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At the very end of 2009, we cast an initial glance over an outfit from the Far Eastern town of Khabarovsk, which is a mere bicycle ride from the Chinese border. As we noted, that distant location is home to the quartet Sistra (whose name is often written in Russian as | сИстра |, vertical lines and all). More specifically, these are four young men known to their parents as Artem Gnesin (vocals), Roman Lopatkov (bass), Roman Murashtov (drums & percussion), and Arsenii Sysoletin (guitars). To this day, that foursome endures with the same lineup, as do some of the band's core emphases, lyrically speaking. Central among them, perhaps, is the role of melancholy.
During our first visit, drummer Murashtov noted: "Inspiration really is something very personal indeed. In order to write music, you need to experience some kind of 'maximal' internal state. And it's not always positive, either!" This observation was expanded when the musicians were asked about their ideal fan; who would be most sympathetic to this depressive mode?
Our audience members need to be capable of sadness
Again Mr. Murashtov remarked: "First and foremost, these [fans] need to be people who are capable of sadness. If a person is sad, then you can say with confidence that s/he knows how to think, too. I've always been suspicious of folks who never stop smiling..." Gnesin then chipped in with the theory that the same doleful citizens are likely to be creative types, too.
Sistra now stride into the limelight once more with a series of net releases, framed by a couple of titles that speak to an overarching, if not all-encompassing dolor: "All My Friends Were Dead" and "Everyone Has His Own Remote Control." Black shirts and downward gazes predominate.
The latter title may seem more optimistic, but it quickly morphs into a more ominous declaration within the very first stanza: "Everyone has his own remote control…of someone you know." Self-determination becomes manipulation. "All My Friends Were Dead," not surprisingly, is also a less-than-jolly piece of work. It turns thematically upon the central metaphor of a Siren, before whom our male protagonist will "melt like sugar." Love and loss occupy the same space.
What persists through these and other songs is the sadness of an absent linkage: it's the yearning for a missing bond or, conversely, the joyless slippage into a different, less inspiring social setting. In both cases, a private potential goes unrealized. We've already heard the members of Sistra validate cheerless despondency in their audience, and - sure enough - if we peruse some of the ensemble's pages on Russian social networks, we find more examples of this glum worldview.
Admirers were recently asked what exactly appeals to them in the work of Sistra. One individual replied: "You create music, you dive headfirst into your work, but they [the unappreciative public] still string you up in the town square. They'll squash you like flies - and they'll only recognize your talent several years later."
A sense of social disconnect, whether at home or at large, is clearly felt beyond the stage.
It takes on more theatrical forms in an EP from St Petersburg's Galia Chikiss: "Without Oxygen" (Bez kisloroda), which was mastered by Vladimir Buzin. She herself - a craftswoman of delicate, ambient textures - categorizes these newest works with nods in the direction of louder styles, such as "dream pop" and "shoegaze." The same compositions are then accompanied by a few sentences that darken the mood further still: "These are ominous, romantic songs about true love. They tell of people disappearing in the woods, a werewolf-groom, and devilry in the Far North. Expect stories of drowning – and revenge. All in all, these songs offer an excellent trip - with a bad premonition..."
Expect stories of drowning – and revenge
The further we look, the more an aura of gothic romanticism prevails; it's immediately drawn upon in Chikiss' fin de siecle artwork above, suggesting the debt of Russian Symbolism to various decadent traditions, sometimes from the sinister side of folklore .
Chikiss asked on her LiveJournal blog whether help was available for making a video in the same spirit. This are the tools she needs to in order to visualize the songs under discussion: "We're looking for a black dog - the kind that's suitable for a low-budget horror film. Ask any black dogs you know whether they'd like to be in a movie. Ideally they'd look like this one... We also need somebody who knows how to shoot good-looking horror flicks... and is ready to help out."
The beast above implies a marked distance from any family-friendly narrative.
We're moving once again into the realm of gothic narratives here, full of homeless spirits, themselves heavy with the burden of divine punishment. That isolation, however, becomes a marker of uniqueness. Sadness - ultimately - is something special. It remains (tragically!) preferable to the dumb contentment of normality. And so our musicians are unlikely to shed the weight of forlornness or gloom in the near future.
The same emotional coloring - in yet more local forms - is evident in work from the outfit known as MAKE, who are based in the city of Kazan. Their single, "Silent Island," immediately suggests the kind of moss-covered chapels or crumbling churches that pepper gothic tales. These structures are traditionally inhabited by religious figures caught between the promise of the spiritual world and the warmer shackles of the material. Staring towards the sky, they're fixed to the earth - in ways that are unlikely to summon a good mood.
The members of MAKE walk this same thin line, pondering various ghostly influences as they do so.
These nameless, virtually faceless artists offer only blurred, semi-discernible images of themselves. They also run a minimalist blog that's composed of photographic materials alone - most of which are equally imprecise. The wall of distorted sound that constitutes "Silent Island" - unwilling to endorse clarity in any form - is offered us as follows: "Everything's buried beneath a layer of scary ethno-pop experimentation - the kind of noise you might mistake for those whispering Bristolians in the '90s."
Remixes are on display from The Stoned Boys and Alla Farmer, both treating the material with a dark sense of humor and a straight face. We're not sure whether to laugh when stories of religious collapse are pulled onto the dancefloor. Entertainment and anxiety stand disconcertingly close to one another.
Everything's buried beneath a layer of scary ethno-pop experimentation
The tracks in our player refer to a location closer to home than Bristol, namely the fifteenth-century island monasteries of Sviiazhsk (Tatarstan), shown below during an especially cold winter. This little-known address and the magic thereof both inform the new EP in a manner that coincides with our gothic performances from Khabarovsk and St Petersburg.
MAKE inform us that "Silent Island" "reveals - at long last - the legends that envelop this foreboding place." Arguably the most famous tale connected to the island - which ends badly! - concerns the Holy Dormition Monastery. In the early years of the Soviet Union, the relics of St German were unearthed and abused. A terrible sandstorm allegedly arose from nowhere, threatening the lives of godless revolutionaries. The same angry manifestation of nature's wrath would eventually lead to the monastery's downfall...
Were we looking for a positive or alternative worldview within these shoegaze, dreampop, and other introspective styles, such as "witchstep" and "apocalyptic R&B," we might turn to the even more(!) anonymous NGC 1365. The band hails from Yekaterinburg, but takes its name from a galaxy located 56 million light-years from Earth. This outfit's small catalog is built upon instrumentals or ghostly vocals that conflate references to Soviet space travel and the Second Coming - but at that kind of distance, the likelihood of good news seems slim. At least in the near future.
In the meanwhile, these recordings arguably embody one of the key functions of gothic romance - the use of sadness and fear in order to overcome them both. As the cover work to NGC 1365's new release implies (below), however, we might think twice before investigating actuality too closely. There's a point at which curiosity becomes dangerous - and leads to dead cats or demonic dogs. Both of which make sense in a gothic setting, but are probably unwelcome on a day-to-day basis.
NGC 1365's most locally precise reference is to the Soviet Union's "Laika," who was the first canine to fly in space. No other animal had been so close to the distant galaxies that inspire these musicians - and thus became a figure of huge scientific and cultural importance.
Laika, however, also garnered the dubious distinction of being the first dog to die in orbit. The animal passed away either from an overheated cabin or the same state invoked by Chikiss - a lack of oxygen. Romantic yearning evidently has a downside.
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