeles.
Photoindustries meets Gorq Lana: "Spekter"
This same disconnect between things everyday and epic is referenced on the band's newest recording, released together with the influential webzine Drugoy Hip Hop. Here the efforts of Gorq Lana and fellow Tallinn hip-hop artist Photoindustries come together: early in the running order we encounter a track entitled "Black." Instead of Davlenie Zhizni's moribund metaphors, though, the entire composition is given over to the reading of a long, local weather forecast.
Another of these chromatically titled tracks - "Red" - documents the desire of some anonymous individual to become "Better than you or me... but Truth is like a brick wall." The room available locally for swagger and self-assurance is clearly not that great. Normality (or the unforgiving limitation thereof) defines the rules of the game.
It's useful to contrast this tension between verse and real-world experience with recent material by the Moscow project Docha Fingers (aka Lega Secdubec and SkoBro of True Flavas), who define their own soundscape with adjectives such as "deep, dub, techno, house, abstract, jazz, and experimental [hip-hop]." That fairly laid-back or downtempo lexicon also serves to describe Lega's well-respected career across the dancefloors of the Russian capital, specifically through his 237 Records.
Docha Fingers: SkoBro (left) of True Flavas and Lega
One recent - perhaps rhetorical - question was posed by Lega/Docha Fingers online as new material was slowly being uploaded: "Do you want more stuff, hmm!?" The answer came quickly from a listener - accompanied by three exclamation marks: "Yes!!!" What might appear to be an appealing, easy-going aesthetic, however, is often just as melancholy and resigned as the tales we hear from Tallinn.
What's appealing to Moscow's listeners - such that they shout for more! - is the honest, though sobering definition of actuality as more powerful than "free" self-development. There are no barrel-chested claims here to (delusional) grandeur: when the members of Docha Fingers employ lyrics and/or spoken word material, they instead create stories of civic fatalism and fragile human existence.
Hence the rather confrontational phrase we see posted by Docha Fingers on one social network. It robs contemporary music - or, more precisely, modern song - of all claims to "world-changing" ability. Spoken to an absent interlocutor, that phrase reads: "The main problem with today's music is you... because you listen to s**t."
The main problem with today's music is you... because you listen to s**t
Songwriting offers wisdom and consolation, not the battle-cry to radical change or the soundtrack to some glitzy biography. Likewise, its current lamentable quality - colored by the flattering narratives of primetime falsehood - is not entirely the fault of mighty national media. It's also shaped by whatever its audience already desires. According to this rationale, the music of 237 and Docha Fingers hopes to save a few people from succumbing to the horrors of profiteering pap - and instead build a more melancholy, yet sage view of the world.
In that light, the glided automobiles of American R&B take on a very different appearance. Above we see one of the images used to "advertise" the music of Docha Fingers. It may be honest and locally relevant, but it's hardly flattering. Such is the bruised and buckled transport of most Muscovites.
Arguably the most important moment in the formation of this worldview is buried deep on another website, where Lega has decided to publish a couple of Russian poems, unadorned by musical accompaniment. Both, significantly enough, are the work of Aleksandr Vvedenskii, who died in 1941.
Vvedenskii was an important figure in Russia's "trans-rational" poetry of the early 20th century. In a heartlessly pragmatic and goal-driven social system, his texts - known in Russian as "zaum" - remained deliberately vague and/or senseless. In a nation where "social benefit" was expressed through arrests and execution, nonsense was the most humane form of expression. One idea behind zaum - at least implicitly - held that literature's victims could not be created, i.e., named, if their words meant nothing particular. Vagueness became a thing of beauty and a means of safety.
Some of the foreboding (and faceless) artwork currently employed by Docha Fingers
The "pressures of life" (to quote our Estonian artists) forced Vvedenskii took refuge in children's literature, where he felt that censorship would be less - and fantasy might have greater liberty. Not only did he make these stylistic or generic moves away from the unceasing gaze of ideology: he moved physically, too, leaving Leningrad for Kharkov.
As WWII broke out, the earlier safety of Kharkov was soon lost, and Vvedenskii had now to flee the growing danger of German forces. Such was the citywide rush to escape, however, that he could find no place on departing trains. Stuck now in Kharkov, he would eventually be arrested for activity deemed less than patriotic during wartime. He would die on another locomotive... this time en route to a prison camp.
These are the people and poets with whom Docha Fingers feel the greatest sympathy; Vvedenskii appears elsewhere, too, for example in the songs of Mokh (from Minsk). The peacetime pomp of "gangsta" rap looks almost criminally false in comparison.
It's reminiscent of childish performance art - or maybe some kind of avant-garde mystery play
And that brings us to the new song from St. Petersburg's wonderful SBPCh (which in translation would read "The Biggest Prime Number"). From the very first time that we showcased these musicians, their debt to a similar absurdism was clear. As the band once noted themselves: "The line-up on stage changes constantly. Sometimes it all looks like a public rehearsal; on other occasions it's reminiscent of childish performance art - or maybe some kind of avant-garde mystery play." It's worth pointing out the musicians are now (or at least currently) a quartet: Kirill Ivanov, Il'ia Baramiia, Aleksandr Zaitsev, and newcomer Aleksandra Zakharenko. Their numbers are growing.
SBPCh (St. Petersburg)
Likewise we remarked long ago that the songs of SBPCh usually involve no po-faced drama, despite their constant recourse to semi-serious cursing - and they certainly include none of the overt misogyny of Western rap. Instead we find minimalist, miserable(!), yet often witty verse read over a lo-fi backing that's designed to embody normal, frustrating existence in Russia.
That same view of the world continues in the group's newest number, "Russian Music" (Russkaia muzyka). As the title might suggest, there are a few - more - thoughts here to be imparted on the relationship between song and standard experience in Slavdom. This particular composition begins by bemoaning the fact that "there's no Russian music playing from these speakers - neither quietly nor loudly."
There's no Russian music playing from these speakers - neither quietly nor loudly
One might conclude that we're being offered a few barbed observations, all directed against the scale and/or volume of Western pop, which simply doesn't correspond to daily life for most folks beyond the edges of Eastern Europe. Sure enough, in some recent statements given to the Belarusian webzine KyKy, the members of SBPCh declared as much.
Kirill Ivanov (left) and Aleksandr Zaitsev
Ivanov maintained that the newest songs from his colleagues "have included the kind of things we really miss [in today's music]: happiness and a lightness of touch." Zakharenko underscored that view: "This is the music of the future. Songwriting without any bells and whistles. Lots of people still haven't realized that, though. We all know how painful life here can be... so why sing about it, too? We're kindly people, after all."
And on that note, her comments come to an end. Charity and pleasant music trump any bold, wordy assertions. Inclusion is more appealing than a confrontational stance.
We all know how painful life here can be... so why sing about that, too? We're kindly people, after all
We have here three different collectives from Tallinn, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. They all hope to adopt the traditions of rap to their own experience, either as emigres or simply as residents of a major Russian city. The Western stereotypes of swagger, (over-) confidence, and a confrontational streetwise demeanor, however, eventually seem both unattractive and irrelevant. In the place, therefore, of goal-driven arrogance, we find an increasingly absurdist worldview and a new "indie-pop" composition that ends with a good-natured invitation to sing along. Despite everything outside the front door.
It's a simple invitation to all "kind people" - from four evidently good-natured souls.
SBPCh (the 2011 line-up, clockwise from top left: Kirill Ivanov, Aleksandr Zaitsev, Aleksandra Zakharenko, and Il'ia Baramiia)
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