|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
MIA 018LP
|
Gultskra Artikler is the throat-tangling moniker of one Alexey Devyanin, and Abtu/Anet has been excavated from the dusty Miasmah archives for a long-overdue reissue. Not that it ever had a proper release; the astute followers among you might have managed to track down the very rare Abtu, which appeared back in 2007 on limited 3" CD-R, but its companion EP Anet never reached the shelves and seemed destined to permanent unavailability. Devyanin's complex, surreal world was explored to wide acclaim on the '07 album Kasha Iz Topora, and thematically, Abtu/Anet feels like a continuation of that record. Devyanin's deeply original fusion of Radiophonicera electronics, musique concrète, early European folk music and 1920s film scores is highlighted far further here, and somehow the record sounds more relevant now than ever. In an era where nostalgia is musical currency, Devyanin's Vaseline-smudged visions are refreshingly free of kitsch and YouTube-era restlessness. He retains a deeply Eastern European, near-theatrical focus in his work that is as intricate as it is unnerving, and he manages to keep the nostalgia to a specific (and unfamiliar) area of the world. For most of us, the album feels like a lonely journey in the light of a half-moon, with crumbling, curled branches glancing off our ragged clothes. Frightening and unrepentant yet deeply compelling, Abtu/Anet should remind you that stories can be told without a single word of dialogue. Limited to 300 copies. Includes a free MP3 download coupon of the album + poster.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
MIA 006CD
|
Last time we came across Russian pranksters Gultskra Artikler, they were a duo comprising of Alexey Devyanin and Dmitry Garin, but since the release of the haunting Pofigistka on the Lampse label in 2006, Garin has left the band leaving Devyanin to come up with the most definitive Gultskra Artikler statement to date; Kasha Iz Topora. The entire record, which plays continuously through its hour-long duration, is set to a fairytale written by a friend of Devayanin, detailing the adventures of a man with an axe that makes flying porridge (based on a traditional Russian tale). The macabre elements of the disc's storyline provides ample source material for Devayanin to weave his processed darkness in and out of folk-tinged guitar parts, knee-trembling vocals and all manner of other obscure instrumentation. Kasha Iz Topora is one of those records that truly sounds on its own in an overpopulated music scene, and Devyanin has truly developed his windswept sound stories over years of careful experimentation and fine-tuning. Hailing from Novosibirsk in Siberia, he has much to draw influence from -- wrapping up warm and constructing choppy experimental music on an archaic personal computer was only one way of keeping his mind off the intense world outside, drawing influence from such artists as Leafcutter John, Jackie-O Motherfucker and Tod Dockstader. This record is a new stage in the development of not only Gultskra Artikler, but in the ever-growing Miasmah label. If you give this album the time and let yourself fall into its cryptic story, you may find this the strangest and most involving record you'll hear this year.
|