|
Yesterday we looked at a very useful article from the St. Petersburg magazine Sobaka.Ru, designed to champion some new voices in local electronica. Having considered several of the dancefloor-friendly, upbeat artists in that list, we now turn to quieter, more understated performers - such as the excellent Home Music. This project is, in fact, often referred to with a rather longer name: Open Home Music Studio.
Both that domestic metaphor and its reference to studio enterprise imply an emphasis upon local effort above all. Sure enough, the northern musicians involved in OHMS declare: "We've no desire to say anything. We're simply glad to share a musical outlook on some things we all like." Sounds themselves become a better expression of concord than verbal debate. In a word: harmony predominates. That bold promotion of a social metaphor, however, hints at some enduring pressures (or negative options) in the outside world - and, as we'll see - that's true in several senses.
We don't just play: we also try and give structure to chaos
For the representatives of OHMS, fluid patterns of sympathy and empathy take the place of fixed team-sheets - or any kind of zealously defined membership. People come and go. Extending that spirit of inclusiveness, two members of Home Music - Ivan Latyshev and Aleksei Yarygin - spoke to Sobaka about their work patterns and worldview. "We welcome all forms of spontaneous creativity. As far as we're concerned, our music isn't an attempt to develop specific styles. It's simply a way of organizing our energy across a wide range of genres - all the way from experimental elelctronica to classical or new forms of jazz. We don't just play: we also try and give structure to chaos."
A dramatization follows.
By way of example, one of the tracks on display here - "Jealousy of Brim" - was written after a friend's dog had passed away." The aim of the music, treading a thin line between sentiment and new-age spirituality, was to help the animal's rebirth in a loftier, non-corporeal form. Ethereal harmonies were imagined above realms of physical "chaos." They were best evoked by wordless enterprise among kindred spirits - so to speak.
The range of experiences brought to this synthesis is impressive: Yarygin and fellow band member Aleksandr Naiman have both been employed in Russia's finest military orchestra... whilst also playing in the deep-house project Dual Deep. Saxophonist Kamil Khusiyanov has been on stage with kingpins of Russian rock such as Andrei Makarevich. And as for Mr. Latyshev, he has two decades of solo electronic composition behind him, all the way from d&b to house and idm.
We don't collaborate with labels. Their time has come to an end
What sounds like a (recently) calm and philosophically sage project actually incorporates a brave attitude towards the fiscal aspects of music-making. "We don't collaborate with labels. Their time has come to an end. There's no sense in deluding ourselves with regard to traditional modes of distribution. If our music is worth something, then it'll find a listener. And, if that's indeed the case, then there's nothing we need to do. A different time will [eventually] come around" - bringing with it a newer, more suitable audience.
Doubts gradually emerge over the degree to which one's "home" should be "open," since signs of inefficiency and indifference are all around.
Lo Seen (Oleg Nikitashin, St. Petersburg)
This outlook forms an interesting contrast with some of the conclusions we drew yesterday. It seemed from Sobaka's list that the dancefloor artists chosen to represent St. Petersburg had adopted aspects of the city's classic(al) elitism - in order, perhaps, to counter the crass commercialism of Moscow. If so, then perhaps the workplace habits of Home Music (despite their metaphors of inclusion!) reflect a kind of salon aesthetic, designed for discerning and, importantly, small audiences. Romantic, trusting acceptance starts to ponder some sensible limits - since the outside world is not so welcoming...
The music of St. Petersburg's architecture, weather, and people
The influence of St. Petersburg and its chilly classicism is just as clear in the music of Lo Seen (Oleg Nikitashin). Speaking of his own deep- and tech house catalog, he says: "This is the music of a [special] city: its streets, architecture, weather, and people." He then drops into the third person singular: "It's here [in this urban environment] that the author of these tracks finds the strength and inspiration needed for new compositions."
That wary attitude has found wide appeal, most recently through a series of stylish, understated publications in both Japan and England. These include the newest EP, "Let Your Satellites." At this point, with the help of skyward yearning, we fall to pronounced lyricism, despite any switch in pronouns: "Lo Seen uses a swallow as the main symbol for his work - the embodiment of both hope and freedom. That's why you'll see an image of the bird on all the musician's instruments."
Places of trust and "harmony" are sought or imagined very far away. Where swallows fail, satellites persist.
Lo Seen: "Let Your Satellites" (2012)
As with Home Music, what results is an increasingly private, if not introverted stance towards music-making, since social support systems are questioned more and more. As for the commercial mechanisms of distribution, they've entirely collapsed. "The main thing [therefore] is a private relationship with your music. At the end of the day, people may like you work - but maybe they won't. You have to be independent of their opinion - as if you're having a private affair!"
