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| Updated: 28/01/08 | © 2008 Cool Bunny Media | Da Cool Bunny sez 'Splank that Plank, Baby!' | |
ELECTROSHOCK RECORDS |
Electroshock Records Artemiy Artemiev, Electroshock, UL. Krilatskaya, 31-1-321, Moscow, 121614, Russia. Tel: (095) 415-3046 Web: http://www.electroshock.ru/ Internet Distributor: E-Mail: studio7@mail.ru Plus: www.gemm.com/ US distributor: E-mail:
apatters@eurock.com |
Electroshock Records is a young record company, founded in 1997 and based in Moscow, Russia. Not an obvious place to base an electronic music record label you'd think, but then Electroshock are anything but obvious. Founded by respected composer/musician Artemiy Artemiev and Vladimir Krupnitskiy, Electroshock are truly cutting edge and experimental in their view of electronic music. No dance beats and screaming disco queens here - this is serious stuff, exploring the space that music asnd sound occupies in our lives, through the work of Artemiy Artemiev and his father, Edward, and rapidly growing roster if musicians - plus a groundbreaking series of compilations featuring many Russian and international musicians that are little known outside their chosen field of music. This a comprehensive overview of most of Electroshock's current catalogue of albums, along with availability information. |
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This
was Artemiy Artemiev's debut album for Electroshock, and it opens rather
appropriately with Overture, a very uptempo, upbeat introduction
to his music. Compared to later work, this is almost conventional electronica,
not too different to Jarre, Kitaro or Vangelis. Down By the River
is more of a harbinger to later work: ambient sounds of synthesised animals
and waves crashing topped by a slow melody that gently meanders for several
minutes before it slides into Tibet, a tone picture of this most
troubled mystical country. Reminiscences is another upbeat track,
slightly oriental-sounding percussion ripples the tune along. Throughout
all the tracks are snatches of street sounds, horse and carriage, childrens'
voices, church and hand bells, speeding cars and hawkers cries. There
are eleven tracks in total and they are all excellent - one can only be
impressed at this debut album which announced the arrival of an important
new composer and musician to the genre of electronic music.
Point
of Intersection is Artemiy Artemiev's third album, and is an example
of the musician breaking away from what has been and exploring even wilder
sonic landscapes. Opening track Under Cover of the Skyies is almost conventional
ambience, apart from the rolling layers of echo-drenched sound that wash
across the speakers. It brings to mind the alien city in Forbidden Planet.
Mirage continues in the same way, but with more of an industrial feel
and some German language spoken text weaving in and out of the music.
Album magnum opus is Down by the Footsteps Leading to the Abyss, an epic
quasi-orchestral piece that slowly evolves into something surreal, featuring
yelping voices, knocking sounds and Syrian Orthodox church chanting. Point
of Intersection begins with booming chimes and alien sounding trumpets,
becomes very mystical and doom-laden. Finally, From & To concludes
the album with a [relatively] short track, which returns to the sounds
of track one, but with a faint American Indian tribal beat. Point of Intersection
is a brilliantly atmospheric album, showcasing a vivid imagination at
work.
This
album dates back to 1998 and is an evocative journey across the vast Asian
continent. There are five lengthy tracks: Hong Kong - 01.07.1997, Flying
Eagle, Journey Under the Great China Wall, Mysteries of the Ming Dynasties,
and One Night on the Khangay Mountain. The overlying impression
I get from all the tracks is of movement - political, social and human.
The sound is huge, layer upon layer of densely textured synths, samples
of Mongolian, Chinese and Japanese instruments, percussion and Buddhist
chants and all sorts of weirdness. The music has a grandeur that matches
Kitaro's great classic album, Kojiki, and like that it builds a
mind picture of a region of the world positively bulging with humanity
among a clash of differing cultures. From a musician whose albums all
set high standards this is one of his very best.
Shifting
expectations again, Artemiy Artemiev has teamed up with Phillip B. Klinger
for this new album, though to my untutored ears it is difficult to tell
who contributes what in this collaboration. Part one of the eponymous
title track is certainly dreamlike, though with its industrial sounds
it seems more like a nightmare scenario. Lost Souls in Bamboo Jungle
has a Twilight Zone feel to it: disembodied voices, distorted clock chimes,
floorboard and door creakings, all over an ambient backdrop. The shortest
track, Between People or Within, is also the most discordant and
least likeable. Murmurs Across the Surface continues the industrial
sounds with what sounds like a distant thundering factory floating around
in space. Final track is Part Two of Dreams in Moving Space, subtitled
the Moscow Mix, more dreamy electronica drones with a touch of backbeat.
