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A few weeks ago, we passed briefly over the career of Kiev's Pavel Lenchenko, better known to Ukrainian audiences as one third of Tomato Jaws (shown below). It's important to stop and consider his solo endeavors, too, since Lenchenko has a considerable role to play in his own right. Although, with scant modesty, he refers to himself as "one of the nation's finest exponents of house music," there may in actual fact be some justification to that claim. In distancing himself both from local competition and his traditional obligations within Tomato Jaws, Mr. Lenchenko performs under the stage name of Playone.
To a large degree, Playone is a typical figure of post-Soviet song and music in that his skills have been almost entirely forged outside of any institutional setting. The decentralization of professional education and the birth of web-based creativity since the end of the Soviet Union have both seriously undermined the affordability and relevance of formal training for many musicians in Eastern Europe. Effort outside the classroom seems more immediate and appealing than three years in a dusty lecture hall.
When the winds of change blow, people lean in new directions.
And so, at the callow age of seventeen, Lenchenko already had enough DIY material to constitute an album. Those earliest recordings, by his own admission, reflected the fleeting modishness of jungle. Over time, though - and certainly by 2006 - his efforts had led towards more of a house sound. These tentative steps towards the mainstream appeared simultaneously with new, adult burdens - such as the need to fund one's lifestyle away from home. As a result, short and profitable jingles were written for a range of radio and TV commercials; actuality would not leave much room for quiet contemplation - it needed to be subsidized.
Today his growing influence - first across local and then national dancefloors - has led to experience on a European scale. Lenchenko has performed in various countries around the continent, whilst adding to the house compositions in his Playone catalog. Currently they number more than fifty. And then, to these physical movements around the map, we should also add web-based collaborations with artists from the US, Germany, Finland, England, and France.
Never rest on your laurels
The most recent interview with Tomato Jaws included various observations from Lenchenko. Perhaps the pithiest appeared in the closing moments of the conversation, when each member of the band was asked to provide a pearl of public wisdom. Lenchenko remarked: "Never rest on your laurels." Movement and effort take precedence over all else; exertion constantly - and necessarily - negates all forms of confident, stable proclamation. That apparent banality has great relevance in either Ukraine or Russia, as we'll see. Actuality constantly makes many poses, postures, and achievements irrelevant.
You have to keep moving.
This need for endless effort and higher benchmarks - above all else - is evident in many locations; whatever the differences between local scenes and styles, certain socioeconomic norms prevail. Since we've started in the realm of house music, we might look - for example - to the southern Russian city of Rostov-na-Donu, home to Sergei Kachura (aka Paolo Mixato). By his own admission, work as a house DJ and composer began only after some initial amateurish "dabbling" and a chance opportunity that appeared at a local radio station. He, too, began very far from the slow, expensive workings of higher education.
Any ability to calmly consider a musical career, however, was soon interrupted by a baby daughter - and so Kachura could only DJ occasionally. Compositional work came to a standstill, given the unimpressive nature of child support or parental rights.
Although now a recognized southern champion of house, Kachura has experimented and recorded in the fields of minimal and classic Detroit techno, not to mention drum & bass. Unstable situations lead to generic uncertainty, perhaps.
As, though, the slow transition and tenuous commitment to one particular style takes place, house music begins to reinstate its historical role as a stimulant of collective catharsis. Other elements from the cultural background of US clubs also transfer in telling ways to the Russian context. By this we mean the following: patently designed as a soundtrack for mainstream dancefloors, house has arguably never lost its connection to "minority" or outsider politics, where it was born as a tool for better, fairer inclusion.
Something similar is evident in Russia and Ukraine, amid the dizzying pressures of daily life.
Drawing upon the sounds and sentiments of the civil rights movement, US house was - in its early days -famously referred to as a "church for those people who've fallen from grace." Elsewhere, in grander terms, it was even tagged as "old-time religion," in that people "just get happy and [start] screaming."
That same role (re)appears in strange places. Take, by way of illustration, the comments that emerge on some of Kachura's venues. At Soundcloud, say, we find notes from Russian listeners such as: "This is track I started my day with! That must mean something!" The soundtrack to greater consolation - for those who've fallen from grace - is played once again... before the day has even started. The music of solace and sympathy is sought out even before leaving the apartment. House is playing the role of emotional insurance - just in case.
The sunny sounds of classic house with elements of jazz, funk, and soul
One might, in the same spirit, turn to bands such as Moscow's Soul Cola, who "combine the sunny sounds of classic house with elements of jazz, funk, and soul." The goal of these (insistently) positive noises is once again to anticipate - and perhaps even generate - a superior social state. The upbeat, vague language of our dance ensembles continues to imply that all is not well outside. The louder a sermon within the "church," the more that congregation must be facing nastiness outside.
One of the recent Soul Cola mixes was published with the following statement in Russian: "We really need springtime! Press the 'Play' button and speed up those seasonal processes. Break up the thick clouds - and generate a change of mood. Awake new desires...!!!"
Things are looking up.
Soul Cola have been attracting attention from producers in both the UK and US, which has raised a few eyebrows in Moscow. If, in other words, a promising band is arguably better known overseas, does that not point to aesthetic atrophy or simple misery at home? A recent admirer at PromoDJ posed exactly that question a few days ago: "Why are talented Russian musicians being discovered in the West - and only afterwards at home?!" Confusion briefly reigned, until the musicians chipped in with a short and matter-of-fact statement. They reminded readers of the obvious: "It's just the way things are [in Russia]!"
Why are talented Russian musicians being discovered in the West - and only afterwards at home?!
Early American house clubs made escapism and a progressive social agenda synonymous when they began disregarding exclusionary entrance policies based on race or gender. This forward-looking attitude would come to shape future norms on the dancefloor. The spirit of a hedonistic presentism helped to mold the future: a sensation felt "now" could guide social patterns later on.
House, as a result, remains a profoundly optimistic style.
For that reason, it's intriguing to look at the promotional tools of St Petersburg's Basement Jazz Ensemble. Founded in 2008, the outfit is based around the efforts of Vitaly Stodolya - known to FFM through his project Eventual Groove - and the guitarist/producer Konstantin Kepke. These warm and welcoming sounds, coming to us as a mixture of house, jazz, and bossa nova, for example, are accompanied by nothing more than a single image. We see an old car parked in a Cuban street: old-school engineering and antique architecture hope to bring romance (back) to the Russian context, much as they did in the late 1950s.
Following the Cuban Revolution, Russian popular music of the early '60s was full of Latin rhythms. Those happy "congregations" of revolutionary zeal could be remade...
Perhaps.
In the meanwhile, some other champions of house have found a quieter, deeper sense of belonging elsewhere. Also in St Petersburg we discover the musician known either as Quiet Fish or - less usefully - as "Alex." Textual support here is totally absent - and almost all of the imagery on display relates directly to fish, as we see below. Metaphors of anonymity within the ocean, sketched in naive terms, are a more appealing backdrop for dancefloor cohesion than anything surface life might offer. The fish below looks perfectly happy with the status quo: noiseless contentment holds greater charm than busy, sometimes brutal life "on shore."
The only direct statements we find from Quiet Fish come as six monosyllabic responses to a very basic quiz. Our musician defines himself as follows. The first half of each statement is given by the questionnaire's author; he provides the second half. "I Love: To love; I Hate: To hate; I Recommend: Loving; I'm Interested In: Music; I Know That: I love; I Can Do: Whatever I know..."
Such are the simple desires at work in the background of Russian and Ukrainian house music. Whether the outside world will let them flourish is another question altogether.
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