VOLGA 'POMOL' TOUR IN GERMANY 2007
Volga - experimental electronica and pagan songs of ancient Russia
Angela Manukjan – vocals
Roman Lebedev – electronics, [guitar]
Alexei Borisov – electronics, guitar, back-vocal
Uri Balashov – zvukosuk, tibetian cup
"Als einzigartiges Projekt der moskowiter Musikszene kombiniert Volga experimentelle Elektronik und Beats mit russischer Folklore, heidnischer Psychedelia und Gesängen des alten Russlands vom 12. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Live verschmelzen dazu Videoimpressionen mit dem Gesang von Angelika Manukjan, den improvisierten post-industriellen noises von Alexeij Borisow und Uri Balashaov zu Klangbildern mit urbaner Ästhetik." C.Pahl, Feinkost
Volga werden an folgenden Orten in Deutschland und Holland auftreten.
D0. 8.2.Leipzig, Nato
FR.9.2.Dresden, Pushkin
SA 10.2. Nürnberg, Desi
SO. 11.2. München, Rote Sonne
MI 14.2. Oberhausen, Druckluft
DO 15.2. Hannover, Lampe
FR 16.2. Giessen, Domizil
SA 17.2. Berlin, Ausland
SO 18.2.Amsterdam, Ruigoord
MO 19.2.Hamburg, tba
sounds:
http://www.volgamusic.ru/pages/music/music_index.html
henning kuepper
henning@lollipopshop.de
+ 49 (0) 30 - 44 71 46 81
+ 49 (0) 162 - 739 11 77
Volga - experimental electronica and pagan songs of ancient Russia
Angela Manukjan – vocals
Roman Lebedev – electronics, [guitar]
Alexei Borisov – electronics, guitar, back-vocal
Uri Balashov – zvukosuk, tibetian cup
"Als einzigartiges Project der moskowiter Musikszene kombiniert Volga experimentelle Elektronik und beats mit russischer folklore, heidnischer psychedelia und Gesängen des alten Russlands vom 12. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Live verschmelzen dazu Videoimpressionen mit dem Gesang von Angelika Manukjan, den improvissierten post-industriellen noises von Alexeij Borisow und Uri Balashaov zu Klangbildern mit urbaner Ästhetik."
"Volga" is a unique project on the Moscow music scene. It successfully combines experimental electronics, contemporary dance rhythms and original Russian folklore. Pagan psychedelia, shamanism, authentic melodies and lyrics from ancient Russian texts (12th-19th centuries A.D.) mixed with urban aesthetics and contemporary video art are the essential components of Volga's performances.
Volga's current line-up includes: professionally educated vocalist and folklore researcher Angela Manukian (joint projects with Richard Norvila aka Benzo and Species Of Fishes duo); internationally acknowledged electronics specialists and multi-instrumentalists Alexei Borisov (Notchnoi Prospekt, F.R.U.I.T.S., The Gosplan Trio, joint projects with KK Null (Japan), Jeffrey Surak (USA), Anton Nikkila (Finland), Adam Ebringer (Australia), The New Blockaders (UK), Tania Stene (Norway), Sergei Letov (Russia)) and Roman Lebedev (Metal Corrosion, Alien Pat Holman, Idioritmik); Uri Balashov, artist and inventor of selfmade instruments and Grammy winner (artwork for Frank Zappa “Civilization III� album, 1996). The performances of Volga are usually accompanied by video projections created in realtime by Moscow video artist Roman Anikushin and Parisian Oleg Kornev.
Volga often tours in Russia and abroad and has also participated in different international music festivals including Burg Herzberg Open Air 2000 (Germany), SKIF-4 (St.Peterburg, Russia, 2000), Vital Water 2002/04 (Altai, Russia), HUH Festival in Tallinn (Estonia, 2003), The Festival of Russian Contemporary Art in Kiasma Museum in Helsinki (Finland, 2004), “Sayan Ring 2004� (Siberia, Russia), East-West Festival in Die (France, 2004), Progress Ex-04 in Ljubljana (Slovenia 2004), Days of Russian Culture in Bangkok (Thailand 2004), Three Fields Tour in Germany 2005, Unsound (Poland 2006).
