Sentiment versus Psychedelia: S3P, Andrew Washington, and SV Hutor

Andrew Washington (Andrey Kupin, Moscow)

It will probably come as no surprise to learn that the Moscow performer Andrew Washington uses a pseudonym. Well-directed digging will soon reveal - behind that identity - the young musician Andrey Kupin, who also plays in the indie-rock collective Shane Street. That second outfit, continuing to develop its "international line-up," currently claims to involve other native English speakers, such as "Andy Chase." Each of these figures, once investigated, will reveal the shadowy presence of another Muscovite. Admitting, eventually, to their false names, the representatives of Shane Street - and kindred projects! - declare that for all their playfulness, they share a lasting commitment: "We make the same music. We play in the same style. And in the same band." Faces change, but sounds endure.

Washington (Kupin), when busy with solo endeavors, produces the more adventurous and fractured material on display here, which he likes to tag as "conceptual, experimental, and lo-fi psychedelia." Arguably the best example thereof would be the AW release of late last year, "Soul Question," which claims to have benefitted from the assistance of colleagues David Patrick(...) on bass and drummer Nicholas Suhomlin.

I thought these recordings were going to be worse than they are. They're actually not bad!

After a sixty-minute(!) opening drone track, the album dissolves into a series of much shorter, domestically produced instrumentals, replete with white noise and background hubbub. Once completed in that maximally modest environment, they were probably assessed by their author in the self-deprecating manner already evident on another of his webpages: "I thought these recordings were going to be worse than they are. They're actually not bad!"

There's a good reason he has decorated recent compositions with the image of a local pet-shop, offering beasts of suspect lineage: they're disheveled, noisy mongrels, one and all. 

Andrew Washington: "Soul Question" 

Some of those compositions - despite their DIY standards - have met with anonymous, enthusiastic praise from one Western blogger. Kupin displays the following hyperbolic text with pride. "I must say WOW; I have never been so truly blown away by a single piece of music... The music was all over the place but seemed to be connected... I wish that we lived near each other so that we could play together. It would be an honor to make music with someone so talented!" We can only assume that the comments are both genuine and a reaction to Kupin's desire to "figure out my own style, somehow or other."

There's a sense of troubled, enduring distortion in "Soul Question" that sounds familiar to listeners, irrespective of distance or language. And, for all their "experimental" or "psychedelic" lyricism, those same instrumentals are not inspired by actual forms of chemical escape. Kupin himself remarks: "I decided not to delve into musical psychedelia... When I grow up, I don't think I'll write psychedelic material then, either, because I always want to express my real feelings." AW's discordant, yet earnest engagement of the here and now appears reasonable to a far-flung audience.   

Chillwave keyboards, drum pads, and soft percussion

For an extension of that relationship or competition, even, between growing sentiment and "spaciness," we could turn to SV Hutor (Sergey Hutornenko). He lives in the Republic of Bashkortostan, i.e., in between the River Volga and Ural Mountains. More specifically, he resides in the city of Sterlitamak, an established center of chemical manufacturing. As we've noted before, his instrumentals have been referred to as a "sweet-smelling melange of psychedelic or tropical-sounding guitars, chillwave keyboards, drum pads, and soft percussion." 

SV Hutor (Sergey Hutornenko, Sterlitamak)

Of late, that dreamy context has been expanded with a tiny and seemingly anonymous paragraph in Russian: "This is undoubtedly a talented young man. Nonetheless, it remains a mystery where he gets all the energy for creating music that's so unique and appealing - in all possible senses." The local press in Sterlitamak has recently tried to lessen any sense of mystery, beginning with what journalists feel are more appropriate tags: "Chillwave, glow-fi, ambient, Krautrock, and ambient psychedelic-pop."  

Yet here, just as with Andrew Washington, the idea of bona fide "psychedelia" is placed aside in favor of "honesty." Truthfulness somehow offers an experience akin to that of major chemicals: it's seen as the guarantor of a more "expansive," sometimes shocking purview. A sentimentally unfettered worldview is unavoidably grounded in higher degrees of trust - and therefore inclusiveness. One's world widens as it is entered - naively or unquestioningly - allowing for possible coincidences with all manner of "mind-expanding" metaphors.

Each track takes the form of a discrete emotion - as something honest

The same affective tone is evident elsewhere: "Each track takes the form of a discrete emotion - as something honest. There's no indication of pretense: just a feeling of joy. Not in the sense of any belly-laugh, either, with tears streaming down. We simply mean the promise of a wise smile. After all, we all want to escape everyday hassles, such as inflation or today's economic crisis. And in the same way, we're all unnerved by grandmothers who won't stop worrying about their neighbors... or bugged by our own neighbors, who won't shut up about how they grow tomatoes! We're all surrounded by [noisy, dirty] factories that never seem to stop operating - in fact SV Hutor works at one of them."

Social tensions are solved and/or escaped with sentimental music that speaks of less conflict - and of snowballing civic harmony.

SV Hutor: "Shilling EP" (2011) 

Put differently, the answer to endless industrial racket is "to put on some headphones. The entire world will come to a halt, like a freeze-frame shot. You'll feel like you're stepping on airy walkways, up and up... to the roof of the tallest building. All in anticipation of outer space!" Such is the promise of open-armed, "honest emotional expression" - well captured by the artwork for SV Hutor's newest instrumentals (above).