Slava: “Neon Life” and Slavic Synth-Pop

Originating in Russia, but channeled through the streets of Chicago, is a new release from emigre electronic whiz, Slava.  It’s a more upbeat affair than his “Sunflower” EP that we covered almost a year ago on this site.  It comes, not by chance, at the same time the Pet Shop Boys are celebrating yet another album and 25 years of creative activity.

In this week’s interviews with the UK press, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have noted more than once that the recent renaissance of synth-pop, especially in Great Britain, has now created a “friendlier climate” for electronic music.  There are parallels to be drawn with this Russian release.

The hyper-ironic, often camp version of dancefloor electronica that bands like the Pet Shop Boys produce – even in their early days – has always maintained a certain sense of distance, both from the more severe and glamorous extremes of chartbound colleagues (such as Mute Records or, heaven help us, Duran Duran).

To this day, Tennant and Lowe peddle a dry and knowing type of wit that is predicated on one’s status as an industry outsider, either in person or by singing of society’s insecure, peripheral members.  The characters of their songs are typically a little aside from any societal mainstream, which allows them to consider “normality” askance.  The fact, for example, that Tennant did not publicly admit his homosexuality until the mid-90s only helped to prolong and underscore a gentle, very English “mystique” that their humor required.

This deliberately restrained, understated type of individuality has been radically amplified by the most recent wave of UK synth-stars, the most notable of whom are female solo artists.  Some are driven by what The Guardian recently called the “anti-Radiohead factor.”  Joyful display replaces shoegazing.  Artists in the spirit of La Roux or Little Boots have resurrected the theatrical, more confident aspects of 80s’ synth-pop… and then exaggerated them.

As the newspaper says: “First, they like dressing up. For years, we’ve had nothing to look at in pop, with everyone determined to reinforce their straight-as-a-die sexuality by dressing like posh plumbers (men) and really posh hookers (women).  The LadyPoppers wear what they please: their looks range from loopy to scary, encompassing every cat-frightening haircut and sparkly bootee in between.  Second, these women announce the Return of the Synth… ”

“These women share another thing, too, that’s harder to put your finger on.  A kind of confident, I-don’t-need-an-advert-to-tell-me-I’m-worth-it individualism.”  The artists who spawned this theatrical, glossier aspect of 80s’ music are precisely the performers in Slava’s list of influences.

For example, on his MySpace page he lists The Pet Shop Boys and (Giorgio Moroder’s) Donna Summer.  To this electro-disco we can add other enemies of understatement like Jackmaster Funk, Queen, and the entire cast of Jesus Christ Superstar!

That’s all good in theory, but what about practice?  How do these 80s’ influences combine in this newer, more effervescent recording from Chicago?  What’s amazing is the way in which Slava contextualizes his new tracks.

Together with the mini-album, he offers a couple of promo-paragraphs that describe a club atmosphere, the kind of latter-day glam that one could easily imagine in any major city a couple of decades ago.  The text is worth quoting in full.

We’ve left the English as is.

“The dark wet streets sparkle with reflections of neon signs, break lights and mercury lamps. A pulsating aura emanates from cavernous bars, who’s dim atmosphere provides a solace from the harsh reality of daytime life.  The drizzle doesn’t impede large crowds from lining the sidewalks, and if anything, adds to the hop overall brilliance by covering everything in a glistening mist.  Almost everyone is in costume – bright clothing, futuristic hairstyles, metal chains, spikes, necklaces, ear-nose-lip-brow ring-studs, over-sized fake-diamond-encrusted glasses.”

“Maybe this is the future we read about in sci-fi novels (minus all the post-apocalyptic drama).  Or another planet, somewhere far away from mother earth… Or maybe a dream – an outgrowth of our innermost desires imprinted onto the real world, a fantasy.”

And, in closing: “The neon lights must have generated some sort of portal into this strange world where the unpleasant details, so acutely accentuated by the relentless daylight, are blurred and distorted into agreeable forms, where we can forget about our petty ambitions and abandon the search for meaningless metaphysical entities such as purpose, meaning, reason, love, happiness and maybe for once, actually experience them as they are meant to be experienced – deep down inside – through our primitive animal unindividualized self.”

And this is what’s so surprising.  Both the first and second generations of synth-pop for which Slava has such fondness are clearly designed to exercise an “anti-Radiohead,” stagy individuality.  What does Slava do with Donna Summer and the Pet Shop Boys?  He evokes a profoundly communal state, where everything – and everybody! – “blurs and distorted into agreeable forms.”  Individuality is only realizable through its loss in communality: selfhood is social.

How very Russian.

Download music and images from this site to your smartphone!  Go to www.cloudtrade.com and look for us under far_from_moscow

Visit the complete post at http://www.moscow.ucla.edu/?p=4073