A Headphones & The Bottans: Trash-Disco, Irony… and Wobbly Heads

The band “A Headphones” first came into our purview in September 2008; at that time we paid close attention to the vigorous ways in which the ensemble tries to shun all manner of generic or promotional conventions with a devil-may-care outlook. This attitude was best encapsulated in one of their grammatically suspect slogans: “WE ARE 4 UNLIMITED!” The same band has just released some new tracks, together with added textual materials that develop their early worldview in interesting ways.

Formed in 2005, they’ve now toured extensively around Russia. The group’s hedonistic, deliberately chaotic style is designed for the dancefloor, but not in any technically or physically adept fashion; these are the sounds of (cheesy) excess. Throwing together all manner of influences, they quickly leave various notions of taste or restraint behind them in a cloud of smoke. Were someone to ask exactly what A Headphones sound like, that same person might be best served by considering the “Influences” listed on the ensemble’s MySpace page. Once again, issues of overkill come to the fore. The listed Likes and Dislikes tumble together in ways that are anything but systematized: phenomena both classic and kitsch are pushed unceremoniously into the same space.

“A HEADPHONES = Korke B/ Leo DiCaprio/ pop trash/ Dr. Alban/ na hr*n!/ Mescuzzi/ Iron Maiden/ beretik/ Krievija/ sausages/ ninja!!!/ Warhol/ Hitphones/ Deadphones/ Pornphones/ fevers/ THE/ De Niro/ AC-DC/ the pretenders/ gagary/ Duran Duran/ pop-porn/ Deviatini/ Velvets/ God of Rock/ Frankie four fingers/ overdrives/ Uncle F**ker/ Ruby/ gypsies/ Kraftwerk/ Borat/ Kazakhstan/ Destroy Everything You Touch/ the dandy warhols/ whatever…”

The same desire to relate the unrelated is clear in the band’s main logo.

That final listed term of “Whatever” is vitally important. The happiest interpretation would be to take “Whatever” as a willingness to include absolutely any influence, high or low, in a democratic expression of stylistic disorder. The negative option would be to understand “Whatever” as a final, dismissive attitude towards a given project, as an expression of boredom. Between that happy, inclusive outlook and defeatist tedium lies irony.

In order to discover the role of irony here, more of the group’s textual output needs to be investigated. It can be extricated, perhaps, from PR materials. One of the most enthusiastic paragraphs used to promote the work of our musicians reads as follows. (We’ve altered their English a little – but it still makes almost no sense whatsoever; a dislike for capital letters simply heightens the sense of verbal flow, rather than any punctuated, rational argument.)

“A HEADPHONES [are] an accidental selection of randomness… any note, filled with hexogen, every track undergoes the light-reflecting reward in the strawberry stream, combining everything in the single hologram, which expands the brain… There is imitation, sticky like Scotch tape, which is used to attach your head to your shoulders; there is tomato juice regenerated from concentrate and therefore[!] there is the skill of playing without notes – but for currency, which is simple and understandable. It underlines [your?] metabolism and feeling of sticky Scotch tape on your shoulders, bright and clear. This is not ‘brit,’ this is not ‘indie,’ but ‘techno’… this is THE, this is A, this is THE A, this is A THE = A HEADPHONES.”

The paragraph begins and ends with the band’s name; in between are vague references to explosive chemicals (hexogen), saccharine rivers, unstable corpora, and a constant “regeneration” that allows no end to the boom, bang, flush, and flash of some “techno” process. It’s precisely this metaphor of regeneration within a techno/technical concept that has led to the Russian press labeling the band’s ironic treatment of dance music as “trash.” As is evident in these new tracks – including a Eurythmics cover – there’s a deliberate (non-stop!) endorsement of cliches and stereotypes. The excessive use – or regeneration – of dancefloor motifs soon turns anything chic into a clumsy, popcorn aesthetic of endless, “excessive” triviality.

But why the excess? Why the ceaseless overkill? Because despite the inability to play their music with urban(e) competence, despite the deep-seated sense of provincialism, and a huge difference between nightclub glam and the backwaters of Russia, enthusiasm wins out. Surrounded by a marked dearth of fashion, by an empty landscape and an equal lack of money, a maniacal mirth and verve simply refuse to sit still. In fact, we might argue, the less one’s immediate surroundings offer in terms of gloss and glitz, the greater one’s insistence upon happiness and a good time – to the point where your head falls off and only Scotch tape will save the day.

Applying it to your own cranium can be tough.

Another outfit that embodies this similarly grim insistence upon jollity is Moscow’s The Bottans. Originally formed several years ago, they have been officially defunct for over 18 months… and yet came back together this Fall for ten days in order to make a new album by the name of “Vzroslye deti” (Grown-Up Children). They claim it captures – or “regenerates” the “classic mood of their earlier work as a trash-duo.” The Bottans (aka Mikhail Savchenko and Maksim Shishkanov) say that when the group was first formed, “neither member took things seriously. A great deal, in fact, was done poorly – and deliberately so! Vocals were purposefully recorded far away from recording studios – using karaoke microphones. Listeners responded to the band’s work negatively – and sometimes violently.”

“Nonetheless, The Bottans managed to gather a decent number of fans.”

At least four.

According to that logic, they say, “The Bottans should never have reformed… but the right mood came back again. The outfit wanted to work with various abstract associations and odd harmonies.” One of those strange harmonies, one might argue, was made of pleasure and plain. Having related to their work ironically, they nonetheless kept going. Having reached the – more extreme! – point where irony was outpaced by the clear failure (or counterproductive nature) of their music, they still endured.

Never mind the ironic nods and winks, therefore: A Headphones and The Bottans are bands that disregard the option of surrender. A Headphones embody the joy of the dancefloor, even though they know how unobtainable glamor and a moneyed lifestyle may be; The Bottans, similarly, despite their use of po-faced, ambient, and emotionally barren electronica (that nobody really wanted!) keep going, thanks to a love for composing.

The album opens with a vaguely Teutonic voice relating in a flat, monotone manner that information on some mysterious, undefined topic cannot be found. A satiric treatment of Kraftwerk might begin in the same fashion. These opening few minutes dictate the overall structure of “Vzroslye deti.”

The album’s final track is entitled “Alone 2″ (Odin 2), after we’ve passed through all manner of isolated, minor, or superfluous states: “P.S.,” “I’m in Shock,” “The Diagonal of Rain,” “The Smallest Thing,” “Insects” and so forth. “Alone 2″ is composed of sounds that seem to evoke the entrance into a space station’s pressure chamber – before going out into the cosmos. A mildly satirical – or stereotypical – treatment of Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” might spring to mind.

And yet – once again – beyond all stereotypes, professional failures, and public abuse, The Bottans endure.

These are unnatural degrees of zeal.

“Trash,” therefore, seems an inappropriate term. Despite all that these two bands tell us about their throwaway aesthetic, about indifference to the hackneyed hedonism of dance music or the emotionless landscapes of early electronica, they still play – and reform or “regenerate” their lineup, even when it makes no sense… neither emotionally, nor financially! There is no irony here, simply effort – and it often manifests itself against any better judgment.

When the Russian stock market opens for business in the New Year, investing in the manufacturers of sticky tape might be a wise move.

Run to your nearest stationary store.

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