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"Pack" is a new 25-minute instrumental release from two Ukrainian musicians: v4w.enko and .at/on. Local authorities, probably less enthusiastic about the lower-case characters, know these individuals as Evgeniy Vaschenko (from Kiev) and Anton Holota (from Kharkov). "Pack," just published by Belgium's Entity Records, comes together with four beautiful video clips, giving fragmented, mobile expression to the music.
Together, Vaschenko and Holota describe their efforts as follows. (We've polished their English, with the exception of a final verb. It has a intriguing incorrectness of its own): "'Pack' is a finely-tuned, atmospheric minimal glitch collaboration. The release includes a number of 'audio visuals' by v4w.enko and [Kiev female artist] aiuto. The video materials place the music in a context of smooth and colorful designs, combining hardware sounds with max/msp signal processing. The result is a strangely effective, sometimes stunning collection of warm experimental glitch and ambient that incites[?] with minimum effort."
These remarkably quiet, splintered sounds are, we're informed, designed to both "incite" somebody/something with "minimum effort," either from the musicians or the listeners. In resolving that small conundrum, it makes sense to look both at the authors' backgrounds and their current endeavors elsewhere.
v4w.enko - shown above and prostrate - began playing live music in 2007. This is important, because "Pack" is tied closely to a live performance this month at Moscow's Alt+E Festival of Alternative Arts and Energy Sources. The Russian-language materials for the event create a useful backdrop. "It's impossible to ignore the pressing nature of ecological problems. They are as relevant as today's economic issues. One of the basic reasons [for linking nature and politics] is the matter of resources, plus the economics thereof... Our current sources of mineral-based fuels will be exhausted in the next 80 years."
It's impossible to ignore the pressing nature of ecological problems. They are as relevant as today's economic issues. One of the basic reasons [for linking nature and politics] is the matter of resources, plus the economics thereof... Our current sources of mineral-based fuels will be exhausted in the next 80 years.
"If somebody from the sphere of art starts talking about ecological matters, we admit that things can get pretty superficial. Nonetheless, one could argue just as easily that there's nothing more urgent or important right now... But if an electronic musician or video-artist, for example, starts to make albums dedicated to ecological themes, doesn't that sound a little hypocritical? After all, if you're so concerned about ecology, then start by turning off your synthesizer. And then turn off your computer, too!"
"The problem, though, isn't electricity per se - it's the source of energy... The main thing we need to do is to reject the current sources that we have - and try to find alternative ones. In the general process of evolution, there are always moments when strength is found in variation/multiplicity [mnogoobrazie]. And various alternative energy sources do already exist! There are solar batteries, hydroelectric generators, wind-driven generators, salt-power generators, hybrid forms... and probably some others, too."
"There's no need to reject today's electronic arts. We just need to plug them into a different kind of socket!"
This view is closely tied to the work of v4w.enko and .at/on. Vaschenko in particular has written before about the role of complexity and variegation in his music; he has done so in ways that dovetail neatly with the raison d'etre of the Alt+E Festival. His prior releases can be found either at his own website, or - closer to home - at the pages of Archive.Org.
One of those discs, published in June this year, is accompanied by a small text. Once again, we've improved the English for the sake of clarity. Vaschenko describes here the construction of his audio and video materials. The rhetoric is very vague, but - strangely - is therefore much more applicable to other processes, as we'll explain. He outlines the growing scale of his work day: first he draws up instructions (Stage 1). These make a process (2), which leads to a block (3). Playing with the order of processes and their resulting blocks leads to an eventual composition (4).
In his own words: "An initial sequence of instructions can form a simple process. А complex combination of those processes can then be contained within a block, i.e., a spatial structure. That structure can always be changed by reorganizing the relationships between our simple processes - as well as by [re]tuning the settings of the instructions. Several [re]tuned blocks can form a composition."
He continues: "If there are more than two blocks, their order can be altered. That same alteration can generate a new composition. It only takes the replacement of one block to produce a global restructuring in the entire system. These statements, however, are not strict rules..."
If there are more than two blocks, their order can be altered. That same alteration can generate a new composition. It only takes the replacement of one block to produce a global restructuring in the entire system. These statements, however, are not strict rules...
Put as briefly as possible, large structures are born of small elements, and it only takes a relatively minor change in one of those little building blocks to effect a systematic revolution. These imprecise observations do make sense in the realm of v4w.enko's glitch-filled, semi-improvised instrumentals - and indeed they were written to accompany an audio-visual, digital/programmed project.
The same structural logic also makes some sense in the area of (democratic) politics - and most definitely in ecology, a field in which we already know the author has an explicit interest.
The abstract color images in this post are the work of Vaschenko and illustrate well his frequent attention to the relationships between minor and major components of a field, composition, or network, be it natural or human. The images show the breakdown of a block or color field into its constituent elements, sometimes even into the silence of whiteness. It's a form of natural cycle in itself, a repeated, looping relationship between whole and fragment, ascent and demise. Many more examples can be found at Flickr; the process is even clearer in his videos.
These themes and concerns were voiced in a similar fashion by Holota (above), when we looked at his work early in 2009. At that time, we wrote: "A mere 23 years old [yet now clearly older!], he has spent the last six years in the Ukrainian capital, having moved there in order to study physics. It was during this time at college he became interested in the university radio station and – as a result – developed a penchant for electronic music in particular."
"Given his educational background, it was not long before Holota was turning academic, scientific know-how into noise. His first release was published under a Creative Commons License in 2004; two years later he had enough material and confidence to play live. When asked about the influences lying at the root of his work – Holota says: 'Art, social connections, a lot of different music, urban noise, ‘none music,’ books, dreams, the city, sound design, research sound[s], the forest, past-present-future, traveling, physics, space, architecture, the sky, films, friends, water, fire, the internet, and street art.' We begin and end with the same terms; somewhere in there is a contrived pun about loops."
Beginning with "social connections," his associative chain spirals off into outer space, only to return to "friends" once more. The same tags are used to organize his own website. They form a telling parallel to the promo-rhetoric of his colleague from other venues. The work of these two men grows closer together.
When speaking of another, recent release made of 27(!) small snippets of sound, Vaschenko remarked: "These are fragments of different streams; they can be randomized. If you do so, you'll notice that your view of the overall structure will change. You'll lose your sense of a starting point - and gain the impression of an unending passage."
And so we have celebrations of: 1) Variegation within a whole, where change is generated, over and over, rather than "forwarded" in any linear fashion; 2) Increased attention paid to the significance of minor catalysts and components within that system. Whether these vagaries are used to talk of human relationships with one's lifespan (as does Holota) or to discuss digital art (as does Vaschenko), the overlap with environmentalism is both clear and consequential.
In brief, both "Pack" and its two young authors - as they say in the PR materials - hope to "incite" a certain worldview over the course of fourteen tracks and twenty-five minutes. It's a credo that urges us to respect the most paltry, peripheral values within the grand scheme of things. This may refer to the biosphere, digitally composed music, or to one's dearest friends.
At times this all sounds remarkably close to some Tolstoyan thoughts about the relationship between grand events and their almost invisible, "unimportant" beginnings; those events may be within families, governments, or upon the battlefield. In the same way that our Ukrainian musicians, for environmental reasons, ask their listeners to focus on the importance of fragments within larger networks, so Tolstoy would have agreed, perhaps for the benefit of family and faith.
In either case, the result is a validation of care, kindness, and happy modesty: "Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly."
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