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"Motor" is one of the pseudonyms of Moscow's Vadim Ugriumov; he appears in multiple projects and many places. The reason for this particular announcement, amid such frenzied activity, is that Mr. Ugriumov has just released a very appealing nine-track, 44-minute solo recording entitled "Tiger Tunes." It can be downloaded from the Top 40 netlabel, where links are also offered to some of the musician's back catalog.
The label, fittingly enough, presents these new compositions in a good-natured manner, declaring that "Motor is in a hit-making mood again!" That phrase suggests - accurately - that Ugriumov has recently come out of hiding or hibernation. For all of his substantial output and multiple collaborations, his taste for self-promotion is minimal, if not non-existent. His forays into the limelight are infrequent, to say the least.
The three self-portraits included below are, in essence, all that's available; any other visual documents, perhaps unearthed after long searches, would simply be the result of chance snapshots - taken by strangers.
Given this contradiction between activity and anonymity, what does "Tiger Tunes" offer of interest? The staff at Top 40 declare: "Various musical styles are mixed up in this lighthearted album of electro-fusions. There are the bleeps of deep techno, warm and downtempo ambient influences, and a host of minimalist grooves, together with some choice, experimental sound-collages. To this we can also add a host of delicate, chattering rhythms, and even laid-back techno Kung Fu... It's a fun machine!"
Support in making these tracks came from colleagues such as Denis Teremskii (currently working with DJ Asya), and Aleksei Petin both of whom have been involved with other Top 40 endeavors. Were the circle of conspirators to widen beyond recent studio work - in order to include other kindred, supportive spirits - then we'd soon find ourselves in Western Europe. German dance luminary and DJ Michael Mayer (of Kompakt) has spoken very highly indeed of Ugriumov's discography. At more than one venue we're informed that Mayer believes his Russian comrade writes "perhaps the most wicked, euphoric music on earth."
Our master of merriment was born in 1974 and credits his career choice to a schoolboy enthusiasm for Depeche Mode, even though his initial fame would come from work in the field of minimal techno. It was in and around this same style that the moniker Motor came into being, specifically thanks to support from the Dutch label Staalplaat. Outside interest in his work led to the need for a stage name.
As renown grew, Ugriumov felt comfortable stepping out of the studio and making one of his (very) rare observations on music. Here he spoke of his love for eclecticism as a worldview: "I've always worked in various styles of electronic music... and I use the name Motor to designate the works that I write on my own. It refers to my more experimental compositions, where I am able to do precisely what I want."
I've always worked in various styles of electronic music... and I use the name Motor to designate the works that I write on my own. It refers to my more experimental compositions, where I am able to do precisely what I want.
This willingness to let whimsy dictate the recording process is, no doubt, what led to the offhand reference above to a "fun machine." Productivity and entertaining variety work hand in hand, such that each amplifies the importance of the other. Together they stave off obsolescence - and the nasty surprise of extinction.
Variety can, of course, reach the point where creative directions and audiences both vanish in a flurry of endless, disorienting differences. Is there, as a result, a point at which Ugriumov has been able to link his idiosyncrasies with the work of anybody else? Does he think that a mishmash of genres, combined with gay abandon, could perhaps become a common activity among different artists? Could he turn uniqueness into a "scene" of some description?
Here, too, a rare interview offers some more insight - a few thoughts that have, thankfully, been cached by a Russian search engine. Ugriumov believes it's a little pompous to speak of "transferring traditions" between musicians; instead he likes to define a healthy musical environment as something built through ongoing deviations, rather than similarities.
"After all, people themselves change. New people arrive, older ones leave - and stop making music. And today, now that we have the internet, those newer, younger musicians seem even better prepared [than their predecessors]; they know more about their field. They know more about other composers and authors, too. They're better informed when it comes to principles of musical composition... in any area you can imagine!"
Thus new luminaries appear from the murk of obscurity.
The one desirable constant, therefore, in musical development(s) should be variation - both within a performer's repertoire and between colleagues. Those colleagues should, in turn, be bound by what separates them. There remains even now a romance to this diversity, since Ugriumov began writing music in the late 1980s; he has no fond memories of censorship.
