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Vasya Vasin (Kirpichi, St. Petersburg)
Vasya Vasin is the frontman of hip-hop/rock crossover trio Kirpichi (Bricks), about whom we've written on multiple occasions. He now has a solo album on display, which bears many trademarks of the Kirpichi catalog. Not only do we find the same love for beatbox rhythms, interrupted by crowd-pleasing guitar riffs; there's also plenty of humor and irony, for which Vasin's band is certainly famous. In other words, one of the primary reasons for Kirpichi's enduring success is the way in which they simultaneously draw upon the swagger of a US hip-hop tradition and subvert it with a wry smile.
After all, everybody's fully aware of the huge difference between the norms of "urban life" in America and Russia, not to mention an entirely different ethnic context. Put differently, the appeal and sound of hip-hop travel well; the locally specific postures do not.
There is an additional, more recent reason for this willful downgrading of self-aggrandizement. Mr. Vasin got married this week to another singer from his hometown, Nina Karlsson. She, too, has been the frequent subject of our attention - and tomorrow we'll take a closer look at her own solo endeavor of 2011 (known as My Private Hospital).
Vasin and Nina Karlsson
There are multiple references on this album to the promise of married life. Not only is Nina Karlsson namechecked directly on several occasions, but Vasin's entire opening number is a kindly rap spun from expressions of good-natured gratitude, all directed towards family, friends, and colleagues.
If we were to peruse Vasin's recent entries at LiveJournal, it would become even clearer that time spent with his wife is more appealing and beneficial than any market-related postures. Grandeur is dismissed in favor of domesticity. The overall air is one of quiet contentment. In fact, his current profile at Vkontakte is headed by a single, simple word in Russian that can be translated by two in English: "Lucky Guy." None of this is terribly useful for the generic norms of confrontational R&B.
Deviance and wisdom, sadness and woe, happiness and laughter
A brief manifesto of sorts is also currently on display: "I'm only interested in the kind of 'nonsense' that has no practical application. I'm simply interested in life's silliest manifestations... All the same, I both understand and respect the following [states or virtues]: joy and enthusiasm, inspiration and desperation, passion and restraint, deviance and wisdom, sadness and woe, happiness and laughter." These are fundamental human emotions, which - as one track has it - also mean "there's no need to seek [happiness]. It's all right here."
And, by the time we reach the CD's closing number, we're invited "to have a good time. There's no other choice." Fatalism and family life combine to make arrogance a laughable option: pessimists, cynics, and dreamers could all benefit from the rarely-praised wonders of moderation.
Vasya Vasin: "Tzar Vasilich" (2011)
Hence Vasin's criticism of bogus, wantonly showy "friendships" on social networks. He mocks the idea that popularity and self-worth could possibly be assessed in a virtual realm built from nicknames, avatars, and patently false character traits. Then, a little later in the tracklist, he suggests in a similar vein that time spent in the Hermitage is probably more beneficial than taking drugs. These are the words of an upstanding husband and future father - set to a hip-hop backbeat.
None of this, however, is teacherly or bad-tempered. Much of the lyrics mock their maker, too. These are stories of an admittedly tricky maturity - told though admissions of one's sillier, yet fondly remembered youth. This use of modesty and self-mockery as a potentially serious register is extended in the newest recordings from Moscow's Kobyla (whose full name would begin in translation as "The Mare and Corpse-Eyed Toads..." The complete version is twice as long).
Have a good time. There's no other choice!
Rather than any focus upon private relationships, Kobyla often turn to the grandeur and absurdism of Russian history, specifically during the Soviet period. Put differently, Vasin stresses the comical disparity between his (now) modest existence and the "regal," cocky metaphors of youthful rap. Those parallels between selfhood, stardom, and Tsars are, he feels, justified in that Russia's monarchs have not necessarily been the most positive role models... Local history has shown some tragically public consequences of private behavior. Kobyla then extend that link between mental and national failure by leading Vasin's dark quips into more surreal, unnerving territory. Humor becomes horror - slowly.
The Mare and Corpse-Eyed Toads (aka Kobyla, Moscow)
Kobyla's autumnal recording comes in the wake of some feisty remarks from web-based observers about the ensemble's musical achievements thus far. "This is what you get if you throw ten people in a room that's ten foot square. Give each of them a kilo of grass, plus a microphone, guitar, trumpet, and drums." Or, elsewhere: "F**k knows to whom I'd recommend this stuff"; "You can tell right away it's total cr*p"; and so forth. The group is happy to print and promote all this (humbling) negativity.
We're continuing our absurdist crusade against banality
The band members then add to that context: "We're continuing our absurdist crusade against banality, against all manner of bronze pedestals, and even the idea of 'relevant' art. Everybody knows that the best forms of protest are those sporting a grin." And so these musicians continue to publish the worst comments they can find regarding their catalog: "These guys are simply a bunch of failing students who're trying to make something of themselves... in the world of normal people; "This isn't entertaining. It's not funny. And it's not interesting."
This month's new tracks from Kobyla are entitled "Serengeti" and offered to the public as "the [alleged] soundtrack to a film about the adventures of some East European children. Jazz interchanges with some rockabilly-type melodies."
Kobyla: "Serengeti" (2011)
Judging by the titles of these instrumentals, however, the lives of those children on the silver screen are conducted amid the whims of Soviet history - and the simultaneous workings of some widespread, if not inevitable surrealism. Neither are predictable. And so we have: "Riding The Woolly Rhinoceros All Over Oklahoma," "De-Stalinization," and "I Hope I'm an Otter." We're a very long way from the goal-driven trajectories of socialist rhetoric.
This parodic treatment of Soviet storytelling is framed with a B&W image of a socialist couple, standing beside their tractor and staring over the horizon - into a future where, it would seem, some very big surprises await them. No matter what the newspapers say.
Improvisations develop in the spirit of modal jazz
It's this rather dark view of social development that also informs the small, yet promising catalog of another St Petersburg collective, Toys Market. Their jazzy instrumentals are defined as follows: "This is an experimental project, free from political or commercial influence. Not to mention the limits of any one style. At a Toys Market show you can hear 'horror music' that's made from a heavy hip-hop beat, the deliberate use of kids' songs, and some clever, intricate scratching. Special attention is paid to the sound of our brass section, whose improvisations develop in the spirit of modal jazz."
Despite the relatively happy history of post-war modal bebop in the States, there's something allegedly "horrific" about situating pre-adult hopes and aspirations amid the forms of improvised, adult jazz. It's as if the former, younger age group dreams of (bold, unfettered) movement that older folks sooner or later will always deem to be quixotic.
In fact, on another web-venue, the members of Toys Market declare that the sine qua non of their onstage and studio performance is "healthy sarcasm." A rather dim (or grim) view is taken of childhood romance. And so, placed side by side with the worldview of Vasya Vasin and Kobyla, we see a number of overlapping attitudes that develop towards self-assurance, arrogance, and the social narratives that grow from such chutzpah.
An experimental project, free from political and commercial influence
The best-laid plans of men and magnates often go awry, turning supposed "pragmatism" into a surreal nightmare; a much better response, therefore, to (risky) self-adoration is the inherently social, humbling experience of family life - and the concomitant ability to laugh off misfortune.
For Vasin, that becomes a celebration of fleeting moments, since the (unwise) transfer of childhood maximalism into adult realms is worthy of little more than a wry smile or even "sarcasm." And it's for this same reason, perhaps, that one member of the listening public has even referred to Kobyla as "a very dangerous band." Nothing threatens the manic scale of civic planning more than people who don't care; the people who'd rather be with friends or family than on a pedestal.
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