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Rita Ritz are a young and almost anonymous duo from St. Petersburg. Concerted investigation into the band's activity is only likely to unearth the following, telegraphic text. After a little editing, it reads: "Rita Ritz are a twosome - Vova and Katya - who play rock (or whatever you'd like to call it)." After that rather uninformative introduction - and two extremely common Christian names - the musicians then turn directly to their audience, at least for a few seconds.
"Currently we're busy recording our new material and posting it here [on Soundcloud]. We'd be very happy to see comments regarding our songs. And, if you do leave some observations, then thanks very much! We're open to all offers of collaboration. In fact, we'd be happy to hear from anybody!"
The drumming almost sounds like it's tumbling down the stairs. That's brilliant! (Soundcloud)
The remarks currently on view at that Soundcloud account are very positive and indicative of wide approval. Nonetheless, Vova and Katya stay away from the limelight. Their official website consists of a large, blurred seaside vista - devoid of human presence. Embedded into one corner of that blue background is an Instagram photo (shown below). It depicts a young woman sitting in a bar. The accompanying slogan - heavily abbreviated - only says "It's empty tonight in the bar..."
Nobody's around - and there's nothing to be said.
An equally short and pithy turn of phrase is found at yet another venue, where these musicians are asked how they'd like to change the world: "We'd persuade Americans to give up drinking Coke." This is unlikely.
And so a delicate push-and-pull continues, between ironic talk of fame or fortune and the genuine appeal of hushed smallness, which allows for subversive quips - yet hardly forms the basis of a future career. The benefits of reticence will, nonetheless, grow as we continue. And, in that same spirit, noiselessness will be increasingly associated with places where it's "empty tonight." Dissatisfaction with urban life will prompt thoughts of an address outside the city limits. In the case of St. Petersburg, that means endless northern forests, all the way to the Finnish border.
There seem to be some good reasons for heading out of town...
St. Petersburg is full of snobs. Audience numbers are always low - even at the good concerts! (Penguinsmeat)
On that note, it's worth mentioning another young St. Petersburg collective, who've given up on speech altogether: Penguinsmeat. This ensemble consists of three male instrumentalists, none of whom have a reputation for loquaciousness: Aleksei Siubasev (guitars), Evgenii Dileev (guitars/keyboards), and Il'ia Grigor'ev (drums). Formed last last year, Penguinsmeat are as unwilling as Rita Ritz to produce lengthy promo-texts; in fact, their entire PR enterprise consists of four or five sentences, which do nothing more than scribe a timeline from last August to the present. Here we learn of "three creative individuals, whose musical designs and priorities have mapped a single trajectory."
From within motley hues, primary colors emerge.
That common trajectory is defined by retreat, i.e., by a concerted rejection of various standard - if not stereotypical - forms of clamor. The verbal or visual "promo-noise" that's used to declare one's presence is deemed shallow, even counterproductive. According to that same contrary logic, the less one commits to language, the more representational and artistic opportunities will grow. A dearth of words is tied to greater potential (whether or not it's actually realized). Possibility is more appealing than stated actuality: options are better than realities, especially if they're not realized. Because they'll probably end badly.
In a land of post-Soviet shoptalk and political hubbub one can certainly sympathize with champions of silence. Penguinsmeat, for example, spoke enthusiastically on their Vkontakte page of a local post-rock/instrumental festival this spring, called Astral. That name implies a great deal - because it refers to an absent, "merely" imagined realm or somewhere that might be.
The number of post-rock aficionados [at any time] is always relative to LSD usage (Penguinsmeat)
That same event, dedicated to things ineffable, is arranged by the Moscow netabel Flowers Blossom in Space, who justify their own post-rock rejection of lyrics thus: "Our name is bound to the very origins of purity and sincerity. It comes from [aspects of] nature, while [simultaneously] extending its branches far into a boundless cosmos. Our 'flower' symbolizes the creative rush of a human heart, whereas the 'blossoming' comes about through self-expression. As for outer 'space,' that's a unique realm, able to transform everything into endless love and beauty."
As long as nobody says anything.
Penguinsmeat: Il'ia Grigor'ev
Such, apparently, are the dimensions open to people taciturn, "pure," and "sincere." Language does nothing to help their "blossoming".
