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Subforms (Dnepropetrovsk): "Sensuality" (2011)
The three recordings offered here, from Russia and Ukraine, all concern some dramatic contrasts between urban and rural experience. First among them is an EP from the impressive duo known as Subforms, based in the Dnepropetrovsk region of south-central Ukraine. Home to more than a million people, Dnepropetrovsk has long been associated with major industry. Until the end of the Soviet Union, in fact, it was closed to all foreign visitors, due to the sensitive nature (and daunting scale) of local arms- and space-related research.
Here, from within a major - and noisy - industrial center, we encounter sounds that are nonetheless designed to evoke some "remote places of the Earth." That wordless goal is attained through the creation of "a dreamlike atmosphere," positioned "at the very edge of reality." As we soon discover, the patterns of dub techno woven by Subforms are used in order to imagine or orchestrate themes of flight - both outwards (in space) and backwards (in time). Echoes demarcate a welcoming emptiness or freedom of movement.
A dreamlike atmosphere... at the very edge of reality
In more mundane terms, Subforms are two young Ukrainian artists: Yevgeny Konovalov and Dmitry Oleynik. Having already published their work across several European territories - and even as far afield as Argentina - the duo maintains a clear - and explicit - commitment to minimalist fabrics. In other words, silence comes to the aid of resonant, dubby structures. The less a soundscape is mapped out with human endeavor, the more it is surrendered to emptiness - and therefore to potentials.
On one web venue, Konovalov and Oleynik claim that the emptiness of unmarked, unoccupied spaces - even on a metaphorical plane - allows for maximally "free experimentation." Considering, however, that those options for audible experiment are often not taken up within minimalist practice(!) - because they'd mark the end of noiselessness - we move on to a second quote. Thus far, curmudgeons might argue, we've merely established a paradoxical relationship between a freedom discerned and a liberty not taken. Why celebrate the artistic scope or blank canvas revealed by silence if it's always left empty? At this point in the proceedings, goes any such argument, Subforms are perhaps lauding that which they avoid...
Konovalov and Oleynik have also said in another, equally recent conversation that their music draws upon "infinite sources of inspiration. The most important thing is to be able to notice them." Not necessarily to act upon them, but merely to notice. An awareness of possibilities is validated more than the actual engagement of them. Virtuality is praised over actuality. That celebration of avenues opened - yet not chosen - might imply a rather wary attitude towards the outside world. And indeed, as we'll see in the next two releases, this anxiety will only continue to grow.
One should [at least] notice infinite sources of inspiration
This importance of virtual nature - especially as an alternative to urban norms - has arisen in some new recordings from the Yekaterinburg producer Vladimir Jasize (his real surname remains well hidden). He has just released a nine-track, twenty-six minute album entitled "Cybersnow."
Jasize (Yekaterinburg): "Cybersnow" (2011)
That marriage of exact science and nature is reflected in the names of several tracks, for example "Stratosphere Defect"; we then find urban and natural juxtapositions in other titles, say "Tibet Motown." Something suggests that Russian nature - the very embodiment of a promising, "minimalist" hinterland - is unable to offer harmonious alternatives to city life. "Defects" persist.
Subforms' promotional materials speak of unexercised options; Jasize's fragile works are dedicated to a glitchy, slightly imperfect system or network. That same system - at least symbolically - needs some help from the unfailing mechanisms of computer science, free of any defect. Nature disappoints; software does not.
This lack of faith in actuality, even across the endless options of a massive landscape, makes more sense if we look at Jasize's social networking accounts, where he shows a considerable dislike for modern politics - and its own "arrangement" of modern civic interaction. National praxis is spoiled by urban meddling. By way of illustration, Jasize currently shows a high level of interest in the protests that have taken place in many Russian cities, regarding election results. A large number of hyperlinks are offered to various blogs and video streams, all documenting these same events - and then, on the heels of their sad footage, he suddenly declares:
What's needed is a country in which we can study, improve ourselves - and not just survive
"Yet again I'm convinced that nobody in the government has any intention of [properly] representing the interests of the working class. In fact there's not a single worker in the government. Who, after all, can care for himself, his workmates, and his country better than a working man? What's needed here is the kind of nation that can raise its own children. A country in which we can all study, improve ourselves - and not just survive. Workers of the world, unite!"
This fading faith in the city - and the civic "help" it usually provides - can, of course, take extreme forms. One good example of growing ire, directed towards population centers and their leaders, would be the clamorous catalog of an anonymous Moscow collective, Stoylo Studio. There are no names involved here, and close to zero contextual support.
In the place of fixed individuals we instead find a range of angry social positions - and the harsh, distorted noise to support them. The sounds on display are all tagged "folk music." Put differently, the noises emanating from modernity's "folk" are devoid of all natural harmony - and torn from pre-industrial tradition. One could even point to the project's name - Stoylo Studio: that first noun has traditionally meant "[market] stall" in Russian, but modern slang has added the secondary significance of "office" or "workplace." Social or labor relations have their roots in the heartless behavior of a marketplace. Profits overshadow ethics - and the sounds they produce are harsh indeed.
The practical success of an idea is dependent on the attitude of its contemporaries (Tesla)
Once again, following these pessimistic parallels, the government is subjected to all manner of critique, especially on Stoylo's LiveJournal account (which offers no more information about the people involved). An overarching air of pessimism endures, come what may. "Will the government change its views if the people hammer home their point? No, it won't." In another recent and related entry, a first-person male voice comes to the fore, explaing that stance further. The voice recalls some childhood convictions from the late Soviet period that "governmental change should happen with the same ease and frequency as in the West."
The romantic workings of a prior generation now sound very different. Any notion of "free" power - in real or metaphorical terms - has morphed into a more restricted practice.
Stoylo Studio: "Tesla Generator" (2011)
In one particularly extreme case, the current fate of Russia is compared to that of a prostitute, for reasons that need no explanation. Those parallels between ingrained political and sexual "norms" are then extended to most of Stoylo Studio's artwork. Tracks tend to be published individually and each is accompanied by a unique image. Many of those illustrations are from old - if not antique - representations of women.
Almost without exclusion, they refer to some kind of abuse, be it social or sexual, self-imposed or simply endured. Neither civic agency nor the source of any (possible) misogyny is clear. In other words, all the figures involved in that joyless gallery are simply embroiled in some unpleasant, industrial system that grinds onwards, decade after decade.
Nobody ever wants to take responsibility for their behavior - honestly (Stoylo Studio)
Just as the Tesla quote above suggests, whatever the appeal may be of emancipatory politics, their theories mean nothing until handed over to contemporaries. People decide whether to use or abuse a good idea. We need only look at Stoylo Studio's YouTube channel to see how typical and ingrained those abuses are: the collected videos document instances of bullying, drug abuse, drunken drivers, horrible road accidents, and even Fascism.
For this same and very unhappy reason, perhaps, we can start to link the output by Subforms, Jasize, and Stoylo Studio. Across these three endeavors we find the appeal of a liberty that's offered by natural realms, yet left as virtual. A certain level of doubt and distrust dissuades these musicians from moving out into the world. The instrumentals from Jasize consider a "purer" version of the biosphere, swapping science for rural disorder. Computers are more reliable - and safer - than human "normality." According to the angry, feral sounds of Stoylo Studio, that same lack or social lapse is very widespread indeed: it's rooted in history and even ingrained in (timeless) gender relations. Nature, in other words, is more bestial than bucolic. Human nature might be worse.
Stoylo Studio: "Six Six Six" (2011)
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