CD-R and Quest.Room.Project — “Digital Snow”

This free compilation/collaboration, released today, is well worth your time – if you can actually hear it. The opening track is barely audible and undoubtedly the quietest piece of music on this site. Its authors describe it as the introduction to “electroacoustic glitch or ‘post-noise.’”

“Pre-noise” would be equally accurate.

Nikita Golyshev, shown above and known professionally as CD-R, authored “Digital Snow” together with Bogdan Dullsky (Quest.Room.Project [below]). They worked togehther on this recording virtually, not physically, merging pre-recorded files with real-time performances over a peer-to-peer connection.

In a recent interview, Dullsky explained the interplay between file swapping and improvisation as follows. He tried defining a balance between the limits of prerecorded sounds and the limitless choices of absolute, aimless freedom.

Somewhere in between lies creativity: ”When it comes to improvisation, this is what I do… The first things to consider are the given circumstances. It’s a bit like an actor trying to relive something with his [boundless] heart, albeit inside the limits of the stage. He tries both to relive his character’s experience and to allow it ‘through’ him. In the same way – in those same circumstances of an amorphous [yet restrictive] room – you’ve got to hunt down the main thing. It’s what people sometimes call ‘liberty.’ The driving force behind this project was something similar; we were looking both for stimuli and for reactions to them. If you spend most of your time with a musical instrument in your hands, then a musical syntax, a harmony-based view of the world in all its depth and spatial modes will come together. What I mean is… there’s no need for [desperately-sought] originality… Originality is something you simply cannot avoid!”

The result of this give-and-take is what these two musicians call “a collage of both acoustic and digital pieces, gathered in one snowfall.” Their light, almost unnoticable touch is evident in the opening and closing tracks, simply titled “Parts One and Eight.”

The first and shorter of the two seems a fitting embodiment of the wonderful cover art by Grigorii Kochenov: a light dusting of fractured, twinkling elements through which other distant structures (other songs, perhaps?) can barely be discerned.

Other related works by this duo can be found elsewhere. Despite being only 22 years old, Golyshev’s recordings are scattered across a wide range of electro-compilations: the image below, made of various covers, speaks to his ongoing productivity! His discography can be investigated and downloaded here…

…whereas compositions cataloged under the outfit CD-R, seen performing in the image below, can be found here. Enjoy!