Artemiy Artemiev and his Moscow label Electroshock are doing a great deal to promote the diffusion of electroacoustic music, and not only of Russian origin, which we shall see in coming reviews. On this, the first compilation in a series of releases devoted to the presentation of electroacoustic music, the content is exclusively Russian, though. This should be of great interest, since Russian electroacoustics are largely unknown outside Russia. The only drawback here is the small number in which these CDs are being printed; just 500 copies each. The risk is great that they’re already sold out.

The first of the two CDs of Volume 1 starts with a set of three pieces by Taras Bujevski; “Vox Unius”, “Awakening” and “Ciao Antonio”. At first the beginning piece seems to apply solely concrete methods, but soon enough emerges sounds that make you wonder if Bujevski has used an old Theremin or some other early electronic instrument. Soon enough concrete sounds and Theremin-like whistles blend in with more customary electroacoustic sounds, and then even pure electronics sweep in, later joined by more populistic synthesizer sonics.
The second, very brief event, starts off with a big wet Russian fart, commencing with a sleeping and snoring composer, who dreams of old 1920’s piano music, and wakes, it appears, falling out of bed....
The third of Bujevski’s pieces – “Ciao Antonio” – is longer, almost seventeen minutes – and begins with violins or violas and other orchestral sounds that at first sound like a rehearsal or an orchestra which tunes all their instruments in a big tuning tutti! At some instances a lone harpsichord fills the stage with frail tones, and this is, in fact, as much a modern chamber piece as an electroacoustical work. Some humorous vocals are included too. When towards the end some popular music takes over, it only goes to show that Bujevski isn’t a stranger to any genre, and that he is a sampling man!

Next two pieces – numbers four and five – are works by Vladimir Komarov. The first one is called “Computer Kaleidoscope”, and rocks on pretty heavy, in a versatile mixture of influences; a wild merger of Asian, American and Russian sonics, flashing by in sweeping and jolting sound clips, a little bewildering, to make an understatement. It is obvious that the composer has enjoyed the process of sampling and manipulation. Further into the piece, when he uses vocal sounds, he reminds me of Luciano Berio, Lars-Gunnar Bodin or Kaija Saariaho.
His next tune is “Cherish Hopes”. The beginning is ominous, dangerous, with fast events in the foreground, layered on top of a background with slow-motion dangers approaching, receding, reappearing… In this piece, like in one of Bujevski’s before, the more “populistic” synthesizer sounds appear here and there. In this he takes on the mood of Swedish electronic pioneer and later New Age hero Ralph Lundsten, whom I appreciated very much in his early stages, but whom I could not follow into the New Age blandness.

Tracks six to nine on CD 1 belong to Artem Vasilliev; “Dream”, “Landscape”, “Game”, “Hymn”. Vasilliev’s section begins with olden sounds, like noise bands from a tone generator, joined by metallic frailnesses, with something in common with early compositions by Arne Nordheim (which he composed in Poland), but the frail metals soon transpose to mallet-like beatings, even leaning towards gamelan music. I like the way Vasilliev treats his sounding objects. He seems to be the most innovative and imaginative fellow on this disc so far. He is not just fascinated with the means he has on hand (the machinery), but is also able to compose, really compose, with that machinery, and this is what distinguishes him from the aforementioned composers, who seem to have collected sounds more randomly.
Track seven – “Landscape” – continues in frail metallics and noiseband events, in a feeling of something big slowly moving, like a glacier crackling and shrugging, or the cooling lava moving irresistibly down the hill. This is definitely very attractive electroacoustic music from Mr. Vasilliev.
Track eight – “Game” – is more sudden, cut up in shorter events, like the sounds of a steam locomotive sampled in short and manipulated staccatos. It’s like Vasilliev is stopping and starting a reel-to-reel tape with noisebands, like a rap DJ stopping and starting his turntables. Very appealing!
Vasilliev’s last entry – “Hymn” – sounds at first like a distant turbo-prop airplane, but moves over into some kind of overtone spectrum, playing at the seasickness of hard Atlantic crossings. The sounds move into a percussive state, and again I realize that Vasilliev is a very interesting composer, very imaginative. The deep humming and the distant engine sounds make you feel like you’re in some submerged or subterranean secret factory with generators and dynamos. Suddenly I recognize sounds that are so much like what I’ve heard on pieces by Jean-Claude Risset that I almost suspect Vasilliev of stealing those parts, but maybe that’s not the case? Anyhow, Artem Vasilliev alone makes a purchase of this CD well worth while. He is very good at what he’s doing!

Track ten, and the last entry on CD 1, is Andrei Rodionov’s “Laboratory – 8”. Here we have pure electronics, sounding like the experiments John Chowning conducted in works like “Turenas” and “Stria”. Percussive, bumping, hopping sounds smear out onto long, drifting layers of oily, wet sounds, causing you to fall back into a feeling of hypnotic rest or meditation, and suddenly I realize that I get the exact same feeling from Brian Eno’s “Discreet Music”. This too is very interesting music, which adds considerably to the value of the number one CD of the two that make up Volume 1 of Electroshocks compilations of electroacoustic music. The only complaint I have is that the last piece here is too short (5:18). With a feeling like that it should really be released on a CD all by itself, across the eighty minutes available. Congratulations, Rodionov!

