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The stage-names listed here evoke a certain escape from physical geography, but there is one concrete location of importance to all people concerned. The town of Mažeikiai lies in northern Lithuania, close to the Latvian border and is currently home to roughly 40,000 people. Although the town was first mentioned in dusty records of the fourteenth century, it was not granted any kind of "urban" status by map- or lawmakers until the 1920s. That slow, yet studied transition into the world of steel and concrete came, not surprisingly, as a result of both industrial development in the late nineteenth century and political "changes" a few decades later.
Nowadays Mažeikiai is tied most closely to the Lithuanian oil and gas businesses, but its relatively small size means that a bond to surrounding nature has never really been lost. The picture above shows that even in the industrial parts of town, one needn't look too far before boundless greenery replaces greyness. The formless, fluid patterns of nature are always close by.
Suitably enough, therefore, this same Baltic location is also home to Cold Tear Records - an organization responsible for publishing the ambient and dub-tinged work of our four listed projects. In introducing them en masse, it makes sense to start with Mr. Evaldas Azbukauskas, shown below and known on stage as Soulsonic. Not only is he the label's founder; he has also been the subject of our attention before, most recently following a remix composed for Moscow post-rock instrumentalists, Mooncake.
Having first discovered an enthusiasm for electronic music around the age of thirteen, Azbukauskas began Cold Tear at the outset of 2010 (and now runs a related store online). Although the years between those events have been dedicated to his education, specifically to the serious, rather pragmatic study of management, he nonetheless finds time to compose music under several pseudonyms. Perhaps the most telling of those monikers is Giriu Dvasios, which translated from the Lithuanian means "Spirit of the Woods." The distance from urban to rural settings is traversed with both speed and ease - aided by the kind of club architecture we see in our first few photographs...
When listing his particular passions in life, Evaldas Azbukauskas refers, in rather vague terms, to "music, life itself, people, and [my] mental state." If we seek the same information with regard to Giriu Dvasios, a longer - unpeopled - chronicle grows from nowhere:
Forests, woods, nature, the world, the sun, lakes, water, the sea...
"Forests, woods, nature, the world, the sun, lakes, water, the sea, rivers, trees, flowers, the sky, space, planets, stars, the moon, wind, the ocean, flora and fauna..." At this point, we're only half way through: "Flowers, grass, dirt, dust, swamps, insects, the weather, air, our natural environment, leaves, the seasons, rain, snow, light, people, animals..." Human presence is minimal.
With those snowballing terms, we start to move away from fixed, unchanging or manmade venues - and head instead towards to the modus operandi and contexts of Cold Tear. In other words, a certain ambiance becomes more important than any address. (Beer, it would seem, accelerates the process.)
Moonwalker (Vidas Miniotas)
Azbukauskas' colleagues extend that deliberately fuzzy outlook for us. Take, by way of example, another Mažeikiai resident, Moonwalker (aka VidasM). Quietly championing mood over all else, he claims that his music is "influenced primarily by emotional states. The kind that are evoked by obscurity after sundown." A loss of clarity becomes a discernible gain or benefit, artistically speaking. The appealing indeterminateness towards which Miniotas inclines is conjured primarily through forms of electrodub and deep techno. Open, echoing spaces appeal more than a closed or vertical cityscape.
Dub techno allows you to 'dive into yourself' and meditate
In a recent interview, Moonwalker talked of the coincidences (or disparity, even) between hi-tech machinery and this pre-industrial ache. He spoke of a desired, audible transition from modern, rational existence to a more intuitive engagement with the world. More specifically, Mr. Miniotas said that the music of his own projects (and that of kindred colleagues, it seems) is supposed to "conjure positive sensations. And I do mean positive - in other words, not necessarily happy. Dub techno is a great tool in this respect. It allows you to 'dive into yourself' and meditate." Rich in reverb and echo, it creates an almost visual sense of perspective, distance, and therefore departure from the here and now.
What lies beyond specificity is not always predictable: "My music's akin to a nocturnal trip... It's a journey that can involve a lot of different emotions, both anxiety and calm. You feel all that en route, meeting strangers as you do so..." This importance of vague promise will return a little later.
The alluring trajectory away from any fixed locale - into the desirability of anxiety, instead of quotidian routine - is most evident in the output of a third Lithuanian contributor to Cold Tear, known as Mikrokristal. Willing, at least, to offer the public a Christian name (Adomas), his actual hometown remains a closely guarded secret. Not even his record label, hoping to promote an interest in domestic electronica(!), is privy to that information. This young artist clearly has some issues on his mind that operate beyond the limit(ations) of anything regional.
...beatless soundscape paintings
In a web-chat not long ago, he described the sounds used to evoke those open domains as "beatless soundscape paintings." Only across similarly ambient swathes, free of rhythmic markers, is he able to entertain romantic notions such as "self-expression or the flight of one's soul," as he puts it. What sounds to us, perhaps, like borderline pathos is in fact designed by Mikrokristal as defense against the mainstream's "disharmonious and destructive music" encountered each day - by most people.
Primetime musical fashions, grounded in sexual or violent desire(s), are hopefully countered by a "flight" from one particular location, be it a singular body or zealously guarded territory. Self-expression, if it hopes to escape from any such posturing, is a process of constant departure - away from avarice, arrogance and other greedy relations to actuality.
Reality, in short, is entered rather than acquired. And, as a consequence, the further from home we travel, the less we possess. A peripatetic relation with the world, in quiet admiration for natural or atmospheric phenomena, makes jingoism near impossible.
Subforms (Dmitry Oleynik)
Bearing that outlook in mind, it then makes sense for us to consider a Cold Tear artist who operates from outside this town or territory. Does the charm of exit and absence endure even after we've left the streets of Mažeikiai, not to mention Lithuania as a whole?
Cold Tear's lineup includes several artists from across continental Europe: a reasonable example to test the label's "self-externalizing" hypothesis would be the catalog of Subforms, a project from the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine. Here, from a major industrial center, we encounter sounds that are designed to evoke some "remote places of the Earth." That wordless goal is attained through the creation of "a dreamlike atmosphere," positioned "at the borders of reality." Once more the patterns of dub techno are used in order to imagine or orchestrate themes of flight - both outwards (in space) and backwards (in time).
In more mundane terms, Subforms is/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. The tracks, as they claim in interviews, are willfully fashioned from as little as possible - yet for what reason?
What idea lies behind willful restraint, i.e., inactivity?
Subforms (Yevgeny Konovalov)
On one web venue, Konovalov and Oleynik claim that the emptiness of unmarked, unoccupied spaces - even on a metaphorical basis - allows for maximally "free experimentation." Considering that those options for audible experiment are often not taken(!) - since they'd mark the end of silence - we move on to a second quote. Thus far, we've merely established a paradoxical relationship between a freedom discerned and a liberty not taken! At this point in the proceedings, Subforms are 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 valued above actuality.
That which might yet be is first "noticed" and then orchestrated to the vague, resonant sound of some unrealized, though endlessly promising potentials. Through various themes of flight, immersion, and passage into imprecision, the virtual realities of Cold Tear look with (some) hope at what lies beyond the industrial experience of Mažeikiai, Dnepropetrovsk, and countless other regions. Beyond heavy industry and material culture lies something blissfully imprecise - something, perhaps, that has always resided on the edge of town.
The most inviting places are those that drop out of view - and earshot. They seem positive, yet as Vidas Miniotas points out, "positive" is not always synonymous with "happy"...
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