OMSK ELECTRIFICATION

The mix by Margenrot (a project by Lusia Kazaryan-Topchyan) is built around the «wrong» music of industrial Omsk. Lusia’s first musical experiments explored the Siberian experimental electronic scene of the 2000s. Margenrot finds unusual combinations in which lo-fi field recordings feature alongside noise improvisations and dark ambient with digital hardcore.

«In the 2000s, everyone on the Omsk experimental electronic scene was looking for their own unique language, boldly mixing genres. I like this kind of vibe, when everyone does their own thing without looking back at colleagues. So, I have lovingly collected the musical pearls of the electronic scene of the city into this mix.

The Omsk underground was influenced in one way or another by the bands Grazhdanskaya Oborona and Kommunizm, including all of their side projects, and by brothers Evgeny and Oleg Lishchenko’s rock band Pik Klakson. In the early 2000s, the scene was dominated by guitar music. The legendary Mikhail Kolesnik (PyleSOS, Samantha Smith, Venerar) was responsible for "Tar" grindcore and noise metalcore, Dmitry Krab and Simon (Energiya) made spatial dark ambient. Artist Anton Gudkov explored noise improvization and collage techniques (U, prop dept). His works—collages imbued with the atmosphere of industrial Omsk, composed of the "trash of the past" — are now held in Garage Archive Collection.

With the advent of computers and the Internet in the mid-2000s, the electronic scene began to take shape, giving birth to a strong community of young musicians and sound producers toward the end of the decade. The electronic experiments of James Alexander Darkforce were notable for their idiosyncratic, surreal texts. In parallel with the noise scene, Andrei Mitroshin created his own lo-fi island. His method of writing music is marked by a unique analogue tape sound: "I recorded on my cassette portastudio using Soviet synthesizers and ran the music through tape dictaphones and our family Japanese Panasonic radio tape recorder from the 1980s." He was not afraid of the classic way of working in Fruity Loops, believing that the means are secondary, the main thingis the result. Mitroshin’s label Dopefish Family released Silver Boy, a detachment of post-irony and absurdity from prokin, Michanika, Myachina, romantic synth-pop Modulya, and, of course, Andrei’s own multiple projects: Milky Toad, Arm Author, later Kenneth Anger (with participation from Karina Kazaryan’s and me), Prodavtsy-Konsultanty, Biznesmen.

My group RX also experimented with genres: our music was reminiscent of Sonic Youth with broken rhythms. Later, together with Nikolai Rudik, we launched the electronic digital hardcore project Meatbeat featuring screaming vocals à la Atari Teenage Riot and managed to record a couple of tracks (one of which I included in the mix). In 2010, I moved to Moscow to keep making "wrong" music.

Margenrot worked with the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art archive.

Cover: Anton Gudkov, K.ultura / Zima, 2014. Artist’s book. Garage Library

BIO

Lusia Kazaryan-Topchyan is a composer and sound producer. While studying costume design at Omsk State Institute of Service, she was experimenting with music. She is the founder of the band PX, the electronic project Meatbeat (together with Nikolai Rudik), and her solo project spinetv. After moving to Moscow in 2010 with her sister Karina Kazaryan and Diana Burkot, she founded the female experimental noise-rock band Fanny Kaplan. In the same year, with the participation of Karina Kazaryan and Andrei Mitroshin (Dopefish Family), the lo-fi shoegaze group Kenneth Anger was formed. In 2017, after the collapse of Fanny Kaplan, she launched her solo project, Margenrot. Margenrot’s discography includes two LPs (Zangezur and Obkhod) released on the Klammklang label. She has participated in Donaufestival, Urvakan Festival, Schwetfest, and Contra Pop Festival.