I Am Above on the Left / Я Слева Сверху

RU

Free jazz, Garage Rock, Grunge, Harsh Noise, Instrumental, Jazz, Math Rock, Noise pop, Post-Hardcore, Post-punk, Prog, Progressive Metal, Rock, Shoegazing, Ska punk, Stoner Rock

http://www.last.fm/music/i+am+above+on+the+left
http://www.myspace.com/iamaboveontheleft
http://www.raig.ru/iamaboveontheleft.asp

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

These collectives live in varied surroundings, ranging from an Estonian forest to the noisy streets of Moscow. Nonetheless, they all seek alternative, sometimes complex registers to match their disorienting experience.

Sentiment and Silence: Grinya Vaniushkin, ForeverLive, and Evgeny Grinko

These quiet compositions come from suburban Moscow, southern Ukraine, and the Crimea. Their authors all hope to capture the gentle, precious sentiments that are so often manhandled by commercially-driven storytelling.

Distorted Voices: 30[eks], Aleksej Tarutz, Eugene Kush, and Medkit

Four glitch, drone, and idm releases from various ends of Russia question the ability of lyricism or subjectivity as a whole to express itself. White noise predominates - as the sound of societal interference

I Am Above on the Left: Melody, Minimalism, and Occasional Thunder (eng/рус)

We recently spoke to the pioneering Moscow trio I Am Above on the Left on several topics, including their recent shows and developments with side projects (such as USSSY and Kruzr Ken).

I Am Above On The Left: Music Recorded on Concrete and Bones

I Am Above On The Left (Ia Sleva Sverkhu) have been written about and referred to many times on this site, always with respect and admiration. This Moscow "avant-rock" outfit remains one of Russia's most challenging outlets for what members refer to as a combination of "jazz-core, noise-rock, ma...

Archival Recordings by Alexei Taroutz (and Where Not to Enjoy Them)

The Russian Association of Independent Genres (RAIG) has today turned back time by approximately 18 months. The association has dragged from its vaults a "lost album" by Aleksei Taroutz (i.e., Taruts) entitled - fittingly enough - "Eternal Number of Repeats." It consists of ten instrumental trac...

Evgeny Grinko: Seven Мelancholy Tunes from a (Muddy) Street Musician

This month a wonderfully unexpected EP has appeared from Evgeny Grinko (aka Evgenii Grin'ko) entitled "Cinematic Melodies." The artist is question is well known to us as the drummer of several ensembles. He may be most familiar to Moscow audiences as the driving force behind math-rock/free-jazz...

Kruzr Ken: The Sound of Lizards and Psychedelic Mushrooms

Kruzr Ken are a Moscow twosome who describe their rather severe output as an "exploration into territories of live and improvised electro-acoustics, harsh drone, and experimental noise." Before any thoughts as to whether you'd even want to make such an "exploration," it's worth pointing out th...

Motherfathers: Not the Mamas and Papas

For the optimistic or romantic among us, the most exciting aspects of contemporary music in Russia are its expressions of hope. Not the increasing ability to ape foreign trends or match western production standards, but the often failed attempts to realize a potential. With the explosio...

Wogulow, Taroutz, Vermo: "Maelstrom" (Omut)

Two new Creative Commons releases have just been placed on line by the equally novel "Accessory Takes" project, a net-based endeavor affiliated with the Russian Association of Independent Genres (RAIG). This valuable organization, having already compiled a fine catalog of avant-garde releases,...

Aleksei Taruts: The Noise of Dead Daughters

One of the most stunning, disturbing noises to appear in Russian music in the last few years has been that of "I Am Above on the Left" (Ia sleva sverkhu). An experimental quartet, mapping the periphery of instrumental math-rock, they nonetheless worked essentially in long, improvised forms. As a res...