Soviet-era Siberia was basically a great punchline. In the cold you’d think, at least I’m not up there: coming back from work in the coal mines, 10 abreast, in your prisoner’s uniform, on the way back to the prison camp.
But Siberia’s bigger than we used to imagine. From north of the Arctic Circle down to the borders of China, and from the Caucasus Mountains in the west to the Pacific, it’s larger than all of Europe. Temperate in the south, it contains vast regions of forest, tundra, mountains and natural resources, much still reachable only by aircraft. Economically disadvantaged, but well educated under the Soviet system, Siberia’s now producing top flight computer programmers – Putin recently announced a $US650 million technology park – and Wired, CNN and Slashdot have covered the explosive growth.
The music scene is yet to explode, and may never. But Novosibirsk-based singer/songwriter Roman Revutsky recently released his debut EP Incomplete through Mexico City indietronica MP3/CD-r label Soundsister that has writers calling him a Siberian Stephen Merritt. There’s even a song, ‘Collateral,’ whose Johnny Marr-esque guitar line and almost Morrissey lilt could give him a crack at the Siberian Smiths title. Using a microphone, a couple of keyboards, a guitar and a PC, there’s no question his reserved and accented voice justify the Merritt comparisons.
It’s tempting to tie a record like this to geography, to say that it could only come from those northern wastelands, but although there are some very European aspects to Revutsky’s debut – like his accented delivery and cool, detached manner – there’s little that seems significantly Siberian.
‘Hurry Up!’, the first of five tracks, sets the tone for the rest of the EP. Imagine Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) a few years down the track: more knowing, less naive and with the music ironed out. Revutsky’s half spoken and half sung lines sit atop an almost preset synth-pop beat. He maintains a consistent mood from the first note, with loops and songs that, at the very least, seem melancholy.
However, ‘Blasphemy BSS’ is the EP’s centrepoint. Noise as rough as sandpaper cycles around Revutsky’s voice; but despite its abrasive effect, the combination of noise and voice is as cooly detached as anything that came before it, perhaps more so. From its minimal sleeve – the song titles are printed in black on white ecopaper – to the preset-sounding synth loops, beats and voice, the aesthetic here is detachment. The burst of noise just reduces that palette further to a barely fluctuating backdrop.
Matthew Levinson
