North Eurasia Found Tapes: 001–050

This collage by Egor Klochikhin comprises fragments of the (post)Soviet everyday retrieved from obscurity, shards of a time gone by that, with the help of the attentive vision and hearing of a historian, are transformed into a tale of past, present, and future.

The mixtape is based on digitized recordings from the enormous archive North Eurasia Found Tapes, which Egor Klochikhin and artist Ekaterina Egorova have carefully preserved and made freely accessible.

The recordings on these cassettes present the everyday life and musical tastes of the (post)Soviet person: Russian variety, foreign pop, classical, electronica, new age, educational programs, outtakes from everyday speech. At some point people listened to or (re)recorded these sounds: for entertainment, for relaxation, for education, for healing, for distribution, for study, for revelation.

All of the audio materials recorded on the tapes were either forgotten or lost by their previous owners before ending up in Klochikhin and Egorova’s archive. The sounds are now mixed up with other sounds—most of the tapes were used by Egor to create new compositions. Perhaps this process should be referred to as transformation rather than disappearance.

The tapes were found in Berdsk, Yakutsk, and Moscow from 2015 to 2021.

Cover: Courtesy Katya Egorova

Bio

Egor Klochikhin is a musician, artist, and history teacher. As Foresteppe he has released several albums on Russian and international labels. Since 2017 he has also been involved in creating sound installations.