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MyHoliday: "Treize" (Moscow, 2011)
The most intriguing fact associated with a new EP from Moscow's MyHoliday is that the band no longer exists... A couple of weeks ago, an announcement appeared from the group's four members: Denis Dubovik (guitars), Ksenia Dubovik (bass), Maria Kryzhanovskaya (vocals), and Anton Sidorov (drums). It declared a dramatic exit, once and for all.
"Dear Friends! Our band has been in existence for five years. We've managed six releases and loads of concerts - both around Russia and neighboring lands, too. We've made lots of wonderful new friends in all corners of the world, but MyHoliday has decided to cease operations with the publication of an album, 'Treize." This is the end of our creative journey. Thanks to all of you who helped MyHoliday over the years. Without you things would have turned out very differently. We've had an amazing ride!"
This is the end of our creative journey...
The level of fatalism here need not be emphasized. Even with the assistance of friends, colleagues, and the promotional boost of eleven new songs, the band speaks of some inevitable conclusion. A new collective has grown from the ashes of MyHoliday - Diatonique - and already begun to perform. Nonetheless, an air of sadness hangs over the proceedings.
No matter the winks, grins, and knowing smirks.
At another venue, the band reconsiders those same five years in even pithier terms, specifically in the form of a list that documents some intense effort - and yet fades into ellipses: "Four albums, two EPs, three singles, plus shows in Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland..." Beyond that point in both time and (limited) space, there seems little to say. The collected songs of "Treize" are uploaded, almost in silence, left to the whim of public memory and then placed aside by their makers. It's not a matter of faint commitment, merely an attitude towards individual effort against the humbling backdrop of history.
Four albums, two EPs, three singles, plus shows in Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland...
Some related themes of transience have emerged around another Moscow ensemble, InWhite, who have appeared on this site several times. This week, with the help of the capital's magazine OpenSpace, news has emerged of a fledgling EP, entitled "V Ozhidanii Tebia" (Expecting You). Talk of fleeting effort turns from the past to the future, specifically in the context of some sage musings by vocalist Yulia Kriukova (below, seated). She, too, it transpires, has passed through recent doubt about the band's progress and purpose.
"There was a moment [not long ago] when I went out on stage... and felt like I was watching myself from the side. I understood this person was no longer me... It led to some really serious writer's block: I couldn't write anything. Or, if I did scribble something, I really disliked it." In order to lessen the sensation of pointlessness and snowballing falsehood, the band stopped writing in English and turned exclusively to their native tongue.
Domestic tools were used to fix a homespun dilemma.
"To start with, it seemed that writing in Russian would be harder, but when you get wrapped up in the process, you find that it's actually better than writing in English! The aesthetic aspect of the lyrics becomes more important, so from a stylistic point of view things are way more interesting. In English you find yourself writing in emotional bursts, but [complex] thoughts and ideas are much better transmitted in your own language..."
Complex thoughts and ideas are much better transmitted in your own language
As these hurdles are overcome, the idea of some distant goal or plan, even, is replaced by notions of endurance. The journey itself is the primary objective, and so success is defined in terms of distance. "You don't have to try and prove anything to people - and then start grumbling that they don't understand you. You just have to do your thing." She then draws some parallels with the return of physical mobility to hospital patients after serious injury(!). Motion slowly returns to an otherwise incapacitated figure: "That's how things should work with regard to today's culture, too, here at home." Moving at all is cause for celebration: the mere ability to act, perform and continue doing so is reason to rejoice.
Extending that idea - or at least softening it slightly in the name of pragmatism - is the excellent quintet Tinavie, who again are from the Russian capital: Valentina Manysheva (vocals, keyboards), Dima Zil'pert (guitar), Dima Losev (keyboards), Dima Frolov (drums), Oleg Mariakhin (saxophone), and Nikita Filippov (sound production).
Dima Zil'pert and Valentina Manysheva, Tinavie
On the heels of their wonderful debut, "Augenblick," we now have a second album, "Hidden Places" that's released through Electronica Records and physically available through Kroogi. The thematic emphasis of the debut CD's title is now continued in the follow-up recording: that of fleeting, yet intense experience. And perhaps fittingly, some of the earliest reactions or reviews have come from Germany. They consider the band's response to a bona fide high-point in post-Soviet pop music.
More specifcally, a couple of days ago, a German online review praised the ensemble's "technically flawless work." That skill, as we've mentioned before, is directly attributable to the band members' employment in other, long-established outfits such as NetSlov, Mel'nitsa, and Safety Magic. Tinavie plays the role of an experimental project away from some pressing, professional obligations elsewhere, both in the studio and on the road around Russia.
