Karamazov Twins

With a name like "Karamazov Twins," this is an ensemble that will always be defined by negatives.  Their work and appearance have nothing to do with Dostoevskii's novel, nor are they connected to the well-established Ukrainian classic rock band of the same name.

And they most certainly are not professionally involved with the Californian circus group, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, who perform according to the excellent motto, "Juglito ergo sum" (I juggle, therefore I am).

What we have instead is an equally marked form of absence, the so-called "courtyard song"; little works of the past that emerged as a result of social planning.  The typical design of many Soviet apartment buildings included an inner courtyard with grass, a few trees, several benches, and perhaps some swings for hyperactive children and their exhausted mothers.  Over the course of 24 hours, different generations would make use of the courtyard for different purposes. Here's a Soviet painting of 1964 by Igor' Popov called "Our Yard" (Nash dvor), showing - albeit somewhat romantically - what a busy social space this was.

Today it's more likely to look a little sadder and in need of some love and attention.  As a result, the general desire of residents to spend time hanging around the courtyard is less than in previous decades.

At nighttime, haggled husbands would come out onto the benches and share a bottle of vodka.  Together they'd sing songs in really bad voices about long-lost girlfriends and other subjects unsuitable for spousal ears.  These are forms of extreme amateurism. The DVD cover below for a recent karaoke collection of Russian courtyard songs presumes that your level of amateurism includes no musical skill whatsoever.  It advertises itself with the following text: "A guitar, the courtyard, and friends... what else d'you need for a wonderful evening?  This DVD collection includes the same songs that we all sang together in friendship, gathered in the yard of our dear old apartment building.  Let's remember that atmosphere of endless youth and happiness.  Give yourself a gift - and your friends, too."

And so, in this same context, there now appear the Karamazov Twins and their debut album.  They've already got some famous fans, including the director (Sergei Loban) and star (Petr Mamanov) of the recent Russian movie, "Dust" (Pyl').

"Dust" concerns the social state of being sidelined or endlessly liminal in a big, uncaring city.  An overweight, unattractive, and mentally slow individual gets wrapped up in a scientific experiment of detriment to his health.  One of the side-effects, however, is that it produces a sense of well-being in him.  He has visions of being both fit and good-looking.  As a result, he keeps trying to go back to the lab, even though it might kill him.

The Karamazov Twins capture this state of being sidelined or dumbstruck by social change.  They use elements of half-forgotten courtyard songs, the sluggish ramblings of tipsy men and women floating somewhere between a happy home and feeble despair.  These are the sounds of liminal spaces in between the city and shabby suburbs, coming from people huddled on park benches in small, sentimental groups. As the video above shows for the song "Wheels" (Kolesa), they deliberately conjure an aura of mild stupor, of provincial dance-halls and incompetent dancing.  And yet there's a sense of innocence, of a place and time when there was no need to be smart, feisty, or especially violent.

The band has been in existence since 2004. They say that their songs "elicit a sense of Russian goodwill, a new reality of half-forgotten objects and people. They're all given a second life, as in Plato's cave.  The musicians themselves insist their goal is to combine things that simply don't go together.  They're working hard to dovetail totally diverse musical spheres.  The result is something unique.  On one hand it all comes together harmoniously; on the other, this is completely avant-garde."

In this video, for example, are the band swaying lazily in fond retrospection, or is it cynical?  And the album cover: is that a recollection of past, unaffected neighbors... or is it really ugly?  Key here are the band's origins in the town of Maikop, deep in southern Russia, where Cossack, Armenian, and Russian communities live side by side. This is a place where one nation slides slowly into several others.

The pronounced provincialism of Maikop is at the heart of what the Karamazov Twins do.  Its moot aspect  - and what makes them interesting - is whether they're fostering, manipulating, or lambasting the kind of cultural cliches that make up attitudes towards people from these distant backwaters. As excellent proof of Maikop's general atmosphere - and as more material for investigating the band's complicated attitudes towards themselves, the past, and the songs thereof - here's a little film about the town.  It has already appeared on a site connected to the Karamazov Twins.  It's based on a rumor that Maikop will soon be getting an "electrobus."  The director goes from person to person, asking whether they've heard anything about the bus.  Do they know what it is?

Is he mocking these people and their unattractiveness, or he is celebrating the complete normality of his neighbors and their happy, naive distance from the "cutting edge" of social development?

It's a tough call.