I know a sensitive child who can imitate the sounds of a tramway from the beginning to the end of the ride.
Luigi Russolo, 1916
Maybe nowhere else you are tackled with two realities that are so different from each other like in Russia: The moloch of big cities confronts its inhabitants with chaotic noise whereas in the width of inner Russia the only sound is the streaming of one’s own blood making noise in one’s ears. A metropolis like Petersburg or Moscow is an accumulation of electromagnetic waste that crawls out of each crack that the big legacy of Constructivism, Futurism and lived socialism left in the vodka-clouded post-Perestroika-disenchantment. It is here that Industrial music makes historically, ideologically and socially sense, at least as much as in the UK. Nevertheless, as Alexei Borisov (of F.RU.I.T.S.) emphasizes, the axis »Enthusiasm« (Dziga Vertov) – Art Brut – Industrial as omnipresent blueprint had to be re-imported to Russia via Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Esplendor Geometrico and Sergei Koryokhin. Did the elaborats of Kafka, Solshenitzyn and Hugh Ferris not fit into one bag? If Glasnost caused some musical outcome than it was the re-positioning of »Resistance«-attitudes. The strenghtening of neo-Fascist groupings was a source of new friction but the common »Anti«-consensus of communist times was history.
»For me politics is like sports or theatre – it’s simply a way of masking the real decision-making processes from the majority of people«, wrote Borisov in an e-mail-interview with Anton Nekkilä for the music magazine The Wire. »Perestroika disolved the common focus. That made a lot of things easier. In Russia we have the situation that Industrial and noise music are heavily influential at both ends of the country, in Japan and in Europe. Now networks are built and certainly internet-communication is an important tool«. Alexei Borisov who was born in 1960 in Moscow was one of the first Russians to engage in experimental electronic music. He caused a stir from 1985 on with his Electronica band Notschnoi Prospekt and releases like »Asbastos« (SNC; 1989) and above all as guitar player of the first Russian Wave and Centre. With Anton Nikkilä he owns the Finnish label N& B Research Digest and since 1992 he forms F.R.U.I.T.S. together with Pavel Jagun. F.R.U.I.T.S. performed at 2002’s »phonoTAKTIK«-festival in Vienna. »F.R.U.I.T.S. combines different approaches of experimental music like abstract Electronica, voice modulation/distortion and free improvisation. The framework are Industrial-tactics that are modified according to the artistic demands«. The CD-R is exactly the right medium of production and distribution for him as it is cheap, fast and easy to (re)procude.
Richardas Norvila aka Benzo also played at the »phonoTAKTIK«-festival. Norvila does not only have a ph.D. in philosophy, he also has been experimenting with electronic sounds since he has become 14 years old. Since 1999 he has the »audioethnographic« project Benzo. Besides he works on projects like Sa-Zna, Radius and diverse theatre productions. »For Benzo all played synthesizers are of Russian origin. They represent the many Russian ethnic population groups. As a rule nearly all acquired Benzo-instruments are sick and therefore I have to design therapeutic strategies. Since my profession is to be a psycho-therapist this kind of work seems familiar to me and makes a lot of fun.« With this strategy he achieved to bring new life to devices like the DR.AN-101 or some »Elektronica«-synthesizers, supported by the technician Rafael Gafarov. For the effect devices unique things play an important role: Digital delay-machines are fed by a Lithuanian lie detector. For the samples only Russian vinyl is used, the more noise of it’s own the better. This is especially relevant for Norvila’s techno projects. »I call it Benzohouse«.
Sound language
F.R.U.I.T.S. is noise, is the unpalliated face of an electronic scrap-Titan, is »Der Sieg über die Sonne« in music, is the ear-deafening rush of the technological metropolis. As well with Borisov’s solo-projects as with F.R.U.I.T.S. enervating cascades of sounds are in the center, even more strengthened in their urgent presence by the videos of Roman Anikushin and Aristarch Chernishev. F.R.U.I.T.S./ Borisov make music with compressed parameters out of the system of co-ordinates of Old-School-Industrial. With his live-CD »Before The Evrorement« (NBRD/ Avanto; 2002) Alexei Borisov delivered his most accurate statement of bruitist-poetic sound composition as a solo-musician. » If I have a musical idea and want to realize it I do not necessarily need the newest tools. For about 20 years I have been working with musical modes of expression that are not based on a specific technology. This has also to do with the fact that only since the beginning of the 1990s awareness for industrial music has been developed in Russia. Or, to put it more directly: Necessity is the mother of invention.«
For the Benzo-Interview we per chance arrive in the backyard of an old building at the Wiener Gürtel. It is dusky, with howling TV-voices in the inner court. A messy construction site, rubbish everywhere. A drunken old man with a white undershirt loudly urges us to be quiet. »That is like Russia «, Norvila smiles, lights up a cigarette and says »I grew up in Lithuania but since we all were dissidents and we had family members abroad we had easy access to records from the West. Then we copied the stuff on these big recording tapes because there was no Cassette-culture in the mid-80s.«
The voice from within
Literature is said to be the most important form of art in Russia. Every last fibre of it is part of the culture. Story-telling is more important and is influencend by Eastern traditions. People sit together and tell stories, also private ones. This cyclical flow of speech is reflected in the metaphysical quality of Russian music: »The synthesizer tells you a story if you let him. If you try to be precise in playing, you will become desperate and it will not work. Playing live is always a performance because the synthesizer does what he wants. Only sometimes I am allowed to play«, Norvila tells me slightly grief-stricken. He had to improvise as soon as in the production stage because the right components were not always available. This guarantees that synths from the same line only seldom sound equally. With unvoluntary skills a lot of unique types were fabricated. Synthesizers were cheaper in these times. They were intended to be affordable for each worker alongside the Transsibirian railway. Alexei Borisov, in a nearly nostalgic mood: »I don’t think that the oversupply with possibilities promotes creativity but who knows. My pen writes well. I don’t need more to write and I don’t have to change it.«
»Benzo is derived from Benzin (gasoline). In Moscow the cars do not have catalysts and our bodies therefore take part in the process of recycling of decaying oil. Gasoline has become part of our metabolism. If groove can be derived from the movement of a human body, then the exhaling and inhaling units build up the base for Shuffle and other delicate shifts of rhythmic patterns, it seems to me. We inhale Benzo, exhale a little less Benzo, always the same…«
Future
Alexei Borisov and Richardas Norvila already have good connections with Vienna: Norvila’s first album »The Tapes« will be published by Laton together with the Redaktionsbüro. Subetage published the sampler »Ikra: Bitter Snacks from Moscow« and Laton »Nautik« with contributions by F.R.U.I.T.S. and Benzo.
Today nearly each Russian household is equipped with a computer – the stuff is very cheap. Almost everybody is producing music. Continuity is the key factor for »reaching the West«, in direction of a »real« record deal and concert business. The club »Dom« in Moscow has become a breeding place for the new improvisation-scene. »Some time ago most of the gigs were almost for free. Nevertheless it was nearly only fellow musicians who showed up. People had no money for this kind of music. In the meantime also students come and people who drop by accidentally. This is a good development«, Norvila states.
Thanks to Richardas Norvila for his patience while being interviewed and to Antje Mayer of the Redaktionsbüro for info-support.
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