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Three new dance works appeared this week from Moscow and Minsk that, although stylistically different, form a useful collective picture of the relationship between style, age, and social status. One of these artists is very much a newcomer, while another has already laid claim to the status of "legend" in his hometown. In between these opposites of callow enterprise and confidence lies our third representative, who has some witty observations to make about the daunting gap between early and established careers.
As we'll see later on, the role of risk-taking - and therefore disappointment - within an empirically established profession will be key; steps taken "forwards" can become a stumble. Each release, offered to a fickle public, will always run the risk of a critical drubbing. As a result, there comes a point where failure and collapse must surely be embraced, rather than avoided.
In examining that passage, we start with Xio (aka Artem Malev). He has just published a new tech-house EP with the title of "Prism." It can be downloaded from a number of locations for free. The EP's author, shown below, makes the rather dramatic claim in his promotional materials that the tracks are capable of "lowering listeners into the unknown depths of their consciousness." The three compositions used to instigate and guide that slow descent are titled "Finding Yourself," "Holotropic," and - finally - "Lose Consciousness." (The second instrumental is named after a type of breathing technique used during meditative or psychoanalytic sessions.)
Together the tracklist alone speaks of a passage or progression; it would appear that Malev sees both the twenty-two minutes of his new release and his professional development in terms of some entrance into a rather daunting, disorienting realm. The image above, however, would suggest that he's unperturbed by such challenges. And indeed what we find is the stirring rhetoric of a youthful idealist.
Big dreams, big talk, big hair.
The EP comes together with a small explanatory text, which can be translated as follows: "'Who am I? Why am I here?' Sooner or later we all ask ourselves these questions. Those individuals who are brave enough to dive into full self-awareness will discover the voice of truth. This is a voice that lives in our heart from the day we're born: a pure, radiant voice."
Understatement and uncertainty have left the building, even when life's everyday challenges adopt a daunting scale. Raised eyebrows speak of mild, yet fleeting concern.
The second track is framed thus, with no less swagger: "Hundreds, maybe thousands of thoughts arise in our head each and every minute. Unconnected thoughts, interrupting one another. Sometimes they can drain your strength to the point where you feel totally lost. Nonetheless, there is one secret that's accessible to us all: the secret of our breathing. We can observe how we breathe and halt our endless, internal dialogs. Proper breathing will liberate a space for the melody of the soul."
Nonetheless, there is one secret that's accessible to us all...
Xio's recourse to deep house and techno on this recording is both deliberate and understandable. His metaphors of "profundity," in several senses, come thick and fast; they're bolstered by his choice of dance music.
And finally, on the issue of how to "lose consciousness," we hear: "Consciousness and rationality are only superficial aspects of our essential human nature. Descending into meditation, we gain the ability to turn directly both to our subconscious and key mental processes. Through them both lies our connection with the profundity of the universe."
Once more, Malev offers a closing nod in the direction of depth. And yet, despite the scale of his oceanic imagery or the related issues of mental, social, and musical "submersion," everything's approached with the unhampered confidence of a newcomer.
Substantially older - and better known - is the Belarusian musician and DJ Vladislav Buben, born in 1973. His reputation has been built upon years of journalistic work both on radio and television, together with marked success as a festival promoter. His musical output has been spread across a remarkably wide range of projects; the geographic sweep of those efforts is equally impressive, since his discography includes publications all the way from Great Britain to the US and Canada - with most European nations in between.
His reputation in Minsk and Belarus as a whole is such that he works at a maximum distance from the zealous, almost quixotic style that characterizes Xio's EP. Swagger is no longer needed. If Malev's work is showcased by declarations of almost "visionary" intent, then in Minsk there's an air of wiser, quieter statement.
Not only is Buben's latest work lacking any promo images, he's virtually absent from the recording. Instead of placing himself front and center, he instead foregrounds the work of young Belarusian poet Volha Hapeyeva. Her texts, though, are themselves sufficiently deep in the music as to be (occasionally) incomprehensible.
This trickery is intentional.
What results from Buben's production values is an adult consideration of speech per se. Buben places the well-crafted, fledgling verse of Hapeyeva on the edge of commotion. It's as if - from the viewpoint of maturity - he's indicating the general destination of all blossoming enterprise. Poetic verse, driving itself forwards with rhythmic, rhymed insistence, is merely accelerating a kind of inevitable "descent."
And that same downwards movement is a long way from Malev's happy curiosity, vis a vis meditation. The fact that Buben's homepage is called "Darkscene" should help to set the general tone.
As we see above, black T-shirts and blood-red lighting do the same.
Buben's new EP with Hapeyeva, entitled - logically enough! - "Buben vs. Volha Hapeyeva" is not the first time the poet's verses have been used in this way. In fact, an earlier project for the Minsk nelabel Haze (above) turned her poetry into complete noise: textual snippets were read out loud by Hapeyeva, only to dissolve into drone textures or huge waves of static.
The rather arbitrary line between rhythmic verse and song - and "therefore" between music and noise - was investigated in ways that buried both language and its musical structures in humbling, oceanic swathes of ambient clamor. The "pure, radiant truth" to which Malev looks forward is here significantly darker.
In short, the youthful tracks of Xio - through the immersive resonance of deep/tech house - speak of an impending loss of consciousness that is both sought and happily anticipated. With a combination of pre-adult bravado and intriguing nervousness they ponder a form of entrance into greater, grander spheres. In speaking of these experiences that lie ahead, he gives voice to hopes and dreams that are part and parcel of maturation. They look forward, in both senses.
They show no awareness or experience of failure.
Buben's tracks, on the other hand, are a very different view of "forward-looking" progress - and the language thereof. His new EP comes from a poet and publisher who - together - place their egos aside and "lower" various forms of proud, personal statement into a wash of industrial distortion.
Between these two men, in terms of both age and renown, perhaps, is the intriguing figure of Nikita Golyshev (above), who is based in Moscow and has been the subject of our attention once before. He has just launched some new dancefloor material under the pseudonym of Mr. Malfunction. As that moniker might suggest, it's a mixture of heroism and horrible problems! We have the title of a magical figure who is known... for messing up.
Forward movement and faltering go hand in hand.
Golyshev has even created a suitable logo for his alterego, shown below and inspired - as we see - by the graphic traditions of Marvel or DC Comics. He refers to these designs as both "ironic and buggy." They're a celebration of mistakes and mismanagement as utterly human. When turned into musical formats, we even have a new stylistic designation: "It's a 'superhero style'.... It might be described as a hard-edged mix of electro, nu-rave, 8-bit and glitch sounds. Or, in simpler terms, we might just call it electro-disco."
It's a 'superhero style'.... It might be described as a hard-edged mix of electro, nu-rave, 8-bit and glitch sounds
Taken as a small and indicative group, these three men plot a telling trajectory through various kinds of relationship with their musical materials: from the touching bravado of a young romantic to the sage humility of a long-term practitioner.
In between them, as noted, is the important figure of Mr. Malfunction, making sure that the risk - and disaster - of experimentation is not forgotten. Golyshev, in fact, reminds us in no uncertain terms: "Mr.Malfunction fights against all that's right and proper in this world - by defending bugs, errors and mistakes. Enjoy yourself and don't panic!"
To err, it would seem, is indeed human; the readiness to do so, however, may belong to a more select group.
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