• Music

    Evgeny Masloboev – Clay. Thirteen Contemplations on Matter

    Clay is the topic of the latest Fancy Records release by composer Evgeny Masloboev.  The topic, as described by the artist, is a fascinating one, tied in with some incredible contemporary classical music.  From the Fancy Records Bandcamp site: “Clay is a living mystic. This is the ever-dancing childhood of humanity. In the mythology of many peoples of the planet Earth, clay is presented as a medium for the emergence of life and as a material for the creation of the first homo. The Old Testament Adam of the Semitic tribes, Enkidu of the Sumerian peoples, Gayomart in the Zoroastrian…

  • Music

    Yunchi Ensemble – Aleksandrovka, Milyanfan: Dungan Music from Kyrgyzstan

    Yet another amazing collection has been released by Antonovka Records, now based in Moldova.  This collection features a Chinese Muslim ethnic group called the Dungan who live in the passes between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and surprisingly, they don’t write in Chinese, but in Cyrillic! From Antonovka’s Bandcamp site: “Most of the members of the ensemble Yunchi (“Happiness”) live in two Dungan villages in the Chuy region of Kyrgyzstan – Aleksandrovka and Milyanfan. Aleksandrovka is located in the Moskva district to the west of Bishkek. The village was named after the Emperor Alexander II of Russia, during whose reign the Dungans…

  • Music

    Shono – Kolkhozoy Traktor

    Our dear friends at CPL-Music will be releasing some solid music from Buryatia in Eastern Russia.  From the bio sheet: “Unheard sounds from Buryatia: Shono revive the ancient rituals of the vast Eurasian grasslands. The autonomous Russian Republic of Buryatia is located in the far east of the country, bordering Mongolia and encompassing the eastern shore of Lake Baikal. Today, less than one million ethnic Buryats live in the republic. Under Stalin’s rule, many Buryats were persecuted and murdered. Shono (translated as wolf, by the way!) was founded by Alexander Arkhincheev in 2014. The Buryat musician lives in Irkutsk, is…

  • Music

    Santeri Dobrynin, Egor Masaltsev, Olga Plekhanova – Karjalan Jouhikko: Karelian Instrumental Music

    This release from our friends at Antonovka Records features three players of the jouhikko, a local stringed instrument: Santeri (Alexander) Dobrynin and Olga Plekhanova from Karelia and Russian Egor Masaltsev, who moved to the region.  There are 22 tracks of charming interplay between the three and individually.  All the tunes are traditional Karelian, except: 7 – traditional Swedish, 10 and 11 — by Olga herself, 18 — two tunes of traditional Russian songs from Karelia, 19 — by Karelian musician Leo Sevets, 20 — a tune from the play “Sampo: The Magic Mill” based on the Kalevala (author Maxim Gutkin), 22…

  • Music

    Various Artists – Meticulous Midgets 2023

    Our beloved friends at Russia’s finest indie music magazine, Meticulous Midgets, has released their annual compilation of weird experimental, lo-fi and avant-garde music. Featured artists include Russia’s own Assembly of Honey, the Italian ambient sound sculptor Marco Lucchi and Latvia’s Ш​у​м​и​л​о​в Б​о​р (Shumilov Bor) among a host of talent worldwide.

  • Music

    Ivan Grebenschikov – The Endless Winter

    I’ll be in-flight over South Korea by the time you’re reading this post, and I thought I’d leave you with an incredibly rich and diverse album by Russian pianist Ivan Grebenschikov and his group.  The Endless Winter is his latest work, and it is a seamless combination of art-rock, contemporary classical music and prog, though more discerning ears might even find correlations to artists on the ECM and Enja Records stable.  Stunningly good.

  • Music

    Āustras Laīwan – Ephemerality of April Dreams

    Friends of the blog Āustras Laīwan have released one of the most sublimely engaging albums I have heard recently.  The tone is melancholy throughout, almost achingly so.  There are parts where one feels like they’re opening up a ballerina box in an old Russian film.  In terms of sound, it’s crisp and warm, and this will appeal to those who like neofolk, neo-classical, contemporary and soundtrack music.

  • Music

    Various Artists – Fly, Fly, You Hardened Arrow: Round Dance Songs of “Polish” Old Believers from Altai

    The now-legendary Antonovka Records have done astounding work documenting music from Russia’s myriad of ethnic communities.  This one is from the so-called “Polish” Old Believers in the Altai region.  From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The ancestors of the Altai “Polish” Old Believers were peasants of the Vetka-Starodub territory of the priestly Old Believers, who fled from the persecution of the authorities to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and to the bordering area of the Starodub regiment as part of the Russia. Upon her accession to the throne, Catherine II invited the Old Believers to return to Russia with a manifesto. However, they…