VYACHESLAV POTAPOV

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".

Lilac Garden is the fourth album by Vyachelav Potapov from Kazakhstan. As always, the cover design by the artist himself is very fine. The VP albums have been released digitally only, though the latest one, Water World (2012) was recently released on disc, as we know from the lengthy review that also described the narrative concept in deep detail.

Everything in VP music is created by Potapov alone. There are several one-man acts whose music is amazingly on the same level as group efforts (perhaps the German artist T being one of the best examples today, and with the charming "Return to Ommadawn" Mike Oldfield reminded us of being the grand master in this field). I don't count VP among them. In general his music is, to me anyway, rather clinical, artificial, cold, emotionless, staring at its own navel so to speak (perhaps too clever for its own good just like the early Roz Vitalis). Occasionally the jazzier moments bring some life, but frankly I get very little out of this album too, the same way as with the other one I've reviewed here. 'Swing for a Battle Iris' and 'Was Born in Flowers' last over 8 minutes and they fail to impress me any more than the shorter ones. Quite the opposite actually. VP uses a lot of digitally made brassy sounds lacking of warmth, and the programmed percussion tastes like computer all the way. From the melodic sense the music is, in all its complexity, circling around like a blind man in a big room.

'Green Pound' has a fresher soundscape concentrating on piano and guitar. The slight meditativeness in the latter half of this track reminds me a bit of the instrumental section in YES's 'Awaken', without reaching the similar spellbinding and catharthic power, needless to say. But in this album it's easily the highlight for me. The brief and relatively minimalistic 'Withering' ends the album nicely. OK, I'm ready to raise my rating from two stars I thought of at first, helped partially by the beautiful cover art. This negatively oriented review is just my own reception, and while it may be useful for you (being the only one this album has received at the moment) remember that you may enjoy VP's music much more than I do. But those of us who appreciate warm, organic playing with acoustic instruments and a more emotional feel to the music are kindly adviced to look elsewhere.

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.

VYACHESLAV POTAPOV or simply shortened to VP is a one man show from Almaty, Kazakhstan who released a series of albums in the 2000s in his own DIY fashion. WATER WORLD is his sixth release and what a major improvement in terms of both production and compositional finesse. When i say one man show i really mean that. Not only does VP construct all the tracks in his own eccentric style but plays all the instruments. One will hear guitar, bass, piano, drums and other percussion and many forms of sampling. Not only is VP gifted as a musician but is also responsible for his own cover art and this one depicting three green children on lily pads and intricate detail of waterfalls is not only a beautiful vision of the fantasy in the true progressive rock spirit. With WATER WORLD, everything came together and VP not only caught the attention of the prog world for his exquisite compositional and production skills but has been solicited by other artists for album artwork as well. While WATER WORLD is the sixth release of VP, it is the first to be issued on a physical format. The digital album was released in 2012 but the physical copy albeit lagging behind its initial release is finally seeing the light of day in the tender year of 2017.

Despite being a totally instrumental album, WATER WORLD is actually a concept album about two different civilizations on a planet in some far away place. They are known as the Krokuts and the Hunty. While it is impossible to comprehend the story through a mere listening of this sophisticated and dizzying complex music, VP has given me the green light to give his little story behind each track that hopefully will translate the music ideas into the heads of those who aren't music nerds! WATER WORLD is quite the eclectic mix of sounds and honestly is totally unique as i can't think of anything else i've ever heard that is an equivalent. Musically this one is all over the map with jazzy fusionist tendencies that also incorporate symphonic touches, ethnic influences, tribal drumming and absolutely bizarre transitions as one style tends to overlap with others and sometimes change things up quickly. This is music for musicians as the time signatures are so bouncy and ever changing that its practically impossible to predict where any given musical meandering will lead. Overall there is a strong jazz-fusion component in how the tracks are constructed with everything from Weather Report airy passages playing out to more erratic Return To Forever type of craziness but instrumentally speaking this is more of a rock / electronic hybrid with guitar and bass shining through in times of heaviness but ambient and ethereal atmospheres also permeating throughout.

