- Daring electronic music from Russia and its neighbors, handpicked by Nikita Zabelin.
- The white tiles of HÖR Berlin have consumed my social media feeds this past year. In June, Nikita Zabelin, founder of the label, event series and radio show Resonance Moscow, played a hard-hitting DJ set in that omnipresent room. He placed a focus on his native Russia's scene and released the tracklist in the form of a compilation titled Resonance News 12/20, the third in the eponymous series that highlights rising local artists. As the person who introduced Nina Kraviz to PTU, Roma Zuckerman and Vladimir Dubyshkin before they became трип's star artists, Zabelin and his selections are worth paying attention to if you want to stay ahead of the curve.
Some artists on Resonance News 12/20 are already familiar—Knigi's modular live shows have appeared at excellent parties both east and west of Berlin—but most are relative newcomers. DESTROY's track "Beer Sun Pleasure" is a catchy teaser of leftfield drum & bass, techno and house found on the St. Petersburg label УРБАН (URBAN), which released his debut EP last year. Krasnoyarsk duo beennooutside, who contribute the lyrical techno song "Эндoрфин" ("Endorphin"), are residents of the Syberian label коллектив (collective), which is a point of entry into the music scene that lies beyond the European part of Russia. Портер (Porter) represents the Ekaterinburg label ФАКТУРА (FACTURA, Russian for "texture"). The soft sound on his after-hours "важнo" ("vazhno," important) stands out amid the emotive bangers leading up to it.
Ilya Gurin-Babayeu opens the compilation with "Frank Uwe Laysiepen," which features a quote from the late performance artist and Marina Abramović collaborator best known as Ulay. His advice to young artists, paired with a sample of "Life's A Bitch" by Nas feat A.Z., encapsulates Resonance's approach to raising talent that's struggling to be seen. My personal highlight is Roteker, who first self-released "Стимoрoл" ("Stimorol") on The Central East LP last May. The album marks his departure from lo-fi house and reflects the mixed feelings of closeness and separation that prevail in the Russian scene. Zabelin himself hails from the city of Ekaterinburg, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia in the Ural region. He created Resonance as a platform for "local producers who need visibility and support," as the lack of infrastructure—both in terms of (not) having a music industry and a connection to the cultural hubs—makes it difficult for artists to break through.
Considering this level of care, I'd expect Zabelin to be compassionate to other marginalised people, too, and make more effort to highlight women and queer artists, as well as those of different ethnicities. A notable entry on the compilation is винер, аn artist from Kazan in the Republic of Tatarstan, which carries Slavic and Tatar, Christian and Muslim cultures in equal measure. On "Qo'rqinchli Ko'zlar," винер expresses this duality, which also shone through on his 1954 EP for Get Busy Recordings, and offers a window into the diversity that is, nevertheless, present in what Zabelin has dubbed "Modern Russian Electronica." What's worrisome is the way in which he applies this umbrella term to the artists not from Russia. This lack of specification diminishes the weight of the cultural output of other countries, so the compilation doesn't work equally for all the local scenes featured.
Zabelin's weekly radio show on Moscow's Megapolis FM, however, offers a more nuanced survey. Gurin-Babayeu, whose second track on the compilation is the slow-burning "Edding 750," lives in Minsk and was a guest on the show four times. On air, he introduced the scene in Belarus, shouting out his own music community Minsk 0, a high-speed techno party called Arina Parus, one of the people pushing Belarusian contemporary visual art, as a nod to the multidisciplinary nature of electronic music. As one of Resonance's many tools for expanding the scene to which Zabelin has a personal connection, this compilation is a resource that can and should be expanded upon and leaves no doubt that there's still more hidden from view.
Tracklist01. Ilya Gurin-Babayeu - Frank Uwe Laysiepen
02. Gispro - El Frio
03. DESTROY - Beer Sun Pleasure
04. Roteker - Стиморол
05. 30eachside - soulpentest
06. винер - Qo'rqinchli Ko'zlar
07. Anthro Plastic - My Muffin
08. Techno Ubludki - вход
09. beennooutside - Эндорфин
10. Uasmi Nasser - Introduction to Threads (Resonance Edit)
11. RUGO, Mike Rud - Bipolar
12. Ilya Gurin-Babayeu - Edding 750
13. Sasha Lebedev - TRB2
14. Dubrovsky - Molodost Proidet
15. Acid Soro - Where's My Daddy
16. Knigi - Try to Save the World Like Bono
17. Gostwork - Zaderjanie
18. портер - важно