That imagery is then given some real-world context: Lo Seen's daytime job is in construction and he says that the balance of technical enterprise with musical liberty "produces a very positive contrast. It all allows me to live 'harmoniously.'" Again the metaphors of harmony or karma, even, are made possible through temporary escape from quotidian experience. Elitism is contingent upon an available exit from social norms and - as we see below - a good photographer.
You have to be independent of public opinion
And that raises a new issue, even within the confident sphere of St. Petersburg's club scene. Lo Seen maintains that any feelings of superiority in the city are, in fact, wrapped up in a simultaneous lack of confidence. Local audiences, he insists, are often unwilling to champion a Petersburg artist until he or she has made their mark in some distant (ideally foreign) setting. "Until that happens, it doesn't matter how incredibly talented you are. People here will just stand in the audience with their arms crossed, thinking: 'Hm... maybe this guy has something...'"
Blank stares predominate.
If, therefore, we move far beyond St. Petersburg and its storied architecture, these issues of social connectivity, cultural insecurity and so forth will frequently be amplified. Let's take, by way of illustration, the new recordings from Chelyabinsk electronic musician, Pavel Kungurtsev, who performs as Kyotohongaku. A little context is needed here. One of Kungurtsev's pages - at Vkontakte - concerns a recent television broadcast, dedicated to the endless problems of Russian emigration. Why, in other words, would people (even) stay in their hometown? What are the chances of caring, creative interaction - either in a studio or at home? From the outset we encounter problems of distance - and the wary movement from a homestead or hometown into other civic spheres.
Which may be no kinder.
Most of the people in Chelyabinsk's art scene moved away to St. Petersburg or Moscow
Mr. Kungurtsev admits that Chelyabinsk offers little in the way of musical opportunities. He recalls a romantic, optimistic period several years ago that faded fast. "You could even say it was a golden age for local music and arts! But most of the people involved in that activity eventually moved away to St. Petersburg or Moscow... In Russia that's a considerable distance, in various senses. The local scene here died quickly, while it was still very young."
By way of proof, he mentions the owner of a local record label, who had to abandon his craft or calling - and become a car salesman. As we'll see, this overriding impression of regional disappointment and a risky, even irrational passage towards other towns - within the same nation - slowly fosters a very particular kind of imagery. It ponders social progress ab ovo - within a tiny domain. Big, confident steps away from home might not make sense.
Kyotohongaku: "iamamoeba" (2012)
Kungurtsev himself writes at home and performs rarely. He admits to an absence of promotional materials, too. "Music for me is really just a hobby," he explains, even though art festivals have both been organized and soundtracked with his help in Chelyabinsk. Considering anything else on a grander scale, he feels, might be unwise. Local contexts shape the nature of local texts.
Kungurtsev began these tentative - and tenacious! - efforts back in 2004, so a regional sphere of enterprise has indeed appeared both advisable or likely for some time. Currently, as mentioned, he has brand-new recordings available under the moniker of Kyotohongaku. They are published for free downloading, distributed digitally, and involve no promotional duties whatsoever.
We set up a local radio station in Chelyabinsk: it broadcast for about a week...
The overarching theme of his dubstep-tinged, resonant instrumentals is first evoked in their title "iamamoeba." Selfhood is reduced to the smallest possible scale - and seen in terms of tiny, impending progress. Explaining things a little further, Kyotohongaku says that he has a special interest in what he calls the "chaotic movements" of amoebae. For those of us who've forgotten high-school science lessons, it's worth recalling that those microscopic steps take place thanks to so-called pseudopodia, the cell projections that resemble rudimentary feet. Bona fide legs and/or rapid movement are absent; whatever progress does take place is spasmodic.
Pavel Kungurtsev, aka Kyotohongaku (Chelyabinsk)
In conclusion, we see some enduring concerns in St. Petersburg about social interaction - even within a famously self-confident environment. Put differently, Lo Seen maintains that once local snobbery has taken shape, it then feels insecure in the face of foreign fashion. That conflict, oddly, instigates a process of self-loathing. Far away in Chelyabinsk, experiencing something similar, we find young musicians like Kyotohongaku, who views his craft in terms of rudimentary growth or the most basic of social movements. To these musicians, neither city seems terribly welcoming or willing to celebrate its own, homespun enterprise.
What we hear from these locations is a problem that's tied to issues of striving or ardor - and any such yearning to be endlessly(!) elsewhere is unlikely to cease. That insatiable relationship between confident stasis and potential improvement, grounded perhaps in universal patterns of desire and drive, is what leads to the slightly fatalistic worldview of these musicians.
Although the metaphors of Open Home Music Studio are profoundly social (designed by, with, and for people!), at some point, it transpires, these Russian performers need to divorce authorial plans from social prejudice. "Harmony" is validated, lauded... and then doubted. Especially if one's audience is inclined to stand with crossed arms.
Blank stares are countered with shrugged shoulders.
Comments
Login / Register