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Тhe artists discussed below have been showcased on this site before; one is from Kiev, the other from Novosibirsk. They return to FFM, however, thanks to their considerable production rate. Both of these young men, in other words, are publishing large amounts of material - and maintaining high standards. Here we offer a snapshot of the rationale behind their ongoing efforts. Why, in a word, are they doing so much?
First in line is Ukrainian instrumentalist Dunaewsky69, shown above and usually known as Oleksandr Gladun. He very recently opened a profile on Facebook, which serves - together with his website - to document and systematize his snowballing media. These organizational venues are of particular use with Mr. Gladun - because his discography currently runs to more than 2,000 compositions.
One of his most recent adventures was a lengthy trip to Poland, where he studied at Krakow's Studio for Electroacoustic Music. That experience simply increased his vigor and output even more...
...the forgotten melodies and voices of 'space children' from abandoned planets
His work of late could be summarized by the title of a release from earlier in 2010, some of which is offered here: "Detimorya." That's a neologism and/or composite noun; it might be translated as "Seachildren." Those four syllables alone serve to position a few diminutive figures against a broad, if not overwhelming seascape.
Turning that general impression into more specific and audible forms, Gladun has spoken of his desire to express the "forgotten melodies and voices of 'space children' from abandoned planets."
Both his imagined children and their idealized voices are, therefore, absent. These are the sounds of a missing, cherished entity. If we take a look at some of the Western views of Gladun's work, it's possible to see how these culturally specific, yet abstract themes are being distilled into some functional oppositions. From a distant standpoint, Western observers are bringing order to bear upon 2,000 tracks.
In one recent English-language publication, we find the following view (we leave the original untouched): "Olexander Gladun is an-ex Ukrainian fighter pilot. Since departing from his military post in 1997, he has gone on something of a musical odyssey, journeying through the Kiev death-metal and grindcore scenes before landing in electronica territory with his Dunaewsky69 project... Snarling with industrial background noise, spiralling drum machine beats and huge, gothic-sounding synth textures (perhaps performed on vintage equipment salvaged from the break-up of the Soviet bloc?), he produces a slab of crazy, stomping braindance...."
In a word, Gladun's discography is seen as an attempt to employ the crude, often unwieldy tools of material production in order to ponder something beyond materiality. An intangible, mental state is conjured through material handicraft.
It's an exhausting, yet rewarding process, it seems.
Gladun's recordings are not designed for easy listening; these are, after all, forms of expression that straddle the oppositions we see within "Detimorya": the dead weight of terra firma and some vaguely imagined state beyond that burden.
Elsewhere these borderline echoes have been called "a playful experimentalism that's ping-ponging between minimalism and maximalism. There’s a lot of things and nothing going on at once. It’s a brutal and bleak, grim and ghastly collection of sampled sounds and twisted songs."
...a grim and ghastly collection of sampled sounds and twisted songs
Insistence alternates with melancholy, despair with wistful yearning. Disconsolate folk stand upon the seashore. The result of these alternations, we're informed, is eventually structured by the "beauty of some looped melodies... and the way they hang heavy in the vibrating air."
The overriding sensation between substantiality and the discernment of some "oceanic feeling," to quote Freud, is one of being suspended. Once again, this is well expressed by the figure(s) of "Detimoriya," isolated on the edge of both land and sea, somewhere between presence and absence. We even find it hard to divorce the solid figure in the foreground from some ethereal, translucent body superimposed upon the water.
The appeal of that latter state is greater; physicality hopes to step beyond its clumsy self. The "Seachildren" EP clearly shows a yearning towards the sea. Towards erasure, absence, and the kind of universal membership once promised by Gladun's "vintage, salvaged equipment." Old tools give voice once more to enduring dreams - in other words, to some unfinished reverie.
Extending that appeal of intangible silence or hushed unity - through noise! - is the work of Space Holiday Rocks from Novosibirsk. The slim information available on this project comes, as usual, through the Siberian Echotourist blog. Both that resource and the pages of Space Holiday Rocks offer no great insight into the identity of this young musician. In fact the only time we do encounter any concrete information, it comes from other - unrelated - individuals, who happen to commandeer the recordings of SHR and post them elsewhere.
This occurred a few days ago, when two new publications appeared from SHR simultaneously. Echotourist announced the EPs, but gave no textual support. Mr. SHR himself said nothing on MySpace or Bandcamp, where the music was actually located.
Filling that silence, at least briefly, were the following words from an admirer, who had apparently uploaded the media in the first place. In this accidental fashion we finally discovered that the man responsible for these sounds is known to family members as Anton Glebov.
That brief statement aside, we remain in the dark.
Here, in unofficial fashion, the recordings in our media player were defined as "dream pop, lo-fi, shoegazing, electronic, and ambient techno." The last of those tags speaks with admirable accuracy to the kind of liminal material offered both from Dunaewsky69 and SHR; it expresses both physical movement and the absence of movement! Both the (invited) presence of a dancer and the intangible emptiness around that figure.
...dream pop, lo-fi, shoegazing, electronic, and ambient techno
With relative speed, the work of SHR slips away from concrete forms altogether. Not only are Glebov's vocals downplayed to the point of inaudibility; his visual contributions to these newest releases work along similar lines. The weight and density of his artwork moves towards the wire-like images we see below.
A network of dimensions is mapped out, between which is nothing.
Glebov has used a similar technique to draw portraits of his Siberian colleagues at Flickr. The people responsible for the music in this post are illustrated in ways that both prove their physical, material presence (we recognize the faces) and stress their virtual absence.
Dunaewsky69's music is the soundtrack to wistful views across the ocean; it's designed for individuals to ponder a boundless realm in which individuality melts away. Selfhood becomes total membership and speech becomes white noise. The Space Holiday Rocks EPs cast a related gaze out into an open, rural landscape. They consider spaces so ineffably grand that the physical, once-unique forms of animals start to vanish. Something slips into everything.
Just as Gladun's music is dedicated to "forgotten melodies" or half-recalled social harmonies, so one of the SHR discs is titled "Mnemonic." These are the sounds of recollection - of what once was... and might be again.
They recall a form of union that lowers confident, loud selfhood into anonymous and often natural networks. Ironically, the effort required to evoke these dreams can be rather noisy - not unlike, perhaps, the cacophony of birds themselves, looking to shed the heavy burden of loneliness.
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