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The central figure amid the various projects listed in this article is Siberia-born DJ Aleksei Devianin, aka Pixelord, who's perhaps best known under the pseudonym of Gultskra Artikler. That strange moniker is used to encapsulate a long-lived project described to Russian audiences as “melodic, sentimental drama for guitars.” Both Gultskra Artikler and Devianin's other outfit, Stud, tend to be filed under similarly merged categories such as "the mysterious Siberian soul, combined with hi-tech wizardry."
Elsewhere we might find “neo-folk cyber-psychedelia” suggested as a label. Needless to say, the term Gultskra Artikler doesn't exactly help matters, since it's nonsensical to begin with. Devianin himself has admitted that “it’s just made from a collection of various funny-sounding words, taken from several old languages. It doesn’t mean anything in particular: I just think it sounds pleasant."
It’s just made from a collection of various funny-sounding words, taken from several old languages. It doesn’t mean anything in particular: I just think it sounds pleasant.
That throwaway pleasantry helps to distract our attention from the serious energy feeding into his music.
As these opening suggestions might imply, the mixing and matching of incongruous elements is a practice that lies at the very heart of Devianin's discography. This same spirit of intense splicing underlies a brand new release, too, entitled "Lucid Freaks, Pt. 1." That title alone speaks to the ongoing marriage of clarity and chaos. Published through the Italo-German netlabel Error Broadcast, Devianian's 2010 compositions are undoubtedly stamped with the scrapbook or mosaic stylings of his earlier, domestic recordings.
The folks at Error Broadcast call these tracks "a mixture of spliffed-out 8bit riddims, stumbling hip-hop beats and a pinch of 'Euro Dance' glam. The weirdo plastic Pop of Glasgow's Hudson Mohawke is echoed in his tunes as well as bass-driven digital Reggae, Jahtari-style. The artwork of American painter Michael Dotson suits the Pixelord's music perfectly."
We've used several of Dotson's mosaic drawings in this post, for reasons explained anon.
Speaking a few days ago to the Russian-language music blog Gimme5, Devianin dovetailed his domestic and foreign recordings with the following logic and timeline. "Earlier I used to make rhythmic music under the alias of Gultskra Artikler. It was a kind of avant-garde effort, a sort of 'cinematic ambient' sound. I produced a series of releases that came out both on CD and vinyl, too. In fact, in April [2010] the newest Gultskra album will be coming out on yellow vinyl. It has already been printed and looks very cool! I recorded it all long before the Piexlord material; to be honest, I had even started to forget about it... [Looking back, now,] that was all something of a transitional stage. I've left it behind me. Fans of that kind of music might find it interesting, but for the moment I - personally - don't find all that kind of stuff appealing right now."
Hence, perhaps, the blank stare, fending off any obsessive interest with past endeavors.
The interviewer at Gimme5 was keen to know why Devianin has made this move from electronic versions of folk material to electronic beats, pure and simple, or what we might term glitch-hop. The artist replied: "I've always been attracted by rhythms and bass lines. It's just that I was never quite sure how they'd sound in my interpretation. It was only this year that I got a real sense of how things should be.... On top of that, it's much harder working with beats than with ambient textures... and that means it's more interesting, too!"
Given this alleged disparity between the sounds of Gultskra Artikler and Pixelord, explained in terms of the musician's "progress," it was only a matter of time before the interviewer asked Devianin what comes next. And indeed he did. Speaking of the "Lucid Freaks" EP, the musician answered: "It consists entirely of remixes made by my friends such as Om Unit, Democracy And Hot Dogs, Coco Bryce, and Ability. In the near future I'm interested in doing some digital releases for Carcrashset and my own label Hyperboloid."
In short, therefore, Error Broadcast has produced two releases from Devianin, virtually back-to-back: "Lucid Freaks Pt 1.," consisting of the original recordings, and "Lucid Freaks Pt. 2," made of the remixes. The six tracks in this post are taken from the latter EP.
From the early neo-folk or folktronica releases, then, built on the disarming simplicity of rustic refrains, Devianin's newer output has grown increasingly elaborate, based - in his words - on the synonymy between difficulty and appeal. The harder the work, the greater his interest.
In that light, let's take a look at some of the press reactions to the first EP, prior to the remixed spin-offs. One of the most endearing was: "Okay... this is getting real serious!!! These are some of the sickest tunes I've heard..." (Sticky Sugar Shack). Elsewhere the link between intricacy and interest, already made by our musician, was stated in even bolder terms. The claim was made that this dance music is so interesting (i.e., so profoundly complex) that staying vertical is even a challenge: "Leftfield fans will instantly identify with all of Pixelord's tracks, that unmistakable blend of faulty electronica with healthy, solid, drink-spilling kick bass" (The Creative Uncommons).
