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There's a wide range of style and generations in
the exotica label. What makes the identity of EXOTICA?
Exotica is a label for music-lovers, for those who
understand the music and want to listen to something more interesting,
modern and unusual than one-day-lasting hits ,
which are everywhere nowadays on TV and radio. Exotica produces innovative,
original music. Music that is not a copy of something that already existed
before. I point attention to everything happening in the music world and I
try to keep in touch with modern tendencies, inspiring and creating a new
music trend in our country. I want Russia to have at least a label which
will not cause a great feeling of shame, a label with a good reputation,
whose policy wouldn’t cause doubt, a label that produces music of an
international level and not just for inner consumption. Actually, Exotica
is a fabric of new ideas, we produce a tinned music containing brainfood.
This is a new product on the market that not everybody needs. Thus, make
no mistake, that’s an edgy work.
Did some artists in particular inspired you to create
Exotica? Who were the first artists to contribute 10 years ago?
All my life I had been
collecting vinyl, later CD and for the last 15 years I was deeply involved
into everything in that way or another connected with modern music: I
organized concerts and festivals, created radio and TV programs, published
musical calendars, wrote articles and reviews, I was a producer of some
artists, I released CDs, was engaged in distribution of CDs and LPs and so
on and so forth. That’s why after a certain time, research for talented
artists from different cities and regions of Russia became the main
purpose of my work. I tried to support these artists in any possible way:
their records were broadcasted in my weekly program on “Radio Rossii”,
they were shot for our program on TV and their videos were broadcasted as
well, concerts were organized, they were invited to participate in
festivals. In the mean time lot of my friends who are music-lovers step by
step moved from the music consumption to the music creation. Thus, a new
scope of musicians-adherents appeared in the middle of 90-th around
Exotica Association. Many of these people were already no just bearers of
interesting ideas, but already mature artists working in studios
possessing records of a convincing quality. The sophisticated composer
Ivan Sokolovskii, electronic duet “Vidy Rib” (Kinds of fish), that has
already managed by this time to publish its first album “Song
of The Dumb World” on
Dutch label Staalplaat, young musicians from Moscow “K.U. Spring Street” were particularly
distinguished. It was them who inspired me to create the label Exotica.
However, the first release of the new label was the debut album
“Zapara” of unique ethno-psychedelic band from St.-Petersburg Ole
Lukkoye. That took place in September of 1996, and in December of 1999
Exotica obtained a sublabel Exotica Lights, created specially for dealing
with lounge, downtempo, nu jazz, trip hop and easy listening music. Now
there are approximately 30 albums in our catalogue.
What are the main Exotica's projects for the year 2003?
We have big plans as usual.
In January, new albums of interesting stylish and promising artists will
be released. Dr Tikov, the participant of projects Netslov and
Mare Tranquilitate, will appear for the first time on our label with his
album “Astral Space Dub”, legendary band Brothers In Mind that exists
since 80-s has recorded particularly for Exotica lounge/electro album
“Hocus-Pocus”, and, finally, after 3 years of silence a new alum of
the band Volga «Vipei
do dna» (“Bottoms Up”), which is a experiment merging
authentic Russian folklore and ultra-trendy music, will appear.
In the next year lots of
different collections will appear: the 7th and, perhaps, the
last part of a cycle called “Tell
tchaikovski The News” will be published, our tribute The
Beatles “Vs The Beatles”, featuring electronic cover of Liverpool’s
combo recorded by the artists of the label.
What
do you consider the best achievement of Exotica's label over the 10 years?
At present the situation
with music is starting to change gradually. And the main achievement of
exotica Association for the 10 years of its existence is that our
magazines, Cd’s, tv and radio programs have contributed to this change.
They provided the audience interested in this with necessary information
and possibility of choice, and also, in a certain way they took part in
music tastes shaping of a new generation.
With
which foreign label or artist does Exotica have closer ties?
There are a lot of foreign
producers and musicians among our friends. The most famous are Holger Czukay from the band Can, musicians of the band
Faust and their label Klangbad, German label Think Progressive, French
label Prikosnovenye (Touch, from Russian) and Italian Musica Maxima
Magnetica.
What are the main obstacles to the development of a
Russian medium-sized label like Exotica (piracy, majors, lack of curiosity
from public, sponsors or medias, other...)?
The main obstacle to the
development of the label is a total ignorance of the music that is odd to
pop-rock format, FM-radio and musical channels. Even the enthusiasm of
radio DJ’s and producers of TV programs, many of whom are our
acquaintances and adherents, runs against the rigid position of program
directors, who are interested only in checked-out hits targeted at mass
auditorium. The situation becomes completely absurd! Recently a marketing
director of one Moscow Major representation complained to me that only
Western stuff that was previously broadcasted as video-clips on MTV and
Muz-TV is selected for radio rotation. So, what can be said about our
music, if there is no a single radio station that accepts instrumental
music, even Mozart would be rebuffed! The only radio we successfully
collaborated with is ‘Station 2000’, but the sad fate of this project
is known to everyone.
The 2nd problem
is the pirates who accustomed the buyers to very low prices on CD’s. And
the last problem is an absence of a reliable distribution network.
What artists from Exotica are the most likely to meet
success in Russia and/or abroad?
Our
artistes already met success abroad: Ole
Lukkoye tours around Europe each year, the sales rate of their last album
“Crystal Crow Bar” published in Germany by the label Klangbad is
estimated at about 10000 exemplars. “Volga” performed in front of a
100 000 crowd at the biggest German open air festival Burg Herzberg.
Albums from Spices Of Fishes are distributed by Staalplaat in Europe and
Soleimoon in America. The début album “Gutten Organ” of Los
Chicatilos band (Kaliningrad) was sold out only 2 months after the
release. Same thing for the collection “Tell Tchaikovsky The News”.
Foreign