I could have NEVER figured out the storyline by the music alone. It's far too nebulous and only with the tutelage of VP could i ever hope to assemble a sense of meaning to each track. To make this easy i have listed each track with the thematic explanation of VP in his own words. His English is very poor and i left his Google translations intact as not to corrupt the meanings. I explain a bit of the music afterwards.

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FIRST track "Intro (Unusual Island)"

ship was off course and got lost in a thick fog. In the morning when the fog, the sailors saw a miracle-island. In the center of this island stood a giant size lot of trees woven together and resembled a huge castle.

Musically: starts out as ocean sounds. Waves churning, seagulls with a simple piano line providing the musical setup and ends with a crazy guitar entering at the last second and fading out

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SECOND track "Vegetational Town - a: Great & Magnificient"

landed and began to explore unknown lands. All the flora and fauna differed from what they knew before.

Musically: begins the complex time signatures and changes in tempo with a frog croaking in the background. A funky bass line picks up a rhythm and then all prog hell breaks loose with mellotrons providing atmosphere, a jazzy rock with avant-prog touches. The music meanders into very complex arenas. I hear some Steve Howe inspired guitar licks, Zappa-esque jazz-fusion and even Chic Corea style keyboard runs and ultimately ends with crickets chirping in the background.

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THIRD track "Vegetational Town - b: Stem"

the study, the sailors met a miracle of nature - the tree, the stems of which gave off a glowing liquid that flowed on the ground and freezing was a very beautiful crystals. People have greed began to fill the backpacks and pockets of this strange breed. They do not know that for the local inhabitants it was the sacred tree, and exuding a fluid sacred tears of the gods.

Vegetational Town - including: Invasion of the Field Mice Night, when the sailors took a break. During a night's sleep, they are attacked by hordes of rodents. So people know that the island is not only beautiful but also dangerous.

Musically: begins with an ambient swirling effect of synthesizers in the background and then a jazzy interaction between the guitar and bass. Sounds somewhat like a psychedelic Return To Forever type of sound. The track continues mostly in jazz-fusion mode but picks up tempo with more rockin' percussion and bass.

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FOURTH track "Night Revelation Of Antackena"

about the uninvited aliens, the tribe Khunts turned for advice to his sorcerer Antakhena. Night Adelroth did the ceremony and learned that the aliens had defiled gods currently taking tears of the gods. He got really pissed. It gave people the rodents to scatter them around the island.

Musically: Tribal drums in frenetic speeds are joined by a much slower bass line but picks up fairly quickly and jumps into a frenetic jazz-fusion riff of the guitar with heavy bass and percussion staying chilled out in comparison. It picks up steam at midpoint

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FIFTH track "Geyser"

the same time. Race Krokus also held a ceremony. In their bogs were sacred geyser through which they learned about the aliens.

Musically: starts out slow with clean Floydian guitar lick and cymbals that quickly jump into a more jazz-fusion oriented mood setting. It becomes quite the frenetic jazz-fusion track with all the instruments creating a tempestuous rhythmic dance. The track goes through several shifts of rhythm changes as well as the usual eclectic mix of heavy bass lines with syncopated jazz-from-hell type keyboards

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SIXTH track "Games of Herbs"

beginning of a new day or early morning. I describe as rostitel'nost'û wakes up with first rays of the sun. As dew plays on every blade of grass and every leaf.

Musically: starts off with birds singing as a guitar line gently emerges into the limelight and has a rather Baroque J.S. Bach type of feel to it. Lots of different keyboard sounds dance together. Perhaps a lost Brandenburg Concerto? Well for a while at least. Remains classically rhythmic but becomes jazzy. Really amazing musical mixture here.

