Uniquetunes: Vinyl Elitism Comes to Russia!

In some well-financed quarters, vinyl is starting to outsell CDs; the allegedly “warmer” sound of vinyl, the huggable dimensions of a 12″ record, and the endurance of club culture have all helped to stave off the extinction of black, brittle discs.

The excellent jazz-funk outfit Uniquetunes are doing their fair share, too.   This sizable outfit from St. Petersburg has caught our attention before.  Now they’re doing so again with a three-track EP; it can be listened to at MySpace and acquired by sending a request to uniquetunes@mail.ru.

Accompanying text informs us that these three tracks (two of them segued) were recorded live, “with maximum levels of improvisation and individual freedom among the eight musicians.”  In their most recent interview they’ve described this release as an overt experiment, both in terms of the vinyl format and musical structure, too.

For example, they planned ahead of time to let each of the eight band members have a clear-cut solo throughout the course of the EP.  “After all, we always work in an environment of absolute equality; it allows us to reach a state of unity.  And to operate as something of a creative organism.”

Otherwise known as complete chaos.  Notions of orderly behavior in Russia are relative; just hire a car and spend a day on the roads.

Uniquetunes hope these tracks will reach the turntables of “progressive DJs,” by which they mean people who won’t try and splice their instrumentals with a “seven-minute piece of techno!”  Over and above any plans for the club scene, the outfit’s use of vinyl has also allowed them to support their contention that “music in a digital format, despite its relative novelty, is pretty much dead.”

We’d like to see some facts and figures for Russia; in the US, for example, sales of vinyl rose overall by 46% in 2008.  New releases (of new material) in the same format grew by 89%.  It’s also harder to bootleg: the picture below, for example, could be the sly handover of a memory stick, full of illegal music.  Were those same songs on vinyl, one of these people would fall over.

Vinyl is a manner of musical presentation that our Russian jazzmen see both as prestigious and more serious than a handful of mp3s.   They compare an LP to an original artwork, whereas CDs and mp3s can “easily be reproduced for the masses.” The aforementioned warmer tones of a record allow for a “transition from the sounds – such as they are – to the emotions.  Vinyl is the right thing!”

Beginning from these fairly straightforward observations that speak to issues of sound quality and prestige, the band then place their production choices in a broader and more subjective context.  The decision to avoid digital formats is even something they align with a certain spiritual standpoint!

“This idea came to us through a certain religious stoicism, through Indian philosophy.  For us, music is connected to asceticism.  It’s a struggle with one’s passions.  The way to self-awareness.  A return to subjective, archaic forms.”

Like the 12″ with a crumpled cover and scratched grooves.  Or groovy scratches, as the case may be.

One of the musicians chips in:  “We tried to reach a kind of unconscious state here.  We made this record with all our heart and soul.  There’s absolutely no post-production.  Just the way real jazz should be.  No big egos, either!”  Once again they turn to Darwinian parallels: “We all felt ourselves to be in a single organism; in harmony with one another.”

In terms of where this fluid, natural state of experimentation will take them next, Uniquetunes say they hope to involve a violin sextet in future studio sessions.  Whether this is serious or not, we cannot say, for this proposed plan is – allegedly – that the band first try some punk recordings… which will take them into classical music, “and then back to punk again!”

The easiest and most reliable way to test these hypotheses – or their seriousness! – is to examine a good chunk of time, and see whether metaphors of “fluidity” and “organic metamorphosis” have actually shaped the band’s catalog.  Thankfully their older recordings are available for free download.

Click, grab, dance, and evolve.  A round of applause for Mother Nature, please.

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