KOTRA & ZAVOLOKA
Untitled live (improves live jam at A&T trade shop, kyiv, Ukraine
CD, Nexsound Live Reports
Nexsound is not just a label for experimental noise –
and a really fine one at that – it has also started to become a platform
for likeminded artists to stage shows around the globe. What idea would be
closer than documenting those live-events in a separate series of CDs, ergo
NLR (Nexsound Live Reports). The first part of this series is a half-hour
improvisational collaboration by two favourites on Nexsounds: Kotra aka
Dmytro Federenko and Zavoloka aka Katya Zavoloka from a hometown gig in
Kyiv, Ukraine, on 19th Febuary of 2005.
The mixture is completely fascinating and intriguing.
On the one side there are the multi-faceted noise-sculptures by Kotra, who
in this a little over 30 minutes pieces produces harsh noise structures,
fragile drones, sharp blows of hi-frequencies and intricate glitches and
crackles. In between Zavoloka rings her rich and blooming voice in a mixture
of folklore and improvisation and blows melodies between folk and new age on
a flute. And it is Zavolokas part that increases the scope of this release
by introducing the most beautiful associations of ancient times, of vast
castles – there is a lot of echo on her voice when singing that it sounds
like a cathedral or the big hall of a castle in her first singing part, the
second one has a sort of flanger on her singing – and peaceful hills with
lush vegetation and the traditional shepherds and their stock prodding along
with ease – a regular association whenever flutes are being played. Kotra
puts down the contrapoint to these ideas and thoughts by destruction and
deconstruction. It seems to me as if he took some of the sounds by Zavoloka
live and perused and mutilated them right there on the spot.
The two go from harsh and brutal to beautiful and
subtle in very little time. There are parts during this set which are of
pristine beauty – e.g. around minute 20 when there are gentle plucking
sounds mixed with a high-tone melody (what kind of flute is that?) – and
other parts that will make you duck and cover. At times loud drones will
stale the air but soon grow less painful, other times the most fragile of
sounds hang loosely in the air. It is fascinating how many different things
they will do in one set.
This series also includes performances of Andrey Kiritchenko,
Alexei Borisov
and a Violet /
Kotra collaboration, which are already available as free mp3 downloads. The
Kotra / Zavoloka here is the first to be released as a professional CD in
due quality, but those others don’t sound bad to me as well. Those
“proper” CDs are in a limited edition, so better hurry up. (Yes, when I
start to like labels or producers of music or artists I completely lose all
inhibitions to plug them as heavily and directly as possible. Nexsound has a
really nice mailorder section, too. There you go.)
