One of many excellent, excellent things which we have recently received in a box from Moscow via our friends at Stellage - in this case, it's this Zumvo tape, the fourth release on highly-promising Moscow label CANT -


We were very glad to be made aware of these sounds from, and via, the russian underground with this box of tapes and vinyl, including this particular - Killlllllerrrrr Zumvo offering of (post)punk, beat-tape style magic.

Cool in the original sense; that Way-Out Groovy Sound the kids used to love, somewhere between Piero Umiliani’s 60s beat-beats on “To-day's Sound” and Can & Faust’s instrumental proto-hip-hop stylings. There’s a subtle Broadcast/Focus Group ring to it too, much of it feels closer to origin in the Radiophonic universe than the US beat/MPC scene. The breakbeats feel more akin to the school of Italian library music than any trip-hop.

Highly expressive and luscious guitar arrangements feature on most tracks, though the variety in style is massive. Never sitting still, each track acts as a storyboard. Overheard conversations sound as if they’ve been covertly captured from Number Stations, synthesizers warble in like celestial radio transmissions.

& now check what Zurkas Teplas, aka the brain behind CANT, can tell us:
"Zumvo is Alexander Artem'ev from Moscow, Russian Federation and Disintegration. Magnetic recording and vinyl electroplating engineer plays records and tells stories. Started as acid folk experience in 2017 at Saulkrasti, Latvija. And now we have what we have - groovy sound collages with telegram messages, vinyl scratches, synths, acoustic guitar, mpc glitches, etc."

The fourth (nominally) release comes to CANT (chronologically the third, huh). This is Sasha Artemyev's album "Razvodi" (marbles). Today his alias is Zumvo, and I have known Sasha for almost 20 years. Artemyev played punk and hardcore, as well as Hatsue Kill, Panihida, Bicycles For Afghanistan. Actually, once upon a time we also played in the same band, recorded music together and walked around Tushino. I think I was still in school at this moment. The last 6 years, we did not particularly communicate.

I don’t have a press release or some kind of genre description on my hands, and I’m not good at reviews or selling texts, that is, the situation is worse than that of some kind of nippy music journalist. This cassette is the music of a good-natured rascal, not in the sense that its author seeks to deceive you, to benefit from contact with you, more like a cheeky person, childish in some way. It is a way chosen by the lyrical hero to cope with himself and others. Funny optional conversations, relaxed guitar jams. Even the wild stereo, in which fragments of the compositions are located, surprisingly discharges the air inside this recording - it is easy and comfortable to move around.

This release, not as an album, but as an event, rests on fragments. Cuts of audio messages, samples of randomly heard records, pieces of biography and memories. We drew each cover with my daughter Alice - tapes (50 of them) are wrapped in originals, there are no identical ones. And Sasha sorted out Unity to collect virtual space for the album, and this is again a collage in which you can find tracks and songs from the album, hanging screeches of whales or dolphins"


Basically - this shit rocks!
...Turn it up and try not to raise a smile.


Edition of 50. Each one with a totally different cover.
Blue tapes, printed onbody.

Assembled, mixed and mastered by Zumvo
Artwork by Zurkas Tepla and his daughter Alice


alexander uspensky - guitar, synth (5)
alexandra semenova (.noa) - synth (1,5), vocal (4)
ekaterina leonova - synth (5)
mcs kobra667 and abbakorn

TRACKLIST:
1. Зумво 03:12
2. Городки 03:48
3. The Mad Pilot 05:42
4. Отдых от отдыха 03:31
5. Полетели 03:40
6. Поплыли 02:24
7. Как проходит путешествие 01:34
8. Группа у Артема 02:13
9. Марево 03:13
10. Весело 03:37

Зумво

Городки

The Mad Pilot

Поплыли