Part of the lively tempo audible in "Tiger Tunes" might be accredited to that same decade, i.e., to the fact that Ugriumov's earliest memories of "good music" can be traced to some records made by the Soviet jazz/rock band Arsenal, used for aerobics classes (this would logically be the Sport i Muzyka album of 1985). This surprising discovery of well-written tunes (amid a bad tradition) led to a search for more adventurous noises, specifically for Kraftwerk LPs.
Enjoyment of others' craft became the desire to pen some original works - and the birth of Ugriumov's seminal outfit "TechnoDanceClub." Soviet synths were thus used to make sounds for a new generation; the monumental traditions of the past began to fade away, revealing broader vistas and bigger risks.
The specificity of this cultural situation, apparently, continues. "What's happening in Russia today is no less interesting than developments elsewhere in the world." Nonetheless, Eastern Europe, he believes, produces a certain kind of soundtrack: "Our musicians don't break out onto the world stage, precisely because of that specificity. Our artists are local. We have a very unique kind of music here; personally I understand what that music is doing... but worldwide, most people can't comprehend it."
Our musicians don't break out onto the world stage, precisely because of that specificity. Our artists are local. We have a very unique kind of music here; personally I understand what that music is doing... but worldwide, most people can't comprehend it.
Ugriumov's search for maximally subjective expression - for constant change and smaller spheres of influence - leads not only to the validation of local scenes and local meaning(s); it also results in some self-evident banalities, which - oddly - even imply the creative benefit of never collaborating! Put differently, complete uniqueness can, perhaps, be best served by knowing nothing - and seeing nobody.
He explains: "Each person decides for himself what has artistic value. Some people simply don't like going to art galleries; perhaps they don't want to listen to experimental electronic music, either. They'd rather listen to rock. It all depends on the individual... You can't bracket art or oblige somebody to perceive it in a set way. I can't say: 'Come and listen to my music; it's really great!' You just can't do that. A person has to want to see things a certain way."
As one famous Russian saying has it, issues of taste and color are guarantors of debate.
These are the ideas that lie behind Top40.org, which Ugriumov helps to manage. He sees its multifaceted catalog as an extension of his own wandering outlook and shifting enthusiasms. "I thought about this for a long time and came to the conclusion that a synthesis is always going to be better than a concrete direction. Pure analog music is dull; purely digital work is just as tedious. What's interesting is a combination."
This principle and validation of combinations, rather than "directions," is transferred directly into the way that Motor/Ugriumov works with samples. He is a long-term admirer of British artist Vicki Bennett, better known as "People Like Us." Ugriumov has praised the way in which she combines all manner of audio "trash" by splicing, merging, and abusing segments of unrelated media. Bennett's work makes subjective sense of a world in which media sources overlap - to the point of meaningless white noise.
Since Ugriumov advocates a kind of submission to this digital disorder (a willingness to make combinations maximally possible), it's interesting to note that the most commonly used sample on "Tiger Tunes" is a female voice, saying: "I can't believe I let this happen to me." That phrase seems to be taken from the spoken intro to Janet Jackson's single "Can't B Good," a number also covered by her late brother. It begins a discussion of relationships that always go wrong. Here, however, the opposite is true; a loss to "unbelievable" difference, deviance, and change is celebrated. The world becomes audibly, happily fragmentary.
Everything's in the hands of the (multiple, fickle) gods.
In fact, at the end of the album's remix of that same track, a male voice sounds forth. "This is your body. Drift within." Anything resembling social difference or movement (among people) has been removed in favor of a wholly private experience, some kind of movement "within" oneself. Physical passage and socialization - dance music in the strict sense! - have been replaced with what Ugriumov calls "very specific audio material. It doesn't really relate to the [canonical] styles of dance music."
His arguments about the extremely "local" nature of Russian dance music have become so spatially constrained and "specific" that the "dancing" is now taking place within the head of an individual. Who is sitting still and attempting to make sense of actuality's fractured, "trash-like" disparities.
One of the photographs at Top 40 suggests that all opportunities to tape, splice, and combine those disparate sounds are being taken. Actuality's noisy, fractious tiger has been taken by the tail.
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