FUSELab: From Southern Streets to a Fragmented View of the World

Earlier this season, FFM reported on the birth of Moscow's PlusPlusPlus, a young organization that is currently taking major strides towards the consolidation of musical resources across the capital. Disparate performing artists, netlabels, and other projects - many from the field of dance music - are coming together in order to concentrate their efforts upon a single venue. The promise of web-based enterprise is taking shape in tangible forms.

PlusPlusPlus, through these same efforts, is proving the value of aggregation and consolidation at a time when erstwhile centers of (high-street) publishing or related commercial activity have vanished. New centers of influence are born from the fragments of economic collapse.

Now, almost simultaneously, a kindred endeavor is taking shape in and around the southern city of Krasnodar, shown above. More specifically, a project called FUSELab has emerged, joining as it does so the catalogs and reputations of several existent netabels, podcasts, and publishing outlets: these are Passage, Fragment, and Jumble - all of which have been afforded much attention on our pages. The level of expectation, therefore, is considerable.

Let's Jumble!

In this general atmosphere of media-rich mergers, FUSELab builds immediately upon the double entendre of its name and declares its output to resemble a fluid or "flowing alloy." The genres that constitute that flux include not only the ambient or downtempo tendencies we already associate with Passage or Fragment; one can also expect newer adventures in the fields of post-rock, chillwave, dub techno, and micro-house.

In a word, pay attention.

Future output will operate both commercially and according to the more romantic spirit of Creative Commons, thus widening the earlier focus of Fragment, Passage, and Jumble on music alone. New releases will delve into related spheres such as the visual arts and even literary works.

Thus far the key figures in the development of FUSELab are proving to be Evgeny Shchukin, Yuri Vasilchenko (below), Mira Ishome (above), Alexey Slepuha, and Anton Rinzai. Although Mr. Rinzai currently lists his home address as Bristol, this quintet is closely tied to the streets of Krasnodar. FUSElab may have the nation - in fact, Western Europe - in its purview, but the project has a clear southern origin.

Thus far, FUSELab's homepages are not fully populated with textual information, but four enormous samplers have already been published for free download. Two are entitled "Re-Passage," while the remaining pair - logically enough - are then tagged as "Re-Fragment" and "Re-Jumble."

Together they contain more than sixty tracks - with a combined running time of almost five hours. The names of these compilations speak not only to the rebirth of Passage, Fragment, and Jumble as a new organization. The album's titles also hint at the ongoing, further "fragmentation" or "jumbling" that will result from subsequent compilations.

The more work is done, the more FUSELab's diversity will grow. 

And indeed, the project has recently stated of its first album:

"Passage now presents a wide-ranging compilation, dedicated to the label's relaunch. This album not only touches upon material that's familiar to our listeners; it also maps out a new vector for FUSELab's evolution. The collection consists of two parts, which are equal in length; only the finest of emotional hues separates them. We've involved both the long-term musical representatives of Passage and the magical touch of our new heroes!"

The Re-Passage collection consists of two parts, which are equal in length; only the finest of emotional hues separates them

Some of those names already familiar to readers of FFM will include Clouds in My Home aka Lazzich, 9 Fake Tears, Clapan, Polar Lights, Feldmaus, Doyeq... and others.

The commissioned artwork by Marina Ustinova (below) does a fine job of invoking both repetition and slight difference, setting once again the tone for a progressive "re-passage."

What, then, of any re-fragmentation? Here, drawn from the earlier catalog of Fragment, we have a greater inclination towards deep techno, say, with the equally familiar assistance of Frunk29, Khz, Modul, Mujuice, SCSI-9, and others.

The result is declared an "underwater procession" of dub-tinged, resonant soundscapes - all working towards the same gentle, associative aesthetic of Ustinova's artwork.

Re-Jumble includes beatmakers from all over the world. It's a kind of universal collection for today's independent space-tourist

And that leaves us with "Re-Jumble," which ventures further still into fields of echo. Based upon a widely-respected series of podcasts, this final compilation defines itself as: "A broad range of styles. It includes beatmakers from all over the world. It's a kind of universal collection for today's independent space-tourist. We move from deep, rustling sound-sketches to a kind of abstract, rhythmic elegance. Not to mention the bursts of [aesthetic] synthesis and flashes of 8-bit."

Paradoxically, in that very abstract rhetoric we get a good sense of the FUSELab credo, i.e., of the collectively fashioned rationale that's brought to life by the contribution of Slavic figures such as DZA, Miracle Libido, 813, and Krasnodar's own Wols. From leafy southern lanes comes an uplifting outlook or work ethic that would operate just as well in any distant town.

By erasing the strict, often unforgiving lines of geography, together with various generic limitations, the organizers of FUSELab already sense that a vague aesthetic has come into being. It has no evident home and no specific boundaries. It grows from an interface of multiple people, places, and projects. It's the way in which Shchukin, Vasilchenko, Ishome, Slepuha, and Rinzai perceive the interaction of those elements that's interesting.

For all their impreciseness, there's an optimistic, even romantically "chemical" logic that informs these metaphors. Put differently, the organizers of FUSELab have adopted a certain vocabulary; while that register guarantees nothing in terms of (future) quality, it at least gives us some indication that these five young artists have a positive and committed attitude towards the hard work of web-based aggregation.

The logic of that abstract vocabulary might be rephrased as follows. FUSELab, just as its tagline suggests, is a form of "flowing" or fluid "alloy," in that it brings together various creative forces, yet endeavors to keep them in a constant state of flux. Aspirations towards permanence lose to transience. Nonetheless, precisely these brief collaborations - perhaps because of their speed - lead to creative discoveries that are visualized by FUSELab's leaders as "rustling," sonic "bursts," or musical "flashes." Much, in other words, can come from very little.

Fragment is restarting: Salute!

The closing line in the "Re-Fragment" press release reads: "Fragment is restarting: Salute!" In Russian, as in English, that final word can refer either to a respectful, silent hand-gesture or to thunderous gunfire. Should FUSELab become as successful as we hope, some corners of Krasnodar are ready to make metaphorical bursts and flashes into something very real. Everyone, as Prince almost said, will party like it's 1917 - perhaps the most impressive re-fragmentation of all.