This imagery of quiet removal - towards some older, finer state, is dramatically captured by the new recordings from a third St. Petersburg ensemble, the well-known and widely-respected Theodor Bastard (Fedor Svoloch'). Seventeen remixes have just been published through Kroogi, involving a broad range of European collaborations. Reinterpretations of TB's back-catalog have come from the UK, France, Holland, and even some local colleagues - such as Elochnye Igrushki.
'Lonely' music with a strong connection to the world of nature
Many of these tracks, as before in the band's discography, draw upon non-urban experience: they employ the sounds and stories associated with increasing distance from modernity. That retreat from rationally organized, pragmatically planned society - or the language thereof - leads to the kind of drone-like textures TB often attribute to Stockhausen's influence. Put differently, underneath these monotone washes, designed to evoke antique patterns, TB insist there's a "subconscious polystilism" at work. The goal thereof, perhaps, is to seek some unity within or across those styles, just as Stockhausen theorized about a singular "timbre" operating across harmony, melody, and rhythm. Somewhere there exists universal meaning.
"Our musical technology includes a wide range of methods with various semiotic functions: quotation, allusion, stylization, adaptation, and mixing." Fragments of half-forgotten narratives are woven together in response to the vacuous nature of modern speech. Expressive options are reconsidered - and perhaps even reborn - using the singular "timbre" of a register that's (sadly) long forgotten. That syncretic romance certainly shares a great deal with the raison d'etre of the Astral festival.
Theodor Bastard:"Remixed" (2011)
In search of any lapsed "wholeness," TB continue to underscore the northern, even Gothic facet of their music. They take more inspiration from poorly-lit, unpopulated places far from bricks and mortar. Once again, the group's recourse to wordless, ambient drone has a correlation in some imagined, better state: the fading (in and out) of tattered, often unrelated styles comes to represent the equally vague contours of an endless landscape. Drone, after all, is unhampered by the conventions of length and a fine register for expressions of endless possibility.
Speaking of this bond between enduring sounds and endless space, the musicians describe their sonic output as "tense soundscapes filled with storming guitars and electronic washes. The overall mood is hypnotic, with vocals that send shivers down your spine" - in anticipation of some superior, yet elusive experience that always lies just ahead.
Tense soundscapes filled with storming guitars
In a new interview this month, TB have been extremely dismissive of ways in which related experimental sounds are now generated digitally in one's (cozy) bedroom. Everything has become too easy. "It seems to us that experimental music has discredited itself of late. All that 'noise scene' has lost something. Everything has become too accessible: you can easily find all kinds of pedals, plug-ins... none of which existed before.... The cult heroes of [late Soviet music in] the 1980s would squeeze sounds out of their DIY machinery. They'd stick together loops of reel-to-reel tape and play live with them, making a kind of proto-sampler. That attitude towards your craft shows physical dexterity and a genuinely labor-intensive process. There has to be an idea first of all - one that's subsequently made." Physically.
Craftwork is validated over customer service: expressive tools should involve traditional forms of labor. A secret that's passed down, even.
Theodor Bastard (St. Petersburg)
Innovation is viewed in the same way, as a timeless skill that's prior to either digital ease or extended debate. Penguinsmeat, working along similar lines, certainly associate silent creativity with natural - and then "cosmic"! - possibilities. Whatever the validity of that scale, we can certainly see a common thread running through the raison d'etre of these three bands.
Rita Ritz - in slight and witty ways - refuse to engage the shallow chatter that constitutes most promotional work. Penguinsmeat endorse some lofty, vertiginous romance with their post-rock credo, according to which only wordless compositions are able to address matters of "purity" and "sincerity." The performers then speak highly of those instrumental festivals that link related virtues to an absent "harmony of the spheres." Bringing matters down to earth somewhat, Theodor Bastard stress a kindred, equally noiseless unity that exists outside of city life. With a patchwork of "subconscious" motifs from forgotten, rural locations, TB call upon their listeners to abandon the wordy vacuity of everyday experience.
Head for the forest
At one point in a recent interview, Theodor Bastard even turn directly to the audience with that very same thought: "We live in a society that's constantly toying with our consciousness. Don't let society do that. Rise above it all. Rise above politics, above 'family values,' above anything that involves computers, the internet, and so forth. Head for the forest."
And take some handmade tools with you.
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