The self-titled debut CD of Volga was released in 1999 by Moscow based Exotica Records and received very positive responses not only from critics but also from audiences in Russia and Europe as well. The follow-up CD, “Bottoms up!�, released at the beginning of 2003, is a collection of Volga's most melodic and danceable songs. The third release of Volga was a CD entitled “Concert�, recorded live at DOM club in Moscow and released by Sketis Music in April 2003. The latest CD, “Three Fields,� was released by Volga in cooperation with Sketis Music in 2004.
Discography:
“Volga� (CD, Exotica Records 1999)
“Bottoms up!� (CD, Exotica Records 2003)
“Concert� (CD, Sketis Music 2003)
“Three Fields� (CD, Volga/Sketis Music 2004)
"Selected Works" (CD, Volga/Lollipop Shop 2005)
"5" Remixed (CD, Volga / Sketis music 2005)
Line-up:
Angela Manukjan – vocals
Roman Lebedev – electronics, [guitar]
Alexei Borisov – electronics, guitar, back-vocal
Uri Balashov – zvukosuk, tibetian cup
Slavic Psychedelia encompassing New Global Folk Music
“Volga� is a fanciful blend of postindustrial electronics and archaic percussion coupled to the boundless and finely nuanced voice of Angela Manukian chanting old ritual songs of Russia in her melodic interpretation. If the former has some approximate analogies to Western experimental music, then on the whole the project does not quite fit into traditional categories of electronica/world music, Russian or Slavic folk, or pagan music. Rather all these elements are interwoven in the group’s work into a new music phenomena.
Similar to Peruvian magic songs Icaros, performed by folk healers at ceremonies to expand participants’ consciousness, “Volga’s� songs take listeners’ souls on a journey. To fly up beyond the ordinary into the world of mysteries and forest spirits, of whirl and cosmic resonance where a person opens up to new facets of his/her consciousness. As a result, the healing takes place for a Russian in a world quickly losing its self-identity, in his/her revitalizing connection with the magic of old Russia (in Russian folklore, ritual tunes and Slavic polyrhythmics) and in its harmonious coexistence, in one’s mind, with futuristic arrangements of new global folk music (electronic tribal rhythms and percussion). Either one, enhanced by hypnotic lead vocal, entrances in its own manner, elevating over a humdrum existence to give a sense of celebration and connectedness.
Ancient authentic Russian texts from the 1100’s-1800’s have been gathered by Angela from Russian villages in different regions of the vast country in their own dialects. Each dialect, with its distinctive articulation, forms a unique vocal manner and sound, studied and mastered by the singer in their finest nuances. Her vocal techniques thus range from the academic to Russian Orthodox church to over a dozen ethnic traditions, including those of the Russian Volga area, North, Northeast, Northwest, South, Mid-Russia, Smolensk, Ryazan, Tver, Altai throat singing, Caucasus mountains, Middle East, Balkans, and India. Therefore the Western listener “Volga� takes on a journey into the richness of sound texture of the old and new Russia, never introduced into the world music before. Russian’s mixture of hard consonants and soft round vowels, especially in Angela’s richly intonated delivery, has a lyrical and calming effect. While its fusion with techno, trance, breakbeat mixed with elements of noise and sound of archaic instruments create a danceable ritualistic music with a touch of pagan psychedelia, bringing it to the cutting edge of the new Russian sound.
Anya Zontova
Volga: Three Fields
They sound like bees trapped in a drainpipe and their songs, allegedly ancient, seem modern. Charlie Gillett thinks their strange brew of Portishead and Philip Glass is a winner
Sunday October 17, 2004
The Observer
Volga
Three Fields (Volga/Sketis Music)
There are no guitars on this record. You have a feeling that these Moscow-based musicians probably did once listen to guitars, and quite liked them. It's just that, unlike so many in Britain and America, they grew out of them.
What the musicians of Volga do play, according to the credits on the sleeve, are electronics. Electronics? Have components of amplifiers now become musical instruments in their own right? Something like that, it seems. Sure enough, the noises at the start of each track are unlike anything we've heard before. But they do sound electronic. More to the point, they sound electrifying.
From the moment I first heard the strange sound of Volga, I've been intrigued and fascinated. The circumstances in which I heard them were themselves bizarre. In July, I was one of 10 international jurors at the Sayan Ring Festival of Russian Folk Music in southern Siberia. From 6-11pm on each of three evenings, we sat at a trestle table in the middle of a football field on the edge of a holiday camp with a brief to choose the best three out of a total of 35 acts.
