The Dramatic Evolution of «Rokapops»: Mujuice and the Mumiy Troll Covers — Far From Moscow
The Dramatic Evolution of «Rokapops»: Mujuice and the Mumiy Troll Covers
Lagutenko joked at the time to friends: «You wait and see — a few months from now, everybody will be talking about it. And then in a year`s time, rokapops will become a nationwide phenomenon!» Even today, he notes the enduring inability of domestic songwriting and audience expectations to get beyond that binary opposition.
«There are only two true categories: `I Like It` or `I Don`t Like it.` In any other stuation [with today`s paltry options] rock bands will become more tedious and uninteresting than, say, somebody from a TV talent show. And, conversely, the popularity of those heavily-promoted TV stars has nothing to do with the work of underground bands. By that I mean the [unknown] performers whose music you can only find and download via the internet. Ironically, they`re the artists whose songs reflect today`s reality.»
Some middle ground was needed between two failing extremes. This led to Lagutenko`s famous style of delivery, simultaneously thespian and self-mocking in the best cabaret traditions. Emotional involvement was both celebrated — in tales of grand passion — and held at a distance with a slight smirk. To this day, the ensemble`s songs remain a delicate balancing act between high romance and burlesque self-mockery.
The Moscow entertainment and culture weekly «Afisha» has been busy since the start of this year with a long, respectful tribute to Mumiy Troll. Once every ten days, the magazine publishes a cover version of an MT song, performed by one of today`s more fashionable or innovative collectives. Thus far twelve songs have appeared and, from the outset, Afisha have promised to keep the project going at least until the summer of 2011.
So far, so good; here we offer five examples from Cassiopeja, Moremoney, Cheese People, Dza, and Everything Is Made in China. The entire list can be enjoyed online.
Each of the songs comes with an audio stream and accompanying video, not to mention some context or backstories, both from Mr. Lagutenko and the younger musicians. Together they help to explain how the compositions emerged, what they initially meant to a younger generation in the `90s, and why they still matter today.
What is both interesting and important here is that many of the younger performers discern something especially «Russian» in Mumiy Troll`s catalog. That domestic significance, no matter how impressionistic, comes consistently from two sources: MT`s stylistic balance between passion and sarcasm, together with Lagutenko`s own biography. It straddles the end of Soviet songwriting and the sudden chaos of `90s commercial culture. His lifeline includes many experiences known to many people… in countless towns.
From Samara`s Cheese People, by way of example, we hear: «The music of MT has always had one leg in the Soviet heritage — in fact in Russian traditions as a whole. I mean that in some kind of metaphorical or `warped` sense…» From this point onwards it slowly becomes clear that Mr. Lagutenko`s music has come to represent a kind of social disconnect or surreal estrangement, even.
Something, somewhere remains faulty and — as a result — self-deprecation and self-mockery become reasonable modes of expression in a land where social goals are consistently frustrated. These, in other words, are sardonic narratives for a strange and unpredictable nation.
For our residents of Samara, therefore, the music of Mumiy Troll continues to be uniquely «Russian» in that «it sounds like [Soviet diva] Pugacheva on crack. It`s as if [patriotic bard] Aleksandr Rozenbaum was produced by Fatboy Slim.» The feeling of surrounding oddity only grows — as do the expressions of surprise.
The peculiar analogies snowball, all in an attempt to describe strange life at home — and the relevance of songs inspired by it: «It`s as if the Olympic rules forced biathletes, just before the target shooting, to play hopscotch! It`s as if the air around us suddenly became prickly — or everybody started calling me `Aristarchus.` It`s like we have to make clicking sounds instead of saying the letter `L.` That`s the kind of music played by Mumiy Troll. It`s all very strange… and very Russian.»
And that brings us to the new album from Mujuice (aka Roma Litvinov), «Downshifting.» Immediately the question arises: what on earth is one of Russia`s finest electronic musicians doing within our «rock» rubric? The reasons are twofold.
