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Looking back over multiple decades of a rock heritage, the issue of respect will always be uppermost. Should, in other words, the love and labor of prior musicians be respected by neophytes, or simply used/abused in order to define the whereabouts of novelty?
One good example of the former attitude - full of respect for Russian rock's common heritage - would be the Kazan outfit Hypnotist. Happy champions of what they call "old-school rock music," they've released an EP ("101") of tracks tagged overtly as "stoner rock" - and then designed as direct expressions of love for the back-catalog of Black Sabbath. No attempt is made to hide the role of tradition. The picture above shows a less-than-dignified response to history in the same city.
Hypnotist's anglophile bent and penchant for loud nostalgia are made even clearer on a lyrical plane, especially because the band's pages on Russian social networks are virtually devoid of information. Poetry steps in to fill the gap left by PR. Rather than try and match the arcane (if not occult) lyrics of their English predecessors, Hypnotist instead borrow three poems from the canon of Western verse. Wholesale.
Once more, custom is widely, enthusiastically appreciated and - as a result - simply transferred, unsullied, to a new location. Like a precious museum artifact.
First of those antique texts is "Love's Secret" by William Blake (1757–1827). Somewhat ironically, the poem is an admission - in written form(!) - that language has scant association with the wonder of love. An affection spoken out loud (or, heaven forbid, written down) will gain nothing - especially when compared to the efforts of lovestruck suitors who merely sigh in wonder...
"Never seek to tell thy love,/ Love that never told can be;/ For the gentle wind doth move/ Silently, invisibly./ I told my love, I told my love,/ I told her all my heart,/ Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears./ Ah! she did depart!"
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears... Ah! she did depart!
The band members then draw upon another Blake poem - "Human Abstract" - that famously considers how correspondingly logical patterns, such as the dry workings of human reason, can spoil the innate and obvious worth of virtue. Blake, in fact, suggests that rationality in any form is redolent of a tree - ugly in form - that grows nowhere except within the brain. Speech, common sense – and, one might therefore argue – custom are poor vehicles for impassioned expression.
As a counterpoint, perhaps, to Blake’s sobering ideas, Hypnotist have also used a Robert Frost poem of 1923, dedicated to the bleak charm of a snowy wilderness. Much as the author would like to tarry in a place of peace and guaranteed quiet, he must move on... "The woods are lovely, dark and deep./ But I have promises to keep,/ And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep." Those three adjectives - lovely, dark, and deep - embody the contradictions we see elsewhere between the appeal of open land and fear of the unknown.
At which point, we turn to the city of Togliatti, home to the industrial and vehicular traditions dramatized above. Any sense of dignified continuity in the rock canon is challenged by some new and rather extreme remixes of Mikhail Lezin's catalog, compiled in Togliatti studios. They come courtesy of Moscow electronic musician Vladimir Dudkin, who performs under a couple of stage-names: Microprocessor and neuroSampler. As those monikers suggest, the appeal here is one of deconstruction, reducing the proud and morally upright constructs of rock to its constituent elements.
But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.
Grandeur becomes glitch - and silence plays an increasing role in the kind of material one would usually associate with a proud, imposing onstage presence. Small, unpredictable forms of absence and silence are forced into the structure of others' back-catalog. As with Frost in that empty, wintry field, the unnerving allure of nothingness comes again to the fore. A constant challenge, emptiness emerges with particular effect once habit is thrown to the wind. Novelty brings with it a frighteningly blank canvas.
It produces an anxiety without influence, so to speak
An extension – or further subversion - of these ideas comes from Crimson Butterfly, a young drone/dark ambient project based in the town of Nizhnii Novgorod. More accurately, we’re dealing with an erstwhile solo performer ("Serzh") who was joined on occasion by local guest vocalists. That role is now filled permanently by the woman shown below, whose efforts are attributed in sleeve notes to “Katen’ka, the Cyberlolita.” The textual materials for Crimson Butterfly remain few and far between, since the mysterious Serzh prefers to accompany his releases with additional illustrations and artwork, rather than with long verbal ramblings.
The members of Hypnotist, although hardcore traditionalists, choose poems that ponder the appeal - and adventure - of virgin lands, far from any convenient or comfortable stopping-point. In other words, they toy with the (unnerving) idea of innovation. Crimson Butterfly, with no time for conservative concern, instead perform what they call "trip-rock," a notion framed by the day-glo imagery (and chemical reference points) shown above. Habit and convention are purportedly thrown aside in favor of two alternatives: risky liminality (between styles) and gaudy, wanton iconoclasm (produced by tearing styles down).
Somewhere between abstract dance music, rhythmic noise, and psychedelic drone
A few online statements help to clarify matters. One of them declares that "Crimson Butterfly play uncompromising techno for mad city dwellers. The project balances itself somewhere between abstract dance music, rhythmic noise, and psychedelic drone, without being fixated on any of them. Live performances might include a few 'brutal' dramatic segments or video displays, with the occasional involvement of session musicians. While this is certainly not music for the mainstream or average listener, it does not hide away in unbridled experimentation or mere 'trash-sounds.'"
Another reviewer notes that "We recently saw Crimson Butterfly play [again], but this time they managed to perform without a total breakdown on stage - which is what usually happens. This is enterprising stuff; there's a really 'spiky' kind of sound, made of penetrating noise together with some nightmarish video-junk on a screen. It's kinda in the style of some 'Jean Luc-Godard from Tatarstan.' All in all, it creates the impression of brain surgery conducted under the influence of top-notch drugs. It's all hypnotically unpredictable, like the gaze of a python..."
Music in the style of... Jean Luc-Godard from Tatarstan
Pleasure and brain surgery are associated with the same sounds(!), as are repetitious, "hypnotic unpredictability" and elements of fatal surprise. Such, it would appear, are the risks of novelty. The overriding use of distortion, feedback, and dropout in all these three projects - Crimson Butterfly, Hypnotist, and neuroSampler – is testament to the apprehension that accompanies novelty. In four very different and distant towns.
The weight of tradition, it appears, can be painful, whether it’s being applied or removed.
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