ANDREY KIRITCHENKO – stuffed with/out

(CD, nexsound)

This release by Andrey Kiritchenko came as somewhat of a surprise, but then again it shouldn’t have. “stuffed with/out” is a consequent progression from “true delusions”, leaving the collaborations with Anla Courtis as a step aside and moving back into the territory of mixing beauty and harmony with dark undertones and sombre meanings. Processed from guitar, computer and field recordings Kiritchenko opens up (yet another) world of mysterious darkness and shining lights, of tranquil daze and ephemeral reality. This record can be listened to with the lights out late at night as well as with the sun shinging through the window panes on a slow afternoon – albeit with very different effect of course. It is like a “Through the looking glass”-world with all the dark themes added to make it appeal to grown ups. In other words, between the fluffy bunnies with the big eyes there will be some ancient monsters, like the giant behemoth or the growling minotaur, though it might be the funny mice and squirrels that show the pyschotic traits of personality after a while, whereas the monsters are but mildly disturbed by everyday phobias or neuroses.

The balance between the three major musical parts – guitar, field recordings and processing – is held with just the right amount of pendling into every directions. Sometimes swinging full to one side, leaving you with gently stroked chords and appreggios or plain background noises from some real place or a ambient drone of subtle noise. But mostly the three parts interfere, fuse and mix in a variety of wonderful ways. With fingers wiping over the strings of an acoustic guitar as a beginning, the setout is quite clear: acoustic sounds are a major part. But after only a while the statement is made, that processed and noise sounds are also in focus. The setting of place and pace therefore is done effectively and well.

Mostly Kiritchenko invokes sombre tones, the playfulness of some deftly dampened by the at times close to morbid atmosphere floating through the tracks like the thick fog through a horror movie set in London. But there aren’t any dark atmospheres of the kind that is playing with evil images as does a lot of the ambient doom music floating around the genre borders to the metal world: such superficiality is not apt here. The darker moods are more subtle, more refined and more hidden in the details. Overall the music is a tranquil and soothing affair, despite the crackling noise of what is crawling beneath the floorboards.

Andrey Kiritchenko shows a lot of will during the execution of “stuffed with/out” in as much as he never strays an inch from his outlined path that leads him into the dark, mysterious woods of his childhood imagination and finding out that it has grown up with him. The wondrousness has matured as the fears have grown, but due to all the things a grown up has in advantage over a kid (rationality, experience, strength) it is easier to face the wood and by describing the fears de-mystify them. Maybe this is what the record is about, facing the leftover fears of your childhood days, the pang you still feel when waking up at night and hearing a strange noise or having to walk through a dark forest at nigh (which by the way is something grown ups usually just never do, maybe overcoming their fears by going out of their way).