Swanky Tunes: Bricklaying as a Worldview

Swanky Tunes, a well-known DJ-ing outfit from Smolensk have now released their new CD, “All About Us.”  This comes at a time when they’re laying claim to the title of “Russia’s Best Live Electro Project.”  Barely have we had time to process that accolade when we’re told they’re also “Russia’s Equivalent of Daft Punk.”  It remains unclear who made these statements, though they’re no doubt attributable to one of ST’s four members (below): Vadim Shpak, Dmirii Burykin, Syanislav Zaitsev, or Vadim Bagdasar’ian.

Let the giggling begin: Right, then. Which one of you is making these grand claims?

The new release comes courtesy of Moscow’s World Club Music, a small but discerning organization.  This suggests that they’ve parted company with Uplifto, through whom they published their first album, the appealing – and very French-sounding – “Streamline” (2006).  As a consequence of its success in club circles, Swanky Tunes found themselves playing playing most of Russia’s big dance festivals.  These travels and increasing exposure to varied venues has had a direct consequence on ST’s trademark noise, since this new CD no longer sounds like an Uplifto project.  It’s the first real statement of independence from a label that tends, if we’re honest, to homogenize its artists somewhat.

“All About Us,” the very title of which resembles a statement of incipient self-awareness, is being promoted as a collection of mixes that fall into the general category of “dirty house.”  Lest that also sound a little too unified in its intention, the members of ST have been keen to point out the presence of techno, trance, and new-rave here, too.

It makes sense for this collective to stress a multitude of styles in their work, since at the recent dance festival in Sochi they took the challenge of fashioning a hit track from scratch in fifteen minutes.  If you promise to produce quality goods at that speed, you need a big tool-box.

Swanky Tunes, embodying a similarly bold type of self-expression for the new material, call “All About Us” their first solo compilation in that it contains their own tracks, remixes thereof, and even a couple of compositions that have passed through the hands of friends and colleagues, namely Hard Rock Sofa (who are also from Smolensk) and DJ Grad (a Moscow resident, though he’s originally from Volgograd).  The actual tracklist begins as follows – and here we offer a few of the opening numbers as examples of what to expect:

Topspin, Andy Fink & Matuss – “Modena” (Swanky Tunes Remix)

Haji & Emanuel, Bryan Chambers, Beverly Knight – “The Pressure” (Swanky Tunes Remix)

Swanky Tunes – “Equilibrium” (Original Mix)

Cherry Lips & Marcus Firelli – “2 Stars” (Swanky Tunes Remix)

Geba – “Hot” (Kamanaft’s Da Space Remix)

In this varied line-up, it’s worth recalling once more the fact that Swanky Tunes define their departure from the Uplifto sound as “dirty house.”  If an Uplifto rack can be recognized in the dark at a distance of several miles, dirty house by its very nature is a muddled, “impure” aesthetic.  Swanky Tunes pride themselves, as we see, on their improvisational skills, and their new trajectory matches that pick-up aesthetic much better.  There’s a nice parallel, in fact, between the role of dirty house for these men and the reputation, for example, that it first had in San Francisco.  This topic is especially close to our hearts, since it involves earthquakes.

Look! 7.0 on the Richter scale and no hands…

The ability – or desire, even – of dirty house to deconstruct and remake itself, over and over with all manner of elements, was likened by San Francisco DJs to plate tectonics:  “Change has come with a thud again to a city used to earthquakes, only this time it’s not building foundations that are shaking, but the town’s music sense . Call it electro-house, disco-punk or bleep-funk–however you refer to the gritty dance groove taking over Fogtown’s tastemaker watering holes, one thing’s for sure – it’s dirty…”

As if that list wasn’t long enough, musicians in northern California could also ascertain bits and pieces of Detroit electro, Chicago acid house, and Italo-disco in the new mixes.  If towns along the San Andreas fault believe this is a fitting sound for local clubs, somehow it’ll be just as applicable to four young men from a city that was ruined twice over – by both Napoleonic and Fascist troops.  On both occasions Smolensk rebuilt itself from available materials.  Willing hands were available to get the job done.

OK! Who’s got bricks lying around at home?

At the height of a recent gig in Kazakhstan, the band suddenly lost all electricity to their instruments and amps, except for the keyboards and vocals.  Their response?  To keep going.  To take the remnants of a ruined show and start building with what they had.  Should the music business ever turn its back on Swanky Tunes, we suspect that Shpak, Burykin, Zaitsev, and Bagdasar’ian have a bright future as improvisational speakers.

Or brickies.

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