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SEVENTH track "Wandering"

a new day and two tribes are feuding with each other Khunts (humanoid) and Crokus (crocodilopolis) gathered for talks. They decided for a short time to stop the war in order to join forces against the aliens. They decided with General witchcraft to inflict on people the magic that has the property of oblivion.

Musically: a steady beat guided by frenetic guitar and groovy bass line. The keys provide atmosphere and tension builds as the recurring groove ratchets up. A brief pause and the keys become the frenetic rhythmic caffeine addicts for a while. While the general rhythmic drive stays the same, it's quite brilliant how the instruments pass the baton taking the lead and carrying it. In the middle of the track everything stops and a drumming display gradually gives way to a new jazzy guitar segment with heavy rockin' drums.

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EIGHTH track "Water World"

: The Taming of  the Geysers ii: ... and on the Water Surface To finish the job they collectively appeal to the mistress of the watery World. Mistress of the watery World through a ritual of "dance on water", which the sailors fall into oblivion. At first this dance is energetic and contains convulsively. The dance Mistress of the watery World produces the Taming of the Geysers. Then the dance turns into a plastic and beautiful ritual (... and on the Water Surface).

Water World. - iii: Detection woke up on the deck of his ship. They can't remember what happened with them before. Around thick fog. At this time two children of the tribe take care of Khunts found by a sailor, whom they found in the woods at night. That is why the sailor left on the island, about him no one knew.

Musically: morning sounds as birds and wolves do their thing and then a quickened groovy bass line meets a piano that seems like it's in its own world. Many counterpoints going on very early. Jazz-fusion feast of the senses with this one. There are many breaks in mood but tempo remains rather steady throughout. Style stays in jazz-fusion as well with a steady rock drum beat allowing the keys and guitars to perform jittery acrobatics all around it. Like most of this album, words don't do it justice. Too removed outside of the listener's experience to convey any sense of musical progressions.

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The good: WATER WORLD musically is a brilliant blend of electronic rock and jazz-fusion dished up with heavy doses of avant-prog sensibilities and sounds like no other album i've ever heard. The compositions are quite good and sophisticated and really do deliver an exciting flow of ideas within the context of the genre fusions mentioned.

The bad: unfortunately despite leaps and bounds above previous albums, this still sounds like a homemade product and in need of a more sophisticated production level. Often DIY albums sound as such because they are lacking the proper percussive drive and i feel that is also the case with WATER WORLD. The drum antics are adequate but it sounds programmed. Also i found it impossible to glean any sort of concept album as it's all instrumental and relied on the artist's input to understand it.

When all is said and done, WATER WORLD is an excellent piece of instrumental music that lover's of electronic rock, classical and jazz should appreciate quite well as the complexities of weaving these styles together is phenomenal however this is a rather heady album that requires extreme attention paid to the details for any sense to be had from it. There are really no periods of breathing room and is indeed a challenging album to appreciate, however if you are looking for something unique from an isolated geographical setting of the world, then by all means check out this fascinating sci-fi tale of different worlds all told in a Pekka Pohjola sort of narration by notes sort of way. It's really worth the effort.

After getting his feet wet on his debut "Sound Dependence," the one man show from Kazakhstan VYACHESLAV POTAPOV or simply VP spent another year learning how to play more instruments and record music and created his second homemade album THERE IS AN END TO EVERYTHING which is yet another instrumental album of strange eclectic arrangements that were primarily recorded with the program Cakewalk and a whole lot of pent up musical creativity just oozing out into the world. This was the first of two albums in 2004. This one was released on May 25 while the following "At Sunset Of Day's" came out on July 22. There is something about this part of the planet where these creative musicians create some of the most ethereal and epic sounding music even if it sounds like it was produced on a small budget. Such is the case with VP where one guy creates some larger than life compositions that sound like they were recorded on the most rudimentary equipment that could be found.

