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Several days ago we documented the recent work of Max Tau (above), conducted in support of burgeoning Russian trip-hop. Part and parcel of his efforts over the last few years have been the appealing and well-informed podcasts known as “Vrashchenie” (i.e., “Rotation/Revolution”), designed to “shed light upon Russian-language trip-hop.” That patriotic endeavor, as we noted, could be monitored by subscribing to the broadcasts at RussianPodcasting.ru. No sooner, however, had we brought the shows to public attention... than they stopped.
On New Year's Eve, Tau announced that he would be bringing the broadcasts to an end, since Russian trip-hop was, in his opinion, increasingly unable to produce anything novel or challenging. In that less-than-festive spirit, the final show went ahead. After an opening twenty minutes or so dedicated to the work of Moscow trip-hop lyricist Masha XII - and a few unflattering comments - he moved off into a number of recent Western recordings that apparently would be better models of emulation for local talent. Of particular interest to Tau was the combination of trip-hop with other genres. Some of these were understandable, if not predictable, such as dub; others, however, were genuinely surprising, like the splicing of domestic downtempo with a cappella tracks stripped from a Depeche Mode hit.
As the podcast's logo suggests, new ideas were always forthcoming. Until now.
One might argue, though, that mere impressions of trip-hop's demise would be no cause for sadness; the evolutionary pattern of trip-hip in the West had actually gone rather well. In the UK, for example, some of the style's core elements (already bordering on self-parody) had moved by the late '90s into the mainstream in order to inform all manner of Top 40 recordings. In addition, as European journalists then noted, the diffusion of isolationist, stubbornly independent trip-hop into mass culture helped to rid the style of its reputation for willful misery. It benefited from a metamorphosis.
In this same vein, Tau suggested in his valedictorian podcast that Russia's exponents of trip-hop could benefit from working, for example, with rock musicians. The more flexibility and alteration, the better.
Everybody needed to look at things afresh, from a different angle.
Despite any happy precedent in the UK, however, the chances of Russian trip-hop informing some crossover genres - and then gaining wide popularity - seemed slim, since the nation's biggest pop stations are, to put it mildly, unadventurous in their programming. And then, once we move into the realm of "second tier" stations, of large - yet relatively localized - renown, they tend to be extremely genre-specific, following the structural models of US radio.
Tau's desire to escape these constraints is considerable; if we look at his parallel, still-ongoing podcasts - made in the guise of an alter-ego as "The Big Tortoise" (Bol'shaia cherepakha) - he is currently squeezing Brian Ferry and The Doors into his shows, together with several staples of late Soviet rock such as Neschastnyi sluchai or Akvarium. The search for novelty or variety is moving far and wide.
This voracious appetite for incongruous styles (and their couplings) as the very sine qua non on music found nice expression in a recent George Clooney comedy. In the following quote, adaptation, acquisition, and movement are life itself: "The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living..."
The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living...
On the same day that Vrashchenie came to an end, Radio Rekord celebrated the ninth anniversary of a very genre-specific show. Hosted at the moment by DJ Feel (aka "Phil" or Filipp Belikov) from the streets of St Petersburg, the broadcast has become Russia's most popular window into the workshops of Western trance. We wrote a little about DJ Feel not long after launching this site; he has since gone from strength to strength, thanks to the kind of policy that is totally juxtaposed to Tau's liberal-minded experimentation. Feel is the representative of a single genre.
He currently brands himself as follows:"DJ Feel is one of the best DJs in Russia - and #30 worldwide. He's the only 'non-Moscow' DJ who has been recognized as Russia's #1 disc jockey twice. He's also the first Russian DJ to have broken into the worldwide rankings - at #30 in the Top 100. In doing so, he bypassed the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, plus many other famous disc jockeys and bands. Together with his club appearances, Feel manages the 'Transmissiia' label, which publishes the majority of Russia's trance recordings. In addition to all of the above, he is also responsible for the nation's most popular trance radio show, broadcast by Radio Record/Rekord."
There's good reason to crack a smile, especially at the ninth anniversary party for your own radio broadcasts.
A word of warning, though. Within such dedication to a given format, there are - of course - both potential benefits and risks. The latter emerge when that format starts falling out of fashion. It takes great skill and foresight to move from one genre or venue to another - without being lambasted by the Russian public. Perhaps the best example of a successful leap across styles and public critique was effected by Kseniia Strizh, who moved several years ago from Russia's mainstream pop station Europa Plus to the emerging realm of chanson - long before its current success. Transferring one's energies from teenage tastes to plodding ballads for middle aged males - whilst maintaining one's fame and media respect - is a feat indeed.
Worthy of a certain awe, even.
