RUSHUS - nine
(CD – r.a.i.g.)
These days it seems to be the imperative of RAIG (the Russian Association of Independent Genres) to bring back a renaissance of prog and fusion music all by themselves. I definitely can see that coming, but it is a long way still. I can see it, mainly because of the wisdom transferred from generations of art lovers, that everything moves in circles, so that after a few decades of things getting more and more minimal, structured and focused in all kinds of alternative music (techno, punkrock, deathmetal) the revivival of music that moves in various directions at once, sets a mood rather than a melody and has no focus but sets being out of focus at the centre of its attention, seems to be an almost logical consequence.
Then again, the fringes of
music, and that is what I am interested in, are getting more and more
blurred and inconceivable. This again has to do more with my own musical
evolution than with the state of art of music as itself. And because nobody
will ever be able to really say what the state of art of music might be at
any moment in time (except for stubborn dogmatics, and who wants to talk to
them anyway?) we should probably skip this lengthy intro paragraphs and get
down to Rushus.
Rushus consists of three long
time musicians, who have backgrounds in a wide variety of styles and have
gone through different phases and genres, and now have come together to find
a common ground. Or lets say, rather to find a common surface to flow on.
Ilya Lipkin on guitar, Evgeniy Tkachev on all sorts of percussions and
Vladimir Nikulin on bass guitar join their love of psychedelia, meandering
notes and virtuous technique inside a vision of subtle textures and mind
bending improvisations. Searching for their own inner mounting flame they
have opted for a glowing warmth and humaness in their sound, which sometimes
evolves into a true burning fire. They never fall out of a basic
melodiousness and their contrapoints and disharmonies never fall out of
place. Whatever they do, they seem to have a certain plan and they follow it
down.
Currently I am fascinated by
Rushus mainly because of their choice of percussion instruments, because
Tkachev plays the congas. I haven’t heard a record where congas played an
important role in a music that was progressive and forward bound in quite
some time. I remember the Salsa-album of Robert Mitchum and a compilation of
the greatest hits by Chaino, the mystical conga player, but both of them
count in the obscure-section rather than anything of true merit. Tkachev
plays them like a half devil most of the time. Especially on the track
“sky horse” he makes the mentioned horses come alive by emulating a
driving beat of a horse galopping in full force. A physical achievement in
itself, it also sets an intriguing fundament for the screeching guitar
sounds of Lipkin and the fleeting bass noises of Nikulin.
Very important in this
respect, to me at least, is to mention, that inspite of the congas they
never once touch into the field that is generally described as ethno or
world music. Which, by the way, for 99.9 % seems to me one of the blandest
and superficial genres there are, poisoned by good intentions and the
misconception that music or art in general should obey to ideas of pureness
and ethos. Anyway, Rushus probably never thought about any of this, when
they selected their instruments.
As any good prog-rock or
fusion jazz band will, they want to show off as much of their music as
possible, therefore they have filled this CD to the brim with 68 minutes of
music. But the album stands its own time, does not get boring and if you let
yourself fall into it, then you will welcome the evolvement of these nine
lengthy as space to roam in freely.
