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Helene Urva and Ivo Krustok (Tartu, Estonia)
Two of the compositions on display today begin with the distinct rustle of a lo-fi domestic recording. More specifically, the tracks were made in an Estonian home at Christmas by Ivo Krustok and colleague Helene Urva. Those same DIY songs come with a tiny note: "Everything was recorded with a single off-axis microphone, so the audio quality is not the best. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun with our little concert. I hope you'll have just as much fun listening to it." The idea of spontaneity and good humor is important to all the works in our audio player today, no matter their address or style.
We had a lot of fun with our little concert
Ivo Krustok was born in 1987 and raised on a large, somewhat disorderly collection of late-Soviet cassettes, together with various examples of vinyl from a burgeoning Western market. Having absorbed everything from 1970s Estonian MOR (Ivo Linna) to ABBA and Baltic proto-punk (Singer Vinger), he decided "at one point in my life that I must start learning how to play an instrument." The step from fandom to creativity was taken with no special planning. And so Krustok borrowed a family guitar and gradually worked his way through many classic riffs from the Western rock canon.
By the time he was fifteen, he had reached the lofty goals of "generic teenage poetry - which was bad - coupled with a few chords in a random key. It was a start."
Ivo Krustok and Helene Urva in festive mode
Henceforth his biography moves in two directions: Krustok has played in a wide range of Estonian folk and rock bands. He likes to document that happy infidelity in terms of the instruments used en route. His website is full of enthusiastic and geeky discussions of various tools, down to some very technical details. For that reason, his lo-fi, off-the-cuff Christmas songs are especially touching. In pondering the connection of his modest ditties to any humility tied in Christmas itself, Krustok has borrowed a few wise words from Bart Simpson (translated into Estonian): "The little stupid differences [between people] are nothing next to the big stupid similarities!" That's what joins us all: little failings.
In short, an air of common, faltering practice hangs over the recordings: a complete erasure of the differences between artist and audience, even. Jovial modesty prevails in the shows, equipment, and publishing techniques: together they constitute a worldview of special relevance on a Christian holiday.
The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness....
Elsewhere Krustok draws upon the words of Douglas Adams, in order to foster the same diffidence. "The world is a thing of [such] utter inordinate complexity, richness, and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea."
Nothing much can lead to a great deal. "It's a start," as Krustok says.
Meshell (Moscow): Artur Podrezov and Dasha Builova
Working on a related scale are the Moscow duo Meshell. They introduce themselves with zero fanfare: "We play sweet music... about love." There's little more that needs clarifying, apparently. The local press is fond - for obvious reasons - of drawing parallels between Meshell and shambolic, low-volume Scottish outfits like Camera Obscura or Belle & Sebastian.
Sweet music... about love
The band, in more specific terms, consists of Artur Podrezov and Dasha Builova, but that small lineup swells on stage, once we've added friends Natasha (violin), Grisha (flute), and Sasha (drums). The team sheet usually credits sound engineer Il'ia, also. These collective endeavors are precious in that Podrezov's last ensemble, prior to Meshell, was disbanded due to his obligations in the Russian army. For that reason, perhaps, the new outfit may have been founded only last August, but the musicians have already started recording their songs ASAP - and publishing them, currently for free.
Another need to be speedy arises from the fact that more duties have replaced the armed forces: Artur works in a bank, while Dasha is a school teacher.
The newest, small sounds from this tiny group have been gathered under the title of "Imaginary Songs" - and, as mentioned, made freely available for downloading. This good natured amateurism, which we might expect from fans of Belle & Sebastian, actually travels much further than the bedrooms of twee songsmiths. Even within academic environments it works very well.
Meshell: the full concert lineup
Take, by way of example, the remarkable Belarus Modern Orchestra, designed to erase the boundaries between contemporary academic and electronic music. The roots of their activity touch upon the career of young composer Aliaksandr Tsurko, of whom we've written before. In the spring of 2011, he suggested to colleague Victor Kamenetsky that classical endeavors should be added to the roster of well-respected Minsk electronic organization, Foundamental. What transpired was a Society for the Development of New Music (SDNM), "a group of enthusiasts engaged in the growth, promotion, and research of modern classical music."
Thus far, matters may sound both serious and cerebral, but that plural noun "enthusiasts" hints at some underlying jollity. It comes slowly to the surface.
All activities are undertaken in the name of the future...
The SDNM not only contributes to academic conferences and organizes festivals: it also distributes free software for musicians, helping to lessen the differences between performers, amateurs, and listeners - as we saw in Tartu. This charitable inclusiveness is something the musicians would like to see on a much wider scale: "The SDNM [SRNM in Belarusian and Russian] is a non-profit NGO. All activities are undertaken in the name of the future, not to mention the development of a nationwide, Belarusian culture."
Belarus Modern Orchestra (Minsk, 2012)
We offer here tracks both from the Belarus Modern Orchestra and its conductor, Kanstantin Yaskou, born in 1981. Trained in Minsk, he has now seen his music performed not only in Belarus, but also in Ukraine and Poland. An organizer of major music festivals at home, he now heads the Association of Young Belarusian Composers and teaches at the National Academy of Music.
It's interesting to note that one of Mr. Yaskou's enduring interests is the collection of folk songs, which to this day need to be found, captured on tape, and transcribed - all "in the name of the future." There are many parallels between far-flung rural singers and underappreciated laptop composers, twiddling away in urban apartments.
Overseeing all these activities are some manifestos or short essays, published by Aliaksandr Tsurko on the SDNM website in Russian. One of them speaks to the organization's value system, over and above academic prestige or profit. "Through his self-realization in musical form, a [proper] performer aims for a universal form of expression. He also looks [simultaneously] for his own language, since without that there's nothing more than a series of cliches. History remembers the people who first make these [communicative] breakthroughs. That's genuine renown."
Tsurko then says that this same empirical activity, joining effort and error, gradually "removes both limitations and doubt. A person with this conviction [of a pioneer] is never worried about being understood. He bravely uses all he can in order to realize an expressive potential. He has a cast-iron conviction... because nobody has come up with a better form of self-realization!... I'm sure this is the right way to go. Creative work must be brave and authoritative. Honesty will remove all kinds of [communicative] hindrances. Your stories will be about you - not just somebody. If you squeeze anything unnatural from your work, then you may like it, but other people will only be irritated. Music reflects individuality: it's the landscape of a composer's heart and soul."
Honesty will remove all kinds of hindrances...
That lofty tone originates from the democratic gesture of distributing free software: the audience is invited to join in. Tsurko's essay also places 50% of a work's meaning in the hands of that same audience. What allows a performer to nurture agreement or concord between the two sides of the stage is honesty and confidence. And that's built one audience member at a time. Nothing is guaranteed ahead of time - and stentorian volume will do little. Social, if not national principles are built from the smallest social unit - beginning with a Christmas home concert.
It's a start. And a matter of listening.
Aliaksandr Tsurko (right) and Kanstantin Yaskou
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