As Feel's own renown has grown, he has retreated from public contact. In other words, his socializing with the audience is more likely to take place through the medium of a national tabloid than through his own blog. That latter venue serves basically to announce performances and publish set-lists; as a means of "democratic" interaction, it is very underused. His most recent public appearance in order to answer direct questions was an online chat organized by the tabloid Argumenty i Fakty.
As the face of Russian trance, he was met with expressions of long-term fidelity to his craft: "I started listening to your radio shows when I was a freshman, way back in 2002. Seven years have passed since then! Now you've managed to get yourself not only a new audience, but you've done it without losing the old one! Your success grows with every year - as the Russia Top 100 and DJMag rankings show. Are you now ready to move on? Are you ready to dedicate yourself to trance music in order to increase your audience and reputation even more?"
The logic here is a little odd. "Moving on" does not mean experimentation. Quite the opposite; it means tying yourself tighter and tighter to the fate of a single format. Living and dying for a cause, so to speak. That sense of dedication is admired most of all and by many people, yet - given the fickleness of musical modes - trance will fall out of fashion one day. Shifting to a different style (like Strizh) or talking of radical, frequent evolution (like Max Tau) is rarely seen as admirable. Why, though? Over and above the sense of safety (and safe income) that comes from generic convention, why speak of such things in terms of grim determination?
These high degrees of fidelity to a cause - come what may! - are best attributed to a sort of post-Soviet realization of lost opportunities in prior "projects." Counter-productive, if not masochistic, levels of commitment suggest they were born of some prior enterprise that went really badly, the kind of bitter experience and sense of injustice that now produces over-compensatory, excessively "driven" gestures. It's an attempt to force fate, perhaps, and yet - when fashion does indeed bring your efforts to a swift and untidy end - your name will be associated with the dignity of a cause. It's a win-win situation, born of voluntary loss.
Even as the relevance of that Soviet background fades, the workings of the modern market mean that fickle listeners will still want change. Often. This demand is audible in some of the other, more awkward questions that were recorded on the AiF website for Feel to answer - or not." Last year, and the year before, people were supporting you, paid good money by voting for you [with text messages and ticket sales] - so you shot up the rankings. You said thanks - and raised your ticket prices..! Nonetheless, those clubbers who love you still paid the money and made their choice. Now you're earning less [from worsening ticket sales], and people are disappointed [with the shows], too. Aren't you ashamed?"
Various "vices" are criticized here: distance from one's audience, high prices for "exclusive" access to shows, and the creation of those performances around one style - over and over. More is being asked from the audience, yet they sense a logic of diminishing returns. Cast-iron commitment seems evident only in distant, emigre Russian communities, who see their favorite performers very rarely, such as the group below in Washington, DC. Frequent clubbers, however, want frequent, alternating options.
The same grumpy "ex-admirer" even suggested, sarcastically, that the DJ should have paid somebody to vote for him... "In a word, don't you think it's time to get going and do some proper work, rather than pose in front of the camera with that endless smile of yours, looking like a Cheshire cat? We're all so sick of it..."
In a word, don't you think it's time to get going and do some proper work, rather than pose in front of the camera with that endless smile of yours, looking like a Cheshire cat? We're all so sick of it...
The musicians here are not to blame; the problem emerges from the core demands of Russian primetime radio and television, which have no time for shape-shifting, genre-bending experimenters. They have no time for discerning, demanding exponents of trip-hop, either. And so the majority of DJs are left with a difficult decision, such that - willy-nilly - they're forced to hitch their wagon to a narrow format - and, sad though it may be - brand themselves once and for all.
It's clear that the performers themselves are not happy with such matters, especially among gifted amateurs; one only has to look at the tagging system on music portals to see how awkward many DJs feel in applying one or two nouns to all they do - and will do. All experimentation and developmental daring, now and for the foreseeable future, will be varnished over by a couple of tags.
Pigeonholing will win out over empiricism. It's better, perhaps, not to say anything and remain enigmatic.
Even Radio Record employs the kind of rhetoric or shoptalk that can sound unnerving, rather than encouraging. Amidst the recent holidays and anniversaries, the station announced to its listeners: "We're grateful for all those people who were with us, way back at the beginning. We're just as grateful for the people who've joined us since. But we're especially grateful for those who've walked beside us all these years, come what may..."
What sounds like a celebration of commitment can only prove itself in times of possible change, in which case these same words are also a declaration that change is impossible. According to an identical - and miserable - logic, DJs are obliged to promote themselves as exponents of "Genre X" on the way up, purely in order to reach the kind of conservative media that will disallow a transfer to "Genres Y or Z" on the way down.
Maybe Max Tau's low-level experimentation is a happier, albeit less moneyed domain. At least the difference between up and down is clearer.
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