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Monochrome Plural

Monochrome Plural

a review by susanna g of
release format Monochrome Plural by Fizzarum (CD Album)

text

Anyone would think electronica had just kicked off in Russia. Such is the excitement about releases currently washing ashore including the likes of EU (championed by Bristol label Pause_2) and the Art-Tek label (which released a compilation of Russian electronica, Artefacts, early last year). And then there's the ru.electronic compilation on lo recordings due to be released soon also featuring Fizzarum.

But, like anywhere in the world, Fizzarum (who've been going for at least six years) have operated for a long time on the fringes of a music world not particularly interested in the stuff that doesn't sell by the sackful. And remember this is Russia - a place where it's well nigh impossible survive on legitimate means alone. Here the beleaguered record industry is completely unable to support leftfield enterprise.

With the advent of the 'net, of course, Russian musicians have at last been able to play their music to the world at a minimal cost. And Fizzarum have done that for a while. But luckily for us somebody at Domino discovered their riches and offered them a more focused release.

There is an otherworldly quality to Monochrome Plural. UFO like synths hover over metal on metal clangs. And, there's also something tangibly 'Russian' about this recording, naff as that may sound. Maybe it's the thread of folk-like melancholy which snakes through the album. Take the track 'Microphorous' which kicks off on familiar Warp-a-like noise but then the initial theme is gradually ground down into an interesting set of melodic variations which don't shy away from pulling on the old minor-key heartstrings.

The sounds Fizzarum use are intriguing too - almost as if they acquired them second hand off the black market, seeming dusty, organic and buckled (and, as a consequence, all the more poignant for it).

There's also constant interference, as if Fizzarum are transmitting their delicate, understated melodies from some derelict nuclear power station deep under the ground. Mysterious? Even the band themselves seem to think so, stating in their self-penned press release that their "music is very hard to describe, probably impossible to describe it by words'.

I might be stumbling around in a foreign landscape but words like fragile, intricate and endearingly fallible come close. Posted by susanna g at 00:00, 25 Apr 2001