SOUND DEPENDENCE

When you think of eclectic progressive rock whether it be the hard driving kind or more psychedelic in nature, many parts of the world come to mind but the former republics of the ex-USSR aren't usually amongst them. However nestled away amidst the endless supply of -STAN countries occasionally a lone progger finds his way out of the local scene and rises up to make him/herself heard on the world scene. Emerging from the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan comes the eclectic musician VYOCHESLAV POTAPOV who got interested in prog in his teen years during the 90s but due to his adventurous musical tastes in a part of the world not inclined to engage in such practices found little success in creating his dream band. By the time the millennium turned over the odometer POTAPOV was ready to take his musical endeavors in his own hands and began creating his own music in 2003 which yielded the results as this first offering to the world called 'SOUND DEPENDENCE.'

This debut album reflects the earliest efforts of POTAPOV's musical experiments and a testament to his creativity finding a way to express itself. 'SOUND DEPENDENCE' is unlike the rest of his canon and the only album to be primarily based in psychedelic rock before he would unfold his tastes into more eclectic and jazz-fusion oriented material. This debut is very much a DIY (do-it-yerself) affair and was titled 'SOUND DEPENDENCE' because it was recorded minimally with only a 6-string acoustic guitar, bass, microphone and drum samplers and had to be tweaked in the production process with different kinds of compressors that allowed the minimalism to maximize the results. True that the album feels like a homemade piece of art (because it is) but it is evident even at this primeval stage that POTAPOV had an ear for all things prog with a heavy leaning on the 60s psychedelia and Krautish lysergic offerings of the 70s.


'SOUND DEPENDENCE' sounds fairly rich considering the scant instrumentation involved. POTAPOV ekes out a plethora of possibilities despite it all and creates some crazy surreal soundscapes with some outstanding compositions. The album flows quite organically as the opening track 'Jungle' slowly unfolds its mysteries into a rhythmic march of electronic noises that slowly intermingle with the guitar and percussion. The different parts dance side by side by slowly become freer and freer until they sound like totally unrelated parts and then fall in line again. While this isn't quite progressive rock per se at this point, it is more of an experimental ambient type of album that includes rock aspects that weave in and out of the cosmic flow of things. A tripper's paradise type of album if there ever was one and probably the absolute strangest album i've ever heard from Kazakhstan! OK, maybe the only one as well ;) Just check out the sublime 'Ant Hill' where the percussion simulates the busy army of ants and the detached bass line adds strange bop inspired fret workouts.

While much of the album is a river of pleasant sounds ebbing and flowing together like a brackish river mouth meeting the sea, some tracks such as 'The Story Of Arabian Wise Man' have a definitive guitar groove that provides a melody and reminds me much of early 70s Krautock trippers such as A.R. & Machines meets Guru Guru. POTAPOV utilizes all tricks available with back masking and interesting time signatures where different sounds overlap in complex polyrhtyms garnished with sound effects and ambience. While this isn't the best of what POTAPOV has to offer, 'SOUND DEPENDENCE' is a unique listening experience that already displays fully developed compositions that don't quite reach their potential due to the underdeveloped production techniques. Still though this is a pretty good album worthy of any psychedelic rock fans' attention.

This is the debut album of Vyacheslav Potapov from Kazakhstan. The music was written in the 1990s but the album was recoded in 2003. The music here sounds both different from his later albums and almost anyone else. Very original sounding. The main instruments here are drum machine and guitar; the style is avant and spacey with lots of improvisation. In contrast, his later album are more symphonic and/or jazzier with more diverse instrumentation. "Jungle" opens with backwards effects. After a few minutes grows into a groove. Varied vocal sounds follow. Once the singing begins it sounds very weird due to the playback speed and effects put on it. Tempo speeds up towards the end.

"Ant Hill" starts out almost funky sounding. Eventually it settles down into a bass solo on acoustic guitar. Ends with some bluesy guitar playing. "Hydro" is one of the highlights. Starts funky with an almost hip-hop styled beat. Music gets more busy with different acoustic guitars filtered through different effects. About halfway the beat gets faster and louder with blasts of keyboard-like sounds. Shortly after the tempo slows down. "After The Shadow" is upbeat and jazzy with weird sounding effects over toame from the amount of post- production applied to the album. A very good one-man-band project release which sounds uniqp. Gets more subdued sounding and atmospheric. Eventually gets more avant and menacing. Good short guitar solo over halfway.

All the albums of Vyacheslav Potapov are available on Bandcamp. Sonic Dependence got its name from all the post-production applied to the recording. I will give this album 4 stars.

In 2003 Vyacheslav Potapov (aka VP) released his debut album. The opening is very interesting: "Jungle" starts with birds, voices and noises over a 5/4 bass line. Later it grows with the addition of guitar, heavy distortion, other noises, then the base stops and there's a drums solo, then noises again. If it was for this track only I would have considered VP as Avant/RIO, or at least a psychedelic gui. Yes, Jungle can be considered a psychedelic track also in consideration of the noisy drums lead last minutes and the psychedelic coda in which the initial bass line reappears for few seconds.

In "The Story of Arabian Wise Man" which is mainly a weird blues with some oriental influences, VP has put a sort of wah-wah on the guitar plus some distortion on bass. Because of the sound effects, this track, too, sounds psychedelic.

Birds chirps are the bridge to the following, short, track: The Cascades, in which an untuned acoustic guitar is likely played sliding a pencil on the strings. The same effect used sometimes by SUPERDENSECRUSHLOADFACTOR. This track has a Krautrock feeling.

"Ant Hill" is another curious title. Maybe the high pitched sounds behind want to give the idea of ants quickly coming and going. I hear some blues imprinting also in this track, but the sounds and the crazyness of the effects are a remind to CAN. There's a number of effects behind the "ants", including a double bass solo which is jazzy but sounds weird in this context. Very trippy. very Kraut.

"To Light" remains on this soundscape. Few guitar (pencil played probably) notes and acoustic bass create a weird minimalistic thing. Differently from the previous track, there's some drumming, like the marching of a train whil the guitar is dubbed, so two guitars play the same few notes on different octaves and the track becomes more chaotic then calms down, then chaotic again.

"Hydro": drums with guitar playing in the background at low volume. I'm not expert in Krautrock, but again I think to CAN. This time he seems to have had some fun with his strange guitar. In the most convulse part is like the guitar strings are played using drumsticks.

Finally, "After The Shadows" is more on the psychedelic side of the thing. The sounds are weird as they are throughout he album, but there's some jazz, at least until a disconnected drum solo is helped in making noise by a skilled contrabass playing united with what sounds like a jack put directly on the guitar pick-ups. Some rest, then it's again drums and bass with some strange guitar notes. At a point, there's also a tape played backwards adding noise to the thing. The guitar is heavily distorted and what results is tendent to space rock. I'm sure the artist has had a lot of fun while making it. About 10 minutes of absolute crazyness with a bluesy final.

Very challenging and not for everybody, but who wants to make a trip into a weird realm should give it a try. All the VP albums are available onBandcamp, actually at "Name your price".