Thanks once more to the Moscow publication OpenSpace, the band was able to frame and explain a couple of the newer songs before last week's official launch. Those comments - especially from Valentina Manysheva - helped to give the CD overall a clearer raison d'etre. She spoke in the context of two compositions: "Brave" and "Something New." Both are included here.
Tinavie: "Hidden Places" (2011)
Just as with MyHoliday and InWhite, the matter of goal-oriented enterprise rises to the surface. Either because of Moscow's unforgiving music business or because of more universal, philosophical issues of time's passage and (vain) human enterprise, one needs a certain degree of faith in order to begin any project. Both time and fickle audiences, however, make self-confidence a rare quality. The odds are stacked heavily against long-term success.
And so, as a result, even the frontwoman of a gifted, "technically flawless" ensemble falls to extreme self-doubt from the outset. Solutions come from the strangest quarters: "My inherent lack of confidence has actually taught me over time how to handle things. I can get a handle on my bad habits with auto-suggestion: if you're getting ready to do something then don't doubt yourself. Be brave, step forth with confidence - as if you weren't gripped with fear! That kind of training will make you stronger."
Step forth with confidence - as if you weren't gripped with fear!
Working in Moscow requires therapy. And warm clothing, of course, as we see below.
Action in and of itself, prior to any defined goal or destination, is a huge challenge against an imposing, even crippling backdrop of fatalism - not to mention a debilitating sense of time's passage (which will undermine any pretension towards permanence). Sure enough, several of the new songs on "Hidden Places" speak to that same headlong movement into nothing (special): "Everybody's changing,/ Everybody knows./ Every minute, every day,/ Never to return."
Tinavie colleagues and a particularly northern chic
Herein, though, lies the difference from MyHoliday and InWhite. "Hidden Places" displays a more settled or accepting attitude towards impermanence. Panic and surrender are fundamentally absent. Instead we hear, by way of illustration in "Something New," that: "People are searching/ For some drama./ They can't enjoy what they have./ It doesn't matter who you are./ Look around, there’s so many miracles around you:/
Things you’ve never seen." Brief gratitude is superior to endless yearning.
Hold on to the moment / It's a flashback that never returns (Tinavie)
Some of the band's related comments - amid more thoughts of fate and things ephemeral! - suggest yet again that effort is laudable in the here and now. The greatest praise is saved for activity - come what may. And so Ms. Manysheva offers a few more ideas on the same song ("Something New"):
"People always think they're lacking something or other. They want somebody who's far away and yet, when that person is eventually close by, they'll start thinking of someone else. Folks might live in one town, say, but they'll dream [endlessly] of moving elsewhere: they want the winter to happen in summertime... and vice versa. Our new songs concern the ability to notice something good that's close to hand - and to be glad of what we have."
Presentism and proximity are all, since heaven knows what'll happen in the long run. Especially in Russia.
Mr. Benish (Moscow) playing to draftees
Another new and well-crafted semi-acoustic pop album has appeared in Moscow of late - from the quartet known as Mr. Benish: Khalyg Salaev (vocals, bass), Sergei Zaitsev (drums), Sergei Bannov (keyboards), and Pavel Evdokimenko (guitar). Formed not long ago, in 2006, the ensemble takes comfort from some professional connections to figures of endurance. Members of Mr. Benish quote with genuine gratitude various kind words spoken of them by kingpins of Soviet and post-Soviet showbiz: endurance and lasting movement are more important here than modishness.
These musicians, for example, take special pride in (and inspiration from) the support of timeless chanteuse Alla Pugacheva - and even the Russian army, at whose celebrations they've appeared. The Moscow press has likewise drawn parallels between Mr. Benish and long-standing domestic rock traditions from the Urals, not to mention '80s electronica icons such as Vasilii Shumov. These names and reference points fill the band's promotional materials. A sense of history moves center stage, as an ability to persevere.
We need a new manager: they must be 'Nordic' in character, active, driven, creative... and resistant to stress
The quartet seemingly take their name from the character of Conrad Bennish, played (with an extra "n") by Jason Gaffney in the mid-90s sci-fi series, "Sliders." In fact these Moscow musicians use a quote - in Russian - from that same drama on their website, in which Bennish proudly declares his ability to "shock the world." As "Sliders" made clear over many episodes, Bennish also had a marked - and unnerving - interest in drugs and bombs... simultaneously.
Such bravado, as viewers may recall, was often acted out in plots of time travel and alternative histories. In the rough and tumble of Moscow's daily life, however, it seems fairer to say that auto-suggestion and a little (Dutch) courage might work better than hallucinogens and explosives.
We keep our distance, just in case.
Mr. Benish, 2011
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