First, and most importantly, the fabulous glitchy canvases of Mr. Litvinov`s repertoire are here swapped for more straightforward forms, designed for an ensemble performance rather than for one man and a laptop. In even simpler terms, these are songs — from a man known almost exclusively for instrumental works. Secondly, Mujuice here adopts a remarkably monotone style of delivery, which for many online observers recalls either the late-Soviet rock legend Viktor Tsoi or Lagutenko`s own detached vocals.
To some bloggers, these associations or reference points are almost unforgivable; they seem to suggest a kind of hipster disrespect for the classic rock canon.
Finding champions of this stance, however, is just as easy. Some journalists have declared «Downshifting» to be the finest Russian album in years. And indeed the fact that Litvinov performs in his native tongue makes that local resonance stronger still.
The significance of this recording thus grows in stages. Not only is it a reaction to a domestic heritage of some standing; before we`ve even heard the first track, the artwork also implies a less than jolly interpretation. Seriousness has morphed into sadness; erstwhile songs of social tension have inspired musings on the grandest «decline» of all. In which case, a tradition of civic activism has become total acquiescence in the face of death.
Sure enough, the album`s lyrical content is focused on related issues of inevitable, even fatal demise. That may sound melodramatic, but the opening track («Youth») sets the general tone.
Its key refrain has already found a home on countless social networking profiles. Such is the outlook of today`s disenchanted dreamers: «Forever together, forever apart. The cosmos forever, blood forever. Eternity forever; the beast forever. Youth forever… death forever.» Any insistence on positive values is countered each and every time by a negative equivalent.
The nervous movement between them continues.
The unresolved romanticism that we find in Lagutenko`s craft is evident on «Downshifting.» In much darker, threatening forms.
Litvinov told «Afisha» that one of the tracks, «Dear Friend,» has some positive aspects. «It`s a song about imagined and real friends. It`s about the loss of time… and the sunshine that`s [eventually] stolen from us all. But it also concerns the kind of faith you might suddenly discover — unexpectedly — towards sunrise… after the endless parties and nighttime walkabouts. The kind of faith you unearth amid the scrapheaps, burnt remains, and flashy junk that`s lying everywhere. Faith in the fact that things aren`t that bad or scary. And that you can [at least] share these thoughts with somebody.»
By the end of the album, though, any feeling of social support is virtually erased with the refrain that «it`s all senseless and useless» — as we move inexorably towards «a morning when we all die.»
Some of Moscow`s observers find the rhythmic and melodic traditions of rokapops alive in Mujuice`s album. They praise the «brilliant simplicity» with which he has reemployed the fundamental structure of a `90s pop song — for more dramatic, imposing purposes. Again Tsoi`s and Lagutenko`s names emerge — and in that double assertion lies the album`s most powerful effect.
Mujuice addresses the emotional detachment of Lagutenko`s vocals and nationally famous ennui of Tsoi`s voice in order to link these rock kingpins and their catalogs. Two discrete lives become one, long timeline — based on a certain commonality. Despite the differences between those performers, they share a concern with enduring forms of estrangement. For Tsoi that problem was fundamentally political; for Lagutenko it`s a more lingering, if not timeless issue of some «Russian worldview» per se. Something that outlasts political calendars.
And now Mujuice, using the escapist, commercial forms of the 1990s, fills them with an ahistorical, even eternal anxiety. He extends the line connecting two generations of Russian rock — downwards. The slight surrealism of rokapops, born of bizarre local reality, is not going to improve; escapism and existential dread will never resolve their differences. The binarism of popular and rock-realted practice therefore becomes indicative of normality`s biggest lacuna: life in Slavdom offers no golden mean between social collapse and desperate (unconvincing) escapism, caused by that collapse.
Given the local import of these songs, their domestic provenance, and growing sense of horror, «Downshifting» is destined to be seen as a major Russian achievement — for a long time. The album`s title may refer to a freely-chosen social alteration, but these songs speak instead of fate, funerals, and other «downward» movements with little time for individual whim.
The nervous smile of rokapops has changed beyond all recognition.