Quarter Tones: USSSY, Elephants from Neptune, and Pes i Gruppa

Vosu, Estonia

Vosu is a tiny costal location on the northern shoreline of Estonia. We say "location" as it hardly has enough houses to justify any other term. Most discussions of Vosu suggest that it be considered part of nearby Vihula province, as if these tiny wooden homes are only discernible if placed beside a larger entity. One of the few social structures on these leafy streets is a "Forest Museum," documenting the various ways in which local people have - over the centuries - used surrounding nature in order to fuel a humble, yet dignified existence. Fruit, berries, and pinecones take precedence over any human grandeur.

And yet the same address is home to an extremely loud and ramshackle ensemble, whose name alone challenges any associations of Vosu with rural retreat: Elephants from Neptune. The dual imagery of daunting size and cosmic distance comes to the forest. 

The elephants on Neptune led an idyllic life. None ever went hungry or were sick. They had no predators... (Mike Resnick)

The band is a foursome: Robert Linna (guitar), Markko Reinberg (lead guitar), Rain Joona (bass), and Jon Mikiver (drums). Their stage-name comes from a humorous sci-fi tale by Mike Resnick, depicting a herd of elephants on a distant planet who are unable - because of their memory - to forget all the bad things about life on Earth. When visited in the distant future by human travelers, the elephants are therefore wary of interacting with a race that once "employed" them in terrible forms of warfare.

The world beyond Neptune's harmony both intrigues and yet horrifies them - and so they struggle between present curiosity, future desires, and some very bad recollections. 

Elephants from Neptune (Vihula province, Estonia)

Perhaps as a consequence of this normally hushed distance from urban myth-making, Elephants from Neptune adopt a wantonly slapdash attitude towards their own craft. Several of their concerts in local venues have been celebrated as "the worst we've ever played." Loud cheers go up. And, when new audio is uploaded for public approval, low-quality enterprise is again cause for celebration. "We just added a new track to our BandPage. It's unmastered, but who gives a f**k. (PS! The track comes from the sessions we did in our rehearsal room)." Final versions are produced in a place of rehearsal. A half-finished narrative is more appealing than a complete story with a bad ending. 

We just added a new track to our BandPage. It's unmastered, but who gives a f**k

This outlook finds increasing appeal at home. The band members recently put out a request on their Facebook page, asking if anybody could possibly return some of the materials already used to promote a show. Regional fans and admirers evidently wanted tangible souvenirs of these devil-may-care functions. "If anybody has a poster left over from our last night's event, please share it with us. All of the thirty posters we printed were stolen!"

In the meantime, therefore, local walls remain bare.

A similar - though more restrained - celebration of offhandedness is evident this weekend in nearby Saint Petersburg, home to the DIY duo known as Pes i Gruppa: Zhenya Gudkov and Inna Maklakova. From the very outset, when these two young musicians first appeared in 2009, all serious talk of self-promotion was treated with scant respect.  "We're a group from Saint Petersburg and Krasnoyarsk. We sing about boys from Michigan, dogs in the morning... and so forth. Not long ago, when it was time for us to define our style or direction, we came up the term 'underwater.' It turned out, though, that we weren't actually the people who'd created that turn of phrase... Nonetheless, an honestly invented bicycle can still be considered an invention!"

Current webpages define the same two youngsters as "Somalian pirates"... Seriousness and self-aggrandizement are still kept at arm's length.

We sing about boys from Michigan, dogs in the morning... and so forth

There is now an entire album on display, prompting questions as to whether this stumbling sound and unfocused outlook is, perhaps, indicative of some wider philosophy. The duo have certainly been lumped together in previous months with other lo-fi Petersburg ensembles like Lemonday, Elochnye Igrushki, and Padla Bear Outfit. Viewed en masse, those songwriters have also been spoken of as new-wave antifolk exponents. As we'll see, however, Gudkov and Maklakova do not espouse the kind of ideas that allow for the long-term cohesion of any group identity.

Pes i Gruppa (Inna Maklakova and Zhenya Gudkov, Krasnoyarsk/Saint Petersburg) 

A resulting tension between fragile selfhood and social existence has been defined as follows by writer and promoter Aleksandr Gorbachev: "This is minimalist, chopped-up songwriting that contains a great deal of deliberate emptiness - in terms of breathing room. It all operates according to its own, almost noiseless groove. It's very precise, somehow 'material' music, too: each sound and every word stands both appropriately and confidently in its place. What results is a sort of monolithic naivety... It's all very private, intimate, and quiet music." The local reasons for that nervous aesthetic are slowly revealed.

"A young man and woman [do little more than] take turns in singing. They've evidently got something to sing about - just as they clearly have their own style, too. It all sounds really relevant... and it's not at all modish. You won't find much that's familiar-sounding in here. Yet it's all very Russian...." Singing about Slavic experience is clearly a tall order.