I have to admit this isn't one of my favourite AA albums, it is a little
too industrial sounding for my tastes, but it does have its fair share
of moments.
Another
collaboration album, this time with German guitarist and keyboard player
Peter Frohmader. And this time the collaboration is much more discernable
from the very first second of track one, Space Icon - huge washes
of synth ambience are layered by some almost funky percussion and wah-wah
guitar licks that gradually evolve into a nineteen minute prog-rock thrash
out. Track two, Mir, calms things down with a very lovely music
portrait of the Mir space station. Very Tangerine Dream-ish. The next
track, Channeling, features weird fretless bass lines and acoustic
guitar over a typical Artemiev ambient soundscape - for some reason I
kept thinking of Weather Report while listening to this. Zen Garden
eases the pressure off for a short and peaceful oriental sounding piece
of electronica. Cosmic Jungle closes the album, a twenty-three
minute epic of gentle ambience spoilt somewhat by an intrusive 'buz-saw'-pitched
drone that is very irritating and spoils the track immensely. Overall,
Space Icon is a very good album, full of variety with both collaborators
working well together.
This
series of compilations features a wide range of composer/musicians using
electronic instruments and sounds some reminiscent of what we now call
'Electronica', but most really fall into the avant-garde and soundsculpture
categories. For example, Volume 3 ranges from the gentle [and very
listenable] ambience of Richard Bone's Elusia, I Can See and Rudiger
Gleisberg's African Moods to the unlistenable [or perhaps that
should be rampantly unmusical] Epitaph by John Palmer. Remaining
contributors to this CD are Martin Alejandro Fumarola, Pete Stollery,
Alejandro Iglesias-Rossi and Hans Joachim Roedelius. Volume 4 is
subtitled 'Synthesiser ANS 1964-1971', and brings together
for the first time recordings made on the very first Russian designed
and built synthesiser. Contributors include Edward Artemiev, Alfred Schnittke,
Oleg Buloshkin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, Stanislav Kreitchi
and several others. The majority of the tracks here are atonal, and not
music as we recognise it, Jim! However, if you hanker back to the 50's
sci-fi movies and their soundtracks of weird sounds and music then this
is for you. Finally, Volume 5 brings together a new set of contributors:
Claire Laronde, Peeter Vahl, Robin Julian Heifetz, Anatolly Pereselegin,
Dieter Moebius, Karda Estra and Christopher De Laurenti. The moods and
sounds on this CD are the most wide-ranging of all, with Vahl's Fugue
and Hymn mixing symphony orchestra and electronics into a piece that
could be classed modern classical music. My personal preference is for
the albums by Artemiy Artemiev and his father, but if you enjoy cutting
edge 'electroacoustic' music then any of these compilations will push
your preconceptions to the brink.
Forgotten
Themes is perhaps Artemiy's most approachable and commercial sounding
album yet, beginning with a movie theme, The Fan, a rich slice
of pounding electronica that wouldn't be out of place if you whispered
'Tangerine Dream'! The Last Waltz follows, a lengthy atmospheric
synth drum workout which shows just how boring most drum 'n' bass' stuff
is - in fact it sounds like a demented fairground ride! An Evening
in the Country is a short melodic ambient piece mixing a rainstorm
with the sound of chimes and clocks - oh, and grasshoppers. The centrepiece
of the album is the very ambient and minimalist An Autumn Breath
- eighteen minutes of gently shifting notes that somehow contrive to be
timeless and exist in their own cosmos. Another cosmic track is Space
Distortion, a rumbling, echoing industrial soundscape. The album closes
with the robotic waltz-like The Ending, another visit to that cyber
fairground. 
This
latest album, like Artemiy Artemiev's Forgotten Themes, is a compilation
of unreleased tracks spanning the years 1975 - 1996, and as such chronicles
the exploration, evolution and technological restraints of electronic
music in Russia. The album opens with the powerfully anthemic Out There
Where, which certainly shares the same grandeur you will find in Vangelis's
movie themes. The lengthy I'd Like To Return follows: it's a collision
of styles, ambient throbbings, industrial crashes and howls, samples of
voices and orchestral timbres. Experimental and not the most approachable
track to face. Ritual has a churchlike ambience, a deep echo and
portentous chords - it packs a lot of atmosphere into its three minutes!