“WTF”: Gentle IDM from a Once-Ruined City Center

This week, the American media is paying unusual attention to events in British primetime entertainment. A middle-aged woman from a small Scottish town has taken the UK by storm: a pathalogically shy, unattractive individual has – to everybody’s amazement – been blessed with a singing voice that brings the deepest cynics to tears. At the time of writing this post, preparations are being made in London for the final show in the talent-seeking series, and this same woman may be crowned the nation’s darling.

There is, however, a problem.

Shaken to her introverted core by sudden, round-the-clock media attention, our singing Scotswoman cracked this week and launched a few well-chosen expletives at nosy paparazzi. Most of these unrepeatable words began with the seventh letter in the alphabet. Suddenly her reputation changed: a woman long deserving of pity was now attracting disdain.

The word in question, made of four letters, embodies a strong desire to dismiss or eradicate something – in this case a man with a large camera. It’s often drawn upon in desperate circumstances, but many people would say that it has now lost its ability to shock, and in actual fact carries no “destructive” power of any note. In that light let’s take a look at four new idm tracks from the city of Tver’.  They come courtesy of a virtually anonymous outfit called “MakeLoveF***War.”

We presume those asterisks cause no obstacle in interpretation.

There are no additional materials to accompany this 18-minute release: no external sites, interviews, or even images.  Given the lack of texts to explain the music, we’re left with context: the musicians’ hometown of Tver‘ on the banks of the river Volga, shown in the photos above and below.

Over nine hundred years old, Tver‘ grew originally as a result of major military conflict. It both benefited from a refugee influx not long after its foundation, but would then would see – by the fourteenth century – major internal conflict as a result of (bad) royal decisions to enter the same fray against Tatar forces. Watching a war makes more sense than fighting it.

The entire city decided to fight those forces head on, but due to a Tatar pact signed with Moscow, Tver’ suffered an awful defeat.  A city that could conceivably have become Russia’s capital was now consigned to the backwaters.

Ivan the Terrible would conquer Tver‘ once and for all in the fifteenth century; as if that wasn’t enough trouble for a while, in the eighteenth century the city would burn almost entirely to the ground. That same degree of destruction would occur again during WWII, too, leaving us with an urban center that despite its ancient origins, now looks as if it were no older than 200 years.

No wonder the music coming from these regions is both speechless and built upon a modest desire to shuffle onto the dancefloor. This, after all, is no high-energy disco romp, but a series of understated, humble instrumentals that cannot even mange sufficient effort to scribble their names in full.

The five tracks are entitled “rew, blu, typ, tri, and fil.”

The band’s name expresses – in pithy terms – a desire that war cease.  The EP’s equally fruity title, “WTF,” is a expression of surprise: something that seemed impossible is suddenly and unexpectedly happening, contrary to all predictions. Placed side by side, the band’s name and EP’s title give us a situation according to which major conflict is sent packing but then – to general amazement – it returns. Time, it would seem, to get on a train to Tver‘ and dance: you won’t have that chance for long.

Local residents expect big problems in the near future, and when bad things happen in Tver‘, they oocur on a major scale.

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