You won't find much that's familiar in here. Yet it's all very Russian.... (Afisha)

As we move towards more concrete observations, this gap between earnestness and bold, skillful performance is again attributed to social factors. There's a reason in the outside world why lyricism should sound this way. Mr. Gorbachev, pondering these songs of "beauty, love, and human vanity" within unsympathetic social spheres, speaks even of the soundtrack to a "lost generation." Put differently, there's no clear avenue of emotional or professional investment for these performers, whether they live in northern Estonia or at the other end of the Baltic shoreline in St. Petersburg.

Apparently there's no pressing reason to get up early, either.

Mr. Gudkov has spoken about a deliberate avoidance of consoling or comforting poetry in these tracks. He and Maklakova decided not to use any of the verse that had previously struck them both as somehow appropriate, fashionable, or even successful. That deliberate courting of honest awkwardness led to the point where some observers remarked that "Pes i Gruppa sing in Russian as if they were singing in English..." In other words with difficulty.

The duo likewise turned away from what they term the strikingly energetic or "feral" nature of much UK and US songwriting. A decision to use their own language in order to negotiate their own social context robbed the songs of all pathos or self-delusion. Bogus, stagy energy was rejected. What remained was honesty - warts and all. And so we have texts dedicated to the unpredictable behavior of sleepy dogs, tales of places where "it's better not walk," views of unappealing apartments, and indifferent laments over disappointing parties. As one song declares: "I want to be in that kind of ballet. Everybody's dancing... but I'm not."

Pes i Gruppa sing in Russian as if they're singing in English...

If that sense of detachment or estrangement strikes some commentators as "very Russian" and perhaps indicative of an entire generation, then it's interesting to compare any such conclusions with the work of Moscow instrumentalists USSSY. From the outset we should point out that the band's name is sometimes interpreted as a play upon the Russian word for "mustache" (усы) and may be a mocking invocation of the debonair musketeer-heroes of Brezhnevian television. This moniker, in other words, relates to a swashbuckling heroism that's no longer possible. It's a nonsensical reference to a non-existent quality.

USSSY (Artem Galkin [left] and Pavel Eremeev)

USSSY are currently a twosome, Artem Galkin (guitar) and Pavel Eremeev (drums), although they have long been involved with colleague Aleksei Taroutz in other art- or math-rock adventures such as IAAOTL, Wogulow Taroutz Vermo and Kruzr Ken. As a separate entity, USSSY itself has been in existence since 2007. We now have a third album before us, known in rather blunt or stunted terms as "ud." Irrationality, borderline senselessness (again), and linguistic dead-ends all come into view, just as an avoidance of capitalization speaks to a rejection of pathos, perhaps.

Music that's simultaneously enchanting and frightening

In any case, Galkin and Eremeev explicitly tag their current efforts as "quarter-tone rock." Given the predominance of quarter tones in music of the Middle East, our Moscow noise merchants are quick to stress that USSSY "do not create a psychedelic atmosphere around [hackneyed] motifs of the mystical East." Instead they've tended towards direct and well-considered borrowings from Turkish, Persian, and Azerbaijani traditions. The Moscow press suggests that "the result is simultaneously enchanting and frightening." 

Strange noises emerge from beneath domestic forms.

Aleksei Taroutz assisting from below

The musicians had initially looked further afield for what Eremeev describes as "richer expressive options. I'm usually not interested in music that lacks a melodic foundation - but there are exceptions. Of late I've been searching for material that has more power. The kind of thing - as we say in Russian - that rocks the floor, but without the devil's help. In other words, music to create both a positive mood and a feeling of heartfelt warmth."

Sounds to rock the floor, but without the devil's help

Already among these juxtaposed metaphors of warmth and worry we find the full range of opposites that constitute Russia's experience of Central Asian culture. Discussions of "peripheral" or "liminal" phenomena lend themselves to all manner of interpretational drama - and yet here, in the case of USSSY, we can see that it's precisely this semantic complexity that appeals. Unfamiliarity suggests itself as a suitable register for odd contemporary experience.

We know that Galkin and Eremeev approach their work with an academic zeal, but it's the audience reaction here that is key. What, in other words, might the response be to a unique melange of math-rock, psychedelia redux, and Central Asian or Middle Eastern quarter tones - all played with sufficient gusto to make the floorboards shake?

USSSY (Pavel Eremeev)

The Moscow magazine Open Space has responded with both awe and gratitude. "The music of USSSY conjures associations with some Turkish psychedelia of the 60s or '70s." Those same sounds, we're told, were indeed audible in the counter-culture of Brezhnev's term - for those individuals unimpressed by the flair of French musketeers. Turkey offered a neighboring experience of both sonic difference and risky deviation from socialist enterprise - for all manner of reasons. Nowadays we're told that "this Moscow duo [- building upon those generational associations - ] play like somebody has squeezed a whole prog-rock festival into an Istanbul street corner." 

A whole prog-rock festival squeezed into an Istanbul street corner