The Considerable Advantages of Minimalism: Music Kollektiv 2012

The elusive Sasha Sinyaev (right), aka JaJa Radio (St. Petersburg)

Music Kollektiv, as we've noted on several prior occasions, is a Moscow-based organization and web label. The levels of productivity from its staff and contributors keep us coming back. The MK project is designed - much as its name suggests - to aggregate the efforts of various electronic artists who typically do not perform together in physical venues. The linkages between them are, so to speak, immaterial. The primary emphasis amid these goals is instead upon what Kollektiv defines as "beautiful electronic music."

Nonetheless, for all that digital dreaming, there are occasions when the people involved have connections in the real and/or tangible world. Over the last few months, quite a few of these figures have come from St. Petersburg, the world's most northerly city. And so, in order to explain those worldly bonds, we turn our attention to some of the Petersburg musicians who've appeared on recent Kollektiv compilations - all of which are excellent and available for free download. Together these young performers and their collaborative effort constitute a fine snapshot of deep, downtempo, and minimal techno output close to the Finnish border. 

The search for unconventional rhythms and their stories

This aggregation both on- and off-line is important, since Kollektiv typically makes no great effort to either unify or brand participants in a long-term, aesthetically consistent manner. The ensembles, projects, and solo artists on display are instead brought briefly together, usually without promotional texts of any sort. Short-lived forms of fruitful interaction are more important than wordy advertising or linear notions of progress. Actions speak louder than ad copy. Fatigue may ensue.

Kollektiv artist Andrei Svibovitch (St. Petersburg)

The musicians' private websites are equally devoid of text; Kollektiv does not even oblige participants to host prominent banners or links on their pages. Instead we find a singular, fairly detailed manifesto on the main Kollektiv domain. A game-plan is laid out in textual form by the organizers - in order then to step back in complete silence. At which point the activity begins. So what, therefore, can be said of those composers who do live and/or work close to one another? Does any kind of local scene emerge from within this deliberate decentralization?

Music can be shared and distributed without corporate control or profit

The taciturn Kollektiv DJs and producers living in St. Petersburg might be best introduced by Technii, aka Zhiravf or Danis Building. None of those names are likely to be in his passport. Born in 1983, Technii moved to Petersburg from the ancient town of Pereslavl', not far north of Moscow. Raised among buildings of the twelfth century, our musician then began surrounding himself with the classical forms of the "Northern Venice," a mere 309 years old. A veritable leap into the future.

His new home, he says, "inspires one to write music." Tending to speak of himself in the third person, Technii then sketches his career in the simplest possible terms (and with the strangest grammar, which we've altered somewhat). "Music was always his favorite occupation. From 1997-1999 Technii played drums in a rock band. As a hobby. In the 2000s he devoted himself to DJ-ing. Then he got carried away by electronic music..." And so forth. In place of any effusive interviews or loud self-promotion, Technii prefers to use the image of a giraffe, silently - and fussily - choosing the finest leaves from the tallest branches. Childlike naivety and adult elitism walk hand in hand.

Recent avatar for Technii (aka Zhiravf, St. Petersburg)

Were we looking for a less literal view of music-making from these artists, we couldn't do better than the ideas forthcoming from Tennisist (Ilya Burtsev). An important contributor to the Music Kollektiv compilations, he uses a couple of web venues to publish some pithy quotes - as a form of minimalist mission statement. The first of these comes from the Bible, specifically from Ecclesiastes 1:9. It ends with the widely recognizable conviction that "There is no new thing under the sun." 

We help people to discover and share beautiful electronic music (MK)

The reason for highlighting an endless, "unoriginal" search for novel experience becomes clearer when we combine Burtsev's biblical quote with a second, longer passage taken from Isaac the Syrian, an Orthodox saint. Burtsev specifically uses a discussion by St. Isaac on the nature of passion(s). Various forms of earthly zeal are listed, in the hope we see how closely tied they are to crude, material existence: greed, sex, envy, power, and so forth. By implication, there exists a more refined form of enthusiasm for something immaterial. 

Music plays that role, as an alternative to unoriginal, repetitious, and material striving. That lofty register and conclusion both speak to the importance of sound in the lives of these young men.

Isaac the Syrian, of course, set the bar rather high. He not only dedicated much of his writings to the mysteries of the Holy Spirit (far from lumpen physicality); he also retired from social hubbub to an anchorite refuge. Here, according to hagiographers, he lived alone for many years. His entire food intake was apparently no more than three loaves a week, plus a few raw vegetables. The world of flesh was scorned with almost impossible zeal. Such are the standards that impress Mr. Burtsev in his own avoidance of corporeal and corporate excess.

Perhaps for this reason, some of Tennisist's listeners at Soundcloud have likened his sounds to the noises of modern shamanism. The public is blessed.

Tennisist (Ilya Burtsev, St. Petersburg)

This same concerted minimalism (or essentialism) transfers, in fact, rather nicely to those Kollektiv artists outside of St. Petersburg, which is understandable. If the collaborators in this digital enterprise feel - thanks to ancient models - that they're bypassing the dead weight of physicality, then it only makes sense that physical geography would also be cast aside. Thus a local scene comes to develop an outlook applicable to any locality - and to all champions of minimal techno, itself full of homeless silence.

Close to nature, wind, and the voice of the sea (Strukturator)

Recent Kollektiv albums have included the work of Kievan colleague Strukturator, (aka Misha Mironenko, shown below). Raised on what he calls the "antique, fertile Crimean peninsula," he aims to liberate his own craft from all unsightly aspects of modern materialism. Instead he goes in search of minimal techno's "primeval structure" - which he sees reflected particularly well in Crimean plant life. Botany and its fruitful, minimal networks are a better model for musical collaboration than profit margins. For that reason, perhaps, Strukturator wished his listeners well after the New Year with hope for a "spiritual renaissance" in 2012.

High hopes indeed for the dancefloor.

Techno is a style often associated with subtraction. In fact it's sometimes claimed that minimal techno is driven by two basic inclinations: "skeletalism" and "massification." The latter is built on the slightest, sparsest of structures that employ nothing more than (very) slight variation; the former leans, conversely, towards a build-up of sonic density, albeit without that variation. In neither case are difference or display terribly welcome. Ostentatious forms are few and far between; tones are severe and emotions are basically absent.

Suitable sounds for an anchorite fan-club.

Strukturator (Misha Mironenko, Kiev)