THERE IS AN END TO EVERYTHING is somewhat of a concept album albeit loosely based on the title's universal principle. Basically the role of each instrument is to express the different moods of life. The flute expresses lament for life on the Earth dying while the guitar converses with the flute to remind it that life is fleeting and not lived in vain. The theme is impermanence through the sonic fusion of all kinds of different musical genres. While the opening track "The Man From The San" is more of an ambient and ethereal electronic piece, the second track "Pictures In Rock" picks up the pace with a percussive drive and almost tribal type sound with guitar, bass and electronic embellishments. It's rather free form without any sort of traditional song structure. "The Observer In The Shadow" is the progressive behemoth on the album lasting over 11 minutes and begins with an avant-prog sort of chamber rock type of sound with instruments leapfrogging over each other before totally changing into more of an exotica type of chill out track with vibraphone simulations and a steady bass line playing over a lugubrious synth creeping in and out of the soundtrack of life. This one reminds me a lot of early Roz Vitalis with its avant-garde classical music approach with a steady rock drive to it as well as being sophisticated compositionally yet sounding under baked in the production department. The composition itself is quite brilliant.

"The Fiery Butterfly" is the shortest track and a strange little guitar oriented number that has a piano living in its own world. It's almost as if it's two separate songs going on and then it becomes like three! Very complex musical interactions on this one and sort of sounds like something that should be on a soundtrack. "Difficulty Plaited" is the most easily digested track on the album. It is very jazz-rock fusion oriented with some sort of programmed bass clarinet but becomes more frenetic and erratic as it proceeds. Probably my favorite track actually. And to end the album is the title track which much like the introductory track expresses a VP's Weltschmerz and where he was at the period he wrote the music to this album. VP also created the artwork for the album cover which expresses the mood for the album. Very well done album actually although this is definitely a homed affair that was just a rough draft for future perfection. Not essential but really good compositions. Unfortunately the amateur production detracts from the enjoyment.

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.

- The First Review for this Artist - Vyachelav Potapov (VP) from Kazakhstan makes his instrumental music all by himself. Guitar, bass and programming are listed on the album info, but the sound is more varied (ie. not so clearly guitar-emphasized) than what one could expect from that listing. Of course it is also more or less synthetic, artificial, as opposed to a more organic sound. [Note: All VP albums are available digitally only. They however have pretty fine cover designs too, so I decided to stretch from my principle of not making reviews based on downloads, and - with kind help from the artist - made a couple of VP discs for my use.]

This album is one of the two released in 2004 after the psychedelic debut the year before, starting a growing orientation towards progressive jazz/fusion style. But since the music really cannot be pigeonholed into one subgenre, Eclectic Prog is a valid choice. There are also flavours of Avant-Prog and electronic music. The 8-minute opening track 'The Man from Sand' is an interesting, sonically colourful prog piece. Especially I like the sharp guitar sound reminiscent of the one in 'Sleepless' by the 80's King Crimson. The second, short track is more restricted but it's followed by the largest piece 'The Observer in a Shadow' (11:22). It is pleasantly spatial, rooted on a steady bass motif. Wait a minute, no real drums used? They do sound real to me. The wide sound pallette features (digitally made) horns, reeds and a glockenspiel. The composition has an intense climax of 2-3 minutes which I personally don't enjoy, it sounds a bit noisy and embarrassing.

The briefest one, 'The Fiery Butterfly', feels more like a little sonic excercise than a finished piece, and the 7-minute 'Difficultly Plaited' is where I begin to lose my interest quite badly. Complex, haphazard melodies for the sake of complexity, to me void of emotional meaning. The title track in the end is another highlight in its moody sensitivity. It is calm, electronic music that reminds me of e.g. NIK TYNDALL, or SOFTWARE, ASHRA and other numerous, usually German artists that have been released in the -IC- (Innovative Communication) label.

A bravely eclectic album, to say the least. One may miss the lack of the more organic overall sound (that especially all the jazzy nuances remind one of), and here and there the introvert music may not make much (emotional) sense to the listener. 2½ stars rounded up for beautiful cover art.