Archival Recordings by Alexei Taroutz (and Where Not to Enjoy Them)

The Russian Association of Independent Genres (RAIG) has today turned back time by approximately 18 months. The association has dragged from its vaults a “lost album” by Aleksei Taroutz (i.e., Taruts) entitled – fittingly enough – “Eternal Number of Repeats.” It consists of ten instrumental tracks, running in total for approximately half an hour. Bearing the trademark sound of Taroutz’s discordant, slack-handed, and threatening guitar work, the album clearly invites multiple connections with his more famous “avant-rock quartet,” I AM ABOVE ON THE LEFT.

That project took an indefinite break from recording in 2006, leaving Taroutz free to experiment in more fluid forms – and commit times to parallel ventures, such as film scores, and this album. Colleagues, it seems, did not react to those plans with immediate respect.

The tracks on this “new” album bear no titles, as such. They are simply named after their running time; the first number, for example, is called “8:30,” because it lasts for that long. It is here that the issue of “eternal repeats” emerges, and not only because of the instrumentals’ structural similarities.

When I AM ABOVE were at their peak, they worked according to a principle of edited jams. Long, improvised sessions would be played in the studio, operating on the assumption that every so often a real groove or sense of synchrony would fall into place, endure for a few minutes – and then dissipate, only to congeal again some time subsequently. Hence the frequent predilection for grainy images in the band’s PR materials, proffering a degree of clarity either prior to – or after – complete focus.

Though static, such images speak consequentially of process, passage, and change.

That perception or assumption of repeated peaks and troughs, even within supposedly “formless” improvisations, leads us to view this quieter, much less funky series of instrumentals as the sounds either of an impending, coherent section of a jam or – conversely – the slow deceleration of synchrony back into relative disorder. The music below, therefore, operates as a sonic equivalent of the image above.

And, if we take the theoretical implications of the LP’s overall title even more literally, then those “eternally” reiterated waves eventually soon come to undermine the very idea of musical progression or linearity altogether. They both speak of and subvert issues of progression in the following way. By structuring themselves along “vertical” principles, say, of regularly increasing/decreasing volume, rather than anything linear (”verse-chorus-verse,” for example), notions of progress will eventually fall away. Through the endless repetition of a process, that same process becomes a state. We are in music, pure and simple – with no structural obligation to stop.

A sonic structure moves forward in order to cast a glance back at its own “undulating” development – and thus subvert/disown it. An impudent, challenging, and backwards glance would be thematically appropriate.

Thank you.

This logic can be extended further; thus far we’ve suggested that our ten tracks could, theoretically, be either brief preludes or afterwords to better-known and more formal instrumentals by I AM ABOVE. Given that these archival recordings were made almost two years after the cessation of IAAOTL, one is also left with the sense that Taroutz here is building up speed for some of the “second wave” material that would soon appear from WOGULOW TAROUTZ VERMO. After all, the latter project would indeed owe much to the former. Any work done in between them would – perhaps inevitably – be labeled as an intermission of sorts before another crescendo from another project. Both the towering achievements of Taroutz’s official ensembles and the tentative wheel-spinning of these ten compositions are, in principle, “eternally repeatable.”

And indeed, since last summer, IAAOTL have been dabbling once again, with Taroutz and Artemii Galkin on guitars, plus Pavel Eremeev on drums. Round we go, yet again.

Any (re)appearance in another/previously encountered ensemble or project is likely to produce a new flurry of press activity, leading – most probably – to a few new fans, as well. In that light, it was both interesting and entertaining to read on a semi-anonymous blog recently how one young Russian came to grips with the challenging noises produced by Taroutz. The following is a true story…

“A really funny thing happened to me recently. It wasn’t all that special, but nonetheless I reckon it’s worth a few minutes of your time. I got up very early this morning and was in a really good mood, too. I’d slept well, but that doesn’t guarantee that things are going to go well… In any case, I got up, ran a bath and climbed in. A little later, I heard some kind of sound, like a squeaking noise from a garden swing. It just got louder and louder, all around the apartment…” It started repeating eternally, so to speak.

“Then somebody rang at the front door. I went to open it, even though I’m naked. Some elderly lady is in the doorway. Totally untroubled by the fact I’m undressed, she asks me: ‘What’s that terrible noise?’ Her voice, if I’m honest, sounded like some kind of violin – it rang out all around the considerable expanse of my stately abode! (It really was that nasty-sounding.) I started to justify myself, saying that I can’t find the source of the noise… which is starting to scare me a bit. I invited her to come in and check for herself. I said she was free to dig around wherever she wanted, if she thought I had some secret speakers hidden away.”

Below we see one possible reaction to such complaints from prying neighbors.

“I told her I didn’t have any speakers anywhere. Then she says: ‘It’s the building talking to you!” – in her screeching voice. I answered that she was taking things a bit too far. That didn’t sound likely at all! I listened to a couple more of her ‘theories.’ Then I realized that I should probably ask her who she is… but it was too late. I suddenly woke up – in the bath! Turns out that I was talking to myself and listening to an album by Wogulow Taroutz Vermo! It’s a good album… but my story’s better! I bet it would make a good review.”

“I fell asleep. In the bath! Then that old lady comes. Maybe she was DEATH… and the music saved me?! Maybe you think this is funny, but I could have drowned in the bathtub! It’s dangerous to sleep in the bath!!”

Indeed, the damage can be severe. Listen to these songs in a sober, vertical position, far from objects with sharp edges.

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