Electronic Melodies

Music as an object of entertainment is probably the main albeit undeclared theme of any DJ-like computerized project feeding on ready audio material. What Maksym Chorny, an expert on electronic musical instruments of Kyiv, does at Club 44 is no exception, as evidenced by his new album Where is the Grass?

Chorny is quite popular with Kyiv rap and hip-hop fans, because he writes music for the rock group, Green Chestnuts. As a solo performer, the young DJ offers himself as a club, more chamber-like musician; his performance during the presentation to live accompaniment was proof of it. Yet it is anyone’s guess what the new album, containing a small concert, is actually all about. The guys played some light electronic jazz, thus fitting nicely into the atmosphere of the cozy semi-basement with its wooden tables and shimmering candlelight. Yet the album (there are some mysterious seeds inside the case) offers something altogether different. What the resourceful Maksym concocted in the Grass more or less conforms to the current lounge lizard trend, or music cocktails and light rhythms, an attractive mix of bossa nova, acid jazz, and 1950s-70s hits. In other words, there must be a “knife for Frau Muller” in every city and Chorny makes precisely such a knife for his Kyiv consumers. Unlike the luckier Russian blades, this product is not as sweet and melodious. The author’s rap and thundering-drum training is especially manifest here, but the principles are the same: broad use of soundtracks from the top Soviet movies, ranging from The Adventures of the Electronic Boy to Office Romance, easily recognizable voices and tunes from such films, traditional pop music converted into rigid disco rhythms. Chorny would not be likely to agree with any of this, yet the trend is obviously there. Today’s pop-culture, searching for quality contents for its opuses, is imbibing generously from a recent past that was by far richer in ideas, melodies, and feelings.

Actually, these melodies are good and old in every respect, and they are the greatest attraction of the new album. It is like playing a half- forgotten charade dating from one’s school years. Tomcat Basilio’s song, a choir singing “The Winged Swing,” sugary voiced Pesniary group, and Alla Pugachova. There is no returning the past, but one can at least play it in one’s electronic present.