When the jury retired to a room in the stands to choose our winners, we were tantalised by the sound of a band that was entertaining the crowd after the competition had finished. In through an open window floated the eerie voice of a woman who sounded like a long-lost Russian cousin of Annie Lennox; beseeching, yearning, accompanied by inexplicable sounds. By the time we had made our decisions, the band had left the stage. But I did find out their name - Volga - and blagged an album from one of their number.
There's always a danger that with such a build-up, the album might turn out to be a disappointment. But it delivers all the promise of that first introduction, and three months later my fascination is undiminished.
I can't decide which is more arresting - the noises made by those electronic engineers, or the voice of Anjela Manukjan. She sings high on some songs, low on others, and soars like an opera soprano on 'Psalm'. It says on the back that these are pagan songs of ancient Russia, but Anjela makes them sound as if she wrote them.
Each time I listen I hone in on a new favourite, and today it's 'Verejushka', which might have been the one that made me think of Annie Lennox, back in that football field. Behind Anjela, it sounds like one of the boys is dropping ping-pong balls onto a rubber floor, another plays what might be door chimes and a third weaves a bass line that keeps the song moving forward, feeling its way in the dark. If you could trap a bee, put it in a hollow tube and then amplify the noises it makes as it travels to the other end, you might get something like the buzzing, sawing sound that enlivens the second song, 'On the Hill'.
Making a guess at Volga's possible antecedents and inspirations, I imagine they might cite 'I Feel Love' by Donna Summer, 'O Superman' by Laurie Anderson, 'Only You' by Yazoo, Dummy by Portishead and some of the hypnotic, cyclical compositions of Philip Glass and Terry Riley. But the album is less a distillation of those records than a giant leap on from all of them.
There are a couple of songs with enough of a regular beat to make them feel like potential contenders for open-minded dancers, but I've got to admit that the record has not appealed to everybody who has heard it. I happened to have it with me while visiting a friend whose Soho office was next to that of the manager of a young British singer-songwriter, being touted as the next Nick Drake. When he asked me what I liked at the moment, I played a minute or so of a couple of songs from this album. To his credit, he kept most of his discomfort hidden, but couldn't quite suppress a twitch of distaste. I hastily took the album off, not wanting to taint it with anybody's disapproval. On the other hand, radio listeners have rushed to the net in search of their own copy, and with success too - it is sold by a website (
http://www.nbresearchdigest.com/distribution.html) that enables you to deposit your euros with Paypal, so your money's safe.
This has been a year for more good records than any I can remember, but several of them have been reflective, almost nostalgic albums, and I have a feeling that Volga's Three Fields is going to be one that defines 2004 as the year in which we landed with both feet in the 21st century.
Burn it: 'Verejushka'; 'On the Hill'
Contact in Germany:
henning kuepper
stubbenkammerstr. 3
10437 berlin
+ 49 (0) 30 - 44 71 46 81
+ 49 (0) 162 - 739 11 77
Nick Southgate. VOLGA: THREE FIELDS, Wire, November 2004
Throughout Russia’s turbulent history the Volga has always flowed, its 2000 navigable miles an artery of commerce and culture, of peoples and their passions. The group Volga create a music with a similar sense of eternal flow and temporal omnipresence, gracefully melding timeless and ancient folk motifs with the fleeting immediacy of Ambient experiment. This effect is created by framing the vocals of Anjela Manukjan, who adopts Russian folk styles, with electroacoustic washes that stretch out behind the music like vast fertile flood plains.
Opener “Red Roze� sketches out the Volga blueprint. Treated sonic artefacts from stringed instruments scuttle an trickle into white noise tributaries while the implacable soaring vocal, endlessly doubled and redoubled, pushes on in its smooth but deep running legato course.
“Snow Balls� is faster paced, with an electropop pulse of blips and squeaks and a sample from cult Pebbles garage rockers The Calico Wall’s “Flight Reaction�, an indicative yardstick for Volga’s eclecticism. Such fare has led confirmed fan Charlie Gillett to compare Volga with the early and more imaginative Eurythmics singles, and the comparison has the merit of being both insightful and informative.
In almost all instances the instrumental backings are distinctive, quirky and interesting enough to be compelling in their own right. Very occasionally, gentler passages flounder in insipid meanders akin to budget ‘moods’ albums of the type producers wishing to give the vocals a cliched faux dignity might favor. However, these moments are rare and it would be churlish to let them hinder one’s pleasure of following Volga as they flow home to the sea.
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