The second CD of Volume 1 starts off with Vladimir Nikolayev on two tracks.
Nikolayev’s first entry is “Antique Landscape”; an extremely well composed and well-planned adventure. The beginning is a frantic violin in a repeated pattern with a few coda-like abruptions. The violin is joined and taken over by rough scrapings and then a background of micro-percussions is laid out, with the distant humming of airplane sounds. Different events succeed each other in seamless continuations, and it is a very impressive set of electroacoustics Nikolayev lays down here. I suppose you could brand this entry “mixed form”, but it’s so well done that you hardly think of the traditional instruments (mostly the violin) other than as parts of the fabric of sound. This is clear, piercing, intellectual electroacoustics at its best!
The second track, which also is Nikolayev’s, is “Laughtrack”, in which he manipulates the sounds of laughter in a number of ways. This is probably the most advanced try at this theme, which many composers have tried. The only other really good laugh track that I’ve heard is Bruno Maderna’s “Le Rire”, but this Nikolayev track stands up well to Maderna’s piece. Some parts of this piece reminds me of some early pieces by Pierre Schaeffer, too, and even a piece by Laurie Anderson comes to mind; a piece where she plays the violin, but in a modified way, where she has replaced the band on the bow with a magnetic tape with recorded dog barkings, while she has also mounted tape recorder heads on the violin instead of strings. Contemplate that! Anyhow, Vladimir Nikolayev gets full score for his two pieces here!

Tracks three and four belong to Artemiy Artemiev, the owner of the label.
His first track – “Space Distortion” – comes full-fledged with sounds that actually reminds me some of the recordings that exist of the magnetic field around some of the planets, and the piece moves along in a relentless force, with many layers of overtones dispersing through the sounding space.
Artemiev’s second piece is “Evening in the Country”, a short event combining electroacoustic means with the traditional behavior of some popular music, even hinting, it seems to me, at some countryside datja Christmas celebration. Some of the ripples of crystalline sounds echo soundworlds that I’m familiar with through Swedish pioneer Ralph Lundsten.

Tracks five and six on the second CD are shaped by Stanislav Kreitchi.
His first track is “Music for Wood and Metal”, which is exactly what it is too. It starts off kind of silently and cautiously, with distant metallics, but the sounds grow stronger and closer. Many composers have tried this venue, like Iannis Xenakis and Iancu Dumitrescu, but to compose a good and innovative percussion piece is a hard feat, and I don’t know how interesting this is. It’s well done, but it hardly moves much inside me. The electroacoustics here reduce themselves to some minor manipulations, it seems.
Kreitchi’s second piece is “Triptych Ocean”, and it starts of more interestingly, with piercing electronic high shrill sounds, moving over into olden studio sounds from way-back-when; the sort of basic experimental sounds that Konrad Boehmer and Herbert Eimert worked with in late 1950s, early 1960s, and I like these early, historic sounds very much. The CD booklet doesn’t give any clue as to when the pieces actually were composed, so maybe this is old music. As opposed to his first track here, this Kreitchi piece is very interesting. Percussive instruments emerge here too, but this time around they fit into the electronic fabric, heightening the experience. Very good!

Edward Artemiev arrives on tracks seven and eight on this second CD of Volume 1.
His first piece is “I Would Like to Return”, which comes on at first in deep ominous murmurs, from some kind of deep murky subconscious realm, where evil memories play at the mental health of the mind. Orchestral sounds rise up out of the depths, like glimpses of history, digested by the subconscious and thrown about in the chamber of submerged memories and dreams. Highly sophisticated and very interesting!
Artemiev senior’s next entry is “Summer” – a long piece of fifteen minutes. It begins with a summer rain and distant thunder, and applies soft synthesizer sounds. This is not at all in the venue of his earlier piece on this CD, which was murky and dark and experimental. This is more mellow, dreamy, laid back and relaxed, and in my view much less interesting. A woman’s voice softens the brew even more, and the mixed-in nature sounds almost make me feel that this is the kind of relaxation pieces you can buy in health food stores or New Age boutiques. Personally I don’t much favor melodic and too soft electroacoustics, but this piece may well suite someone with s different set of ears, a different set of experiences. It is all very well done. The way the female voice comes in is an interesting aspect of this otherwise, to me, too mellow brew.

The concluding piece is a short entry by Andrei Rodionov. Probably thrown in at the end to fill up CD space, because it’s merely a joke, a play on a few sounding objects, some percussion and a voice uttering “boiing”, plus some synthesizer keyboardings. Rodionov has shown elsewhere on this set what he is capable of. This short piece is too shallow American to me.

On the whole this Volume 1 (two CDs) of Electroshock’s series of compilations with electroacoustic music is well worth hearing (if you can find it, ha-ha!) and some of the entries are very interesting. Seriously; how can we persuade Mr. Artemiev to print a second edition?