InWhite: Two Talents and Two Languages

Recently the entertainment magazine Afisha published a list of 25 new and promising female vocalists, not only from Russia, but from beyond its borders, too.  One of the chosen few - and rightly so - was Iulia Kriukova from the band InWhite. Kriukova herself is from St Petersburg, but the origins of InWhite are very much in Moscow.  Kriukova, a student of dance and drama, was in the capital when she met the young pianist Dmitrii Emel'ianov, who despite being only 19, has worked with some very well-established and impressive bands, including Ukraine's Esthetic Education.  In fact the most common reference points used to contextualize InWhite are Esthetic Education and Boston's Dresden Dolls.

Prior to joining a band, Kriukova had spent her youth training as a folk dancer, after which she started studying ballet.  It was the more academic environment of her balletic training that led to drama school... and then enunciation lessons, and finally to singing. This grand tour around several arts ended with her desire not only to sing, but also to pen new material herself.

As a result, by the time she met Emel'ianov, Kriukova had a wide range of experience and skill-sets to offer a band.  In fact it was specifically after her success in 2002 at a northern songwriting and performance competition that she began pondering the inevitable need for a move - four hours southwards by train - to Moscow.

Emel'ianov, despite his evident skills as a musician and an early education in that field, has also studied cybernetics at Moscow's Institute for Radio Technology.  Combining the two meant piecemeal work as a session musician, rather than any chance of dedicating himself to science or composition full time. It would appear that music is winning, since Emel'ianov has spoken openly in interviews of session work's "unsatisfying" opportunities.

In the words of the capital's music press, InWhite "play bilingual indie-pop in a totally Western fashion.  There are clean-cut melodies and the kind of choruses you remember even after the first listening.  With the presence of Kriukova the band would lose a great deal of their charm."  Thankfully that doesn't appear to be an impending danger.

We play lyrical songs in Russian and English, together with catchy melodies on the piano...

The band would concur:  "We play lyrical songs in Russian and English, together with catchy melodies on the piano and the 'heartbeat' of our outfit - the drum section. We gently reveal the poetry and musicality of our songs, enriching them with keyboard improvisations - or arrangements that're brimming with new ideas." Despite their noticeable accomplishments and strong sense of onstage cohesion, the band has been in existence for less than a year.  Founded in the spring of 2008, they decided to start songwriting after three test-concerts.  By the middle of summer, a demo EP had appeared.

The same recording has now been expanded with additional tracks and is available for free download.  It's well worth a listen and reminiscent, perhaps, of Lithuania's Alina Orlova from a vocal point of view, yet the recording is given a much richer, almost anthemic quality by Emel'ianov's keyboards.

The piano work, in fact, is foregrounded to such an extent that one starts to detect the influence of Keane.  This combination of East European and English crossovers is something that goes deeper than mere surface impressions, in fact further than the band's decision to sing in both Russian and English.  As the Russian music scene starts flourishing nowadays, there emerges the issue of why one would sing in English.  Perhaps Eastern Europe does not need to pine constantly for recognition in the Anglo world?

The matter arises in a few interviews.  To the question of whether an English text means Western leanings, Kriukova answers:  "It's fair to say that when a band starts singing in English, people [in Russia] do tend to see it as a striving towards the West.  But I simply write songs in both Russian and English... that's just the way it turns out.  As a result, when we come together for rehearsals, some melody or other will pop up and it'll simply fit one language or another much better.  It's not as if I say beforehand 'Hey! Let's do a song in Russian!'"

 To this Emel'ianov adds laconically: "We're trying to write more songs in Russian."  That bodes well, not only for a great little band, but the scene as a whole.