|
Gimme5 is an excellent Siberian webzine, already home to a decent amount of material and media. If, however, visitors wish to know more about the publication, a trip to the "About Us" page will produce nothing more than the rather confrontational figure shown below. The staff obviously have more pressing matters on their mind than self-promotion. One of their weighty responsibilities is the production of important and timely podcasts.
These podcasts, akin to miniature sets rather than directly authored broadcasts, are good indicators both of artists' current influences and future trajectories. They operate as a quick peek inside the iPods of strangers. Since the start of 2011, a pair of Russian musicians have already been showcased in that format. Both are from St Petersburg and have been discussed on the pages of FFM before: Nocow (aka Aleksei Nikitin) and Kontext (Stanislav Sevost’ianikhin).
Embodying a laudable homeboy spirit, both Nocow and Kontext show a related attitude towards their craft. Put differently, we see within the recent playlists of those two men a shared, telling reason for investing one's time and energy in music.
As the image here implies (and we'll explain), it's a worldview born of conflict and confrontation.
A PR text used several months ago to promote Nocow states (in Russian): "Aleksei Nikitin is an electronic musician from St Petersburg. His music is not easily classifiable within any given style, since he stays true to a spirit of experimentation, never knowing where his compositions will take him." Bearing that seemingly innocuous statement in mind for a second, we move on. Nocow is also associated with the fine beats/abstract hip-hop project known as Wax Paper Cup, which has been treated to similarly upbeat phrasing in months gone by: "The music of Wax Paper Cup erases all generic boundaries."
For all the banality of those statements, they are nonetheless useful. They begin to raise the issue of stylistic variegation and why it might remain so vigorous - if not frantic. The writers at Gimme5, when discussing Nocow's newest podcast, began to formulate an early rationale for this kind of bold, even driven experimentation.
Music that's both profound and really psychedelic, too
Translated into English, the magazine's introduction to Nocow began with a few lines that - once again - employed declarations of difference, deviation, and so forth.: "He writes amazing music - it's both profound and really psychedelic, too. It includes many elements of so-called 'intelligent' electronica, all the way from hip-hop to ambient, idm, and house..."
Why, though?
Following the announcement of a forthcoming collaboration with Anton Zap, the article continued in a slightly more specific tone: "Closer to the summer, Nocow will release a debut album and, dear readers, it'll be pure magic. It'll be this artist's very own 'Magical Mystery Tour.' Get ready for your imagination to fly through constellations of endless thought. You'll be face-to-face with a stream of pure consciousness... You'll be carried on waves [of bliss] to the shores of peace, calm, and universal wisdom."
[The next release] will be this artist's very own 'Magical Mystery Tour'
The first topic raised implicitly by that ecstatic register is that the experience sought here becomes - ideally - synonymous with departure and even self-erasure, as the image below suggests. The goal is be to be somewhere else or, more specifically, to not be here. Since these and related notions, though, are based on hopes and the conjecture of promotional zeal, i.e., the near future, it's more informative to consider the Beatles' reference. It, after all, concerns a finished project of the past - an event with a more stable significance.
Why refer to this movie in particular? The Beatles had hoped to make a visual document of some unscripted activity upon a bus, touring various locations for no apparent reason. The concept was that reality itself would provide pleasant distraction and intriguing insights.
It didn't. The film was a critical and commercial failure.
The resulting LP, however, showed a suitable response to insistently dull, "unmagical" actuality. It involved drugs. With regard to "I Am the Walrus," for example, John Lennon would later say: "The first line was written during an acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip - the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular..." The pharmaceutical brinkmanship required to improve upon - or flee - normality seemed rather extreme.
Nocow and his listeners are also happy advocating a related form of chemically-induced escape. The local reasons for doing so, indolence aside, are a little clearer thanks to a second podcast from Kontext (aka Dissident or, as mentioned, Stanislav Sevost’ianikhin).
Welcome to the dark world of distorted reality
The writers at Gimme5 introduce him as follows: "Each recording from this leftfield performer should be accompanied by the same phrase: 'Welcome to the Dark World of Distorted Reality.'" Such statements, of course, will immediately prompt discussion of how and why that actuality might be altered. The issue of "how" has been attended to; what, though, of the reason for this constant, if not obstinate experimentation in St Petersburg - both on the dancefloor and in dark corners?
When we examined Kontext's work last April, we included a telling statement from the man himself. The greater the distance between tawdry actuality and harmony, he believes, the better; the validity of music is enhanced precisely by its constant deviation(s) from reality's linear, frequently downward trajectory. It allows for mental detours from the straight and narrow. This potential was a discovery he made many years ago, when listening as a boy to musically accompanied tales of magic.
"Just like many Soviet kids, I remember when I was very young how much I liked falling asleep to the sound of fairytales on vinyl... That habit of dozing off while somebody rambles on is still with me today... there's nothing better than using talk radio to get 40 winks! In fact the further the topic of conversation is from my own interests, the sillier the chat, the easier it is for me to fall asleep."
I liked falling asleep to the sound of fairytales on vinyl
And now, with the Gimme5 podcast, some of his listeners feel they've gained an insight into how Kontext creates that same sensation of calm today. The fairytales of the past have not come to pass; magic has been smothered by mundanity. Mystery tours are few and far between: they need a little help - the same kind used on the Abbey Road.
Music and marijuana work to related effect - because life's "authenticity" is painfully far from fantasy.
One of the recent listeners to the Kontext podcast has the following to say. He quotes a relatively famous online film showing a Russian drug addict who's trying very hard to escape normality. His conversation with the police reads:
"Hey - are you using drugs?" "Yes, I use 'em. I won't hide the fact." "Have you used them today?" "No, not yet..." In other words, I will. Come what may - because I must.
"Have you used drugs today?" "No, not yet..."
The little samurai figure used by Gimme5's editors begins to make more sense. In the fight against drudgery and depression, major weapons are needed. Frequent style-shifting speaks to indefinable actuality: nobody knows what to say. No one register, it seems, does the job. Attempts at a fitting (musical) statement - attempts at designating and therefore managing daily experience - morph instead into wordless modes of escapism. Music for these two men approximates a kind of seclusion or acquiescence to soothing fallacies- where imagined narratives end better than their everyday equivalents.
Much effort, therefore, goes into the search for sheltered, feasible inaction and the establishment of a sphere where reverie can operate unimpeded. Free from bumps, bruises, and other unwanted intrusions.
The mock poster below even suggests that Russia's Ministry of Health - nationwide! - recommends the music of Stanislav Sevost’ianikhin for precisely that purpose: the attainment of blissful, hard-won inactivity.
Initial listeners appear more than happy with the result.
Comments
Login / Register