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Over the last couple of months, the Kiev electronic project Kvitnu has published some especially impressive material from three of its central artists: V4W.Enko, Kotra, and Zavoloka. Since these performers and their fellow labelmates have worked closely for several years, it's interesting to note how unique and independent publications are, in fact, cohering as a shared outlook. Together they help to shed light on Kvitnu's current raison d'etre.
As proof of that common worldview, we offer here a selection of theoretical musings from the three musicians, together with a number of audio examples from the Kvitnu works in question.
Away from the studio, V4W.Enko is known as Evgeniy Vaschenko. He recently gave an interview to the Australian press in which he sketched the background to his current activities. In doing so, he interpreted his career as a linear development or trajectory from custom and tradition to (well-considered) spontaneity.
Beginning this conversation, he described how his earliest compositional efforts emerged when he started tinkering in childhood with an accordion, discovered in his grandfather's house. A time-honored, conservative music education would soon channel that enthusiasm into rather traditional skill-sets, but the urge for experimentation always remained. He says that he never lost a sense of wonderment at "what music could be."
This validation of potential over achievement will continue to be important.
In speaking of his authorial tendencies today, Vashchenko claims to begin most projects with a concrete idea or concept, prior to fashioning "any mood or spirit as а specific structure." In other words, fixed or conceptual patterns first aim to address a fluid, even formless state of awareness - and then give voice to that novel insight in equally tidy, systematic terms.
Put differently, he first authors various algorithms that "will generate sounds in real time." These are linked to recording devices that capture the sounds as they happen. "I always find it interesting to make multi-leveled or layered structures, each part of which can then be transformed in real time."
I always find it interesting to make multi-levelled or layered structures, each part of which can then be transformed in real time
Rationale and expertise work to the benefit of spontaneity, which is then tinkered with and manipulated.
That cyclical process (system > disorder > system) brings us to his newest CD for Kvitnu, "cvxd+e." The five letters refer to the kinds of movement or transformation of elements within his carefully-constructed sound patterns: Circular, Variation, "X" (the unknown), Deconstruction, and - finally - Esthetics.
The accompanying artwork by Caba Kosmotesto shows that interplay of cyclicality and breakdown very nicely.
The looping, insistent elements of these tracks are viewed in metaphorical terms as "an excursion in which the final destination is the same as the starting point. It's a circular permutation: a permutation built from one or more sets of elements in cyclic order." As for variations of those elements, lest we remain stuck in repetition, "changes may involve any combination of rules." The possibilities inherent in those changes, therefore, are theoretically countless.
Cyclical structures are briefly released into the realm of unpredictability. Rationality slips into chance.
From rational structure emerges inconceivable variegation, itself engaged by the artist in spontaneous, real-time forms. Vashchenko begins to play with the disorder he himself instigates. Thus the element "d" comes boldly into play: deconstruction. Consequently, Vashchenko's recordings, born of well-ordered algorithms, are "characterized by a stimulating kind of unpredictability and a controlled chaos."
...a stimulating kind of unpredictability and a controlled chaos
Hence we arrive at the appeal of "e" or esthetics. Beauty emerges from the slippage between structure and fluidity.. and a return to orderly comprehension. New systems are born of temporary deconstruction.
Bearing that in mind, we turn to Kotra (Dmytro Fedorenko, shown above). He, too, has produced some novel material of late, namely a single-track recording entitled "Renaissance." Here we offer the first ten minutes of the twenty-four minute composition.
In showcasing this recent publication, Mr. Fedorenko informed us that - together with his earlier works known as "Reset," and "Revolt" - this fresh material both forms and concludes a trilogy. "At the outset," he told us, "I never even thought about writing a trilogy! It's just the way that music wanted to manifest itself."
Once again, we encounter the notion - even if it's couched in impressionistic terms - that consciously formed structures begin to operate either independently of their authors or in an esthetically appealing state of "controlled chaos." Below we see the coverwork for "Renaissance," which acts as a fine expression of that same thin line between structure and disorienting difference.
In a recent chat with an Italian webzine, Fedorenko continued to talk of his work in ways that are familiar to us from prior discussions. He spoke of his noise-art as "ear-needles" or "acupuncture for the ears." Just as his colleague V4W.Enko, he also spoke about an ongoing search for the kind of sounds that persist in "a constant balance between sharp structures and chaos." In that moment of transition between order and disorder, results are impossible to predict but potential is maximized.
For a brief second, anything is possible.
Openly admitting to worries about repetition (or insistent cyclicality) in his work, Fedorenko's active invocation of irregularity allows him to move along the same path as Vashchenko - towards esthetically appealing deconstruction.
It's interesting to see how things respond when systems are tested to their limits
The home of aural brinkmanship is a place Fedorenko calls "the extremes of digital overload. It's interesting to see how things respond when systems are tested to their limits." The fundamental breaking-point encountered here could be either mechanical or human, since we never know which one will collapse first in the face of ear-splitting volume.
"The only limit that I really face is that of human hearing - or of sustainable volume levels both in the microphones and headphones."
So what exactly does lie beyond those limits? What is the "new" system of thought that lies beyond these incredibly loud and deconstructive gestures? In their rhetoric of transgression, what aesthetically appealing state is unveiled?
Here we can turn to a new track from Kateryna Zavoloka (above), entitled "Manipura Fall" and offered by Kvitnu for free download. Manipura itself is one of the Hindu chakras or centers of force located within the human body - in this instance behind the navel. Here lies a supposed "vortex" of energy, structured in ways that mirror the outlook and esthetic discussed by both Vashchenko and Fedorenko.
In graphic terms, as we can see below, the manipura is usually depicted as a triangle with a yellow or orange circle. Within these cyclical, endlessly looping forms reside the intuitive forms of existence. Hindu thought holds that within the manipura are latent forces of mature subjectivity, which are traditionally associated with fire.
In more literal terms, this chakra is viewed as the home of sensible risk-taking.
Close to our solar plexus are the potentials for transformation - and thus self-realization. This balance comes in a marriage of generational circles and ten petals, moving beyond their limits; an interface results, therefore, between repetition and centrifugal blossoming. A person excessively driven by this chakra is often assumed to be selfish and overcome by various drives that will break the repetitious bonds of tradition: friends will be lost and family ignored.
It seems both fitting and sensible, therefore, to end with an ancient mirror of Zavoloka's orange, floral artwork from the beginning of this post - and thus return to our own starting point. After all, we've done little more than explain the very meaning of the Ukrainian term "Kvitnu" in English: "I am blossoming."
The label does what the label says... with a one-word manifesto.
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