Leftfield fans will instantly identify with all of Pixelord's tracks, that unmistakable blend of faulty electronica with healthy, solid, drink-spilling kick bass.
Following this rationale to its logical extension, the best dance music of all would leave everyone flat on the floor, pint glasses thrown asunder.
The new remixes from Error Broadcast travel even further down the same shaky road. Reviewers remarked: "These remixes are reaching out far more into incredible spaces and the unheard-of regions of crushing beats - and playing with sound, too. [The second EP] is much more sonic than the first one - and still with nerofunk-cyberpunk gaming oddities in its heart and soul. I have to say: [it's] a 'must have'!"(Digital Tools). These "odd," if not "incredible spaces," though born of tangible dancefloor experiences, have already left the physical world altogether. The legs have given up, yet the head keeps going: "This sh*t is bleep bloop twists and spasms... at times it's overwhelming, but mostly it's sheer-layered goodness. I love this music when I'm in the right state of mind for it. Hope you all enjoy... this stuff is killer!" (All Fer Teh Lulz).
"Bleep boop twists and spasms": these are reactions to an ostensible reality, to its solid forms that are "twisted" beyond all recognition. Those same reactions speak to the audible potential of that reality, yet they do so by eventually being removed from it. They are, in a word, virtual forms of dance music, designed for "the right state of mind."
Just as the PR-term or title used to gather and promote them, these tracks - plus all the mental reactions they produce - are indeed a form of "lucid freaking." They offer a distanced sense of clarity or lucidity that comes from passing "spasmodically" through certain norms and conventions. Having reached a physical limit - of what can be realistically danced to - only the mental remains. A new form of idm, perhaps, emerges: no so much "intelligent" as "intense" or "involved."
The visual artist chosen to contextualize these extreme, fractured textures is Washington-based Michael Dotson. As we can see from the images in this post, his portfolio uses angular, jarringly contrasted building blocks (a visual counterpart to bleeps and boops, perhaps) in order to refashion actuality in bright, chromatically "spasmodic" forms. It has a certain wholeness, yet we cannot rid ourselves of the impression that any such integrity is overcome by the striking gaps, fissures, or holes between the blocks themselves. There's no sense of enduring, calm mass.
In an interview not long ago, he said: "We have reached a point in technology where it is possible to make any fantasy a complete virtual reality. These realities are navigable, and can be experienced on a limited sensory level, but always with a sense of remove. You cannot breathe the air, feel the temperature, taste or smell. Most importantly, you cannot touch anything. In essence, you are always just a viewer, and any sense of participation is illusory. This relationship is similar to the way we experience paintings which are also not to be touched."
Paintings not to be touched, dance music not for dancing; instead of movement with physical people in tangible spaces, we're offered a "supra-physical," predominantly mental picture of dance music's spasmodic potential. A picture of what it might or could do in virtual terms.
Devianin has told us on many occasions that the most complex dance music is the most intriguing; increased complexity, therefore, leads to movement away from the dancefloor. The sensations conjured by these very(!) complex remixes are longer conceivable as a choreographer's patterns to be etched on the floor of a club; instead the experience is "interestingly," wholly mental. We're dancing in our head, so to speak, in a social state that - as Dotson remarks - comes "with a sense of remove."
Devianin's “neo-folk cyber-psychedelia” doesn't seem that far away, all of a sudden. These are digitally "remixed," remade forms of social expression. They evoke a better place to be - a location unreachable with one's legs. Pixelord uses computers to get there; his earlier muses, out in the Russian countryside, no doubt used moonshine or samogon. The effect was the same. Everyone's flat on their back with their head spinning - from an experience of the virtual.
As we might surmise from Devianin's image above and Dotson's collage below, movement towards these "interesting," virtual, and sensually spasmodic states occurs in two stages. Hard work and struggle (above) is required in order to wring the most from one's medium. Then, once the "freakishness" of the music acquires a certain "lucidity," it runs according to a logic of its own, which - in the words of one of our reviewers - can be "at times overwhelming" (below).
It's the same thin line between control and chaos that we see throughout Devianin's discography, no matter how many monikers he uses. It's an ongoing, empirical passage made against the backdrop of a Russian maximalism. That degree of "ever-interesting" effort is inspired, one might say, by the sweep of the surrounding landscape in his folktronica, or the new virtual depths of his more recent output.
They both offers the constant chance or challenge to go further, "into incredible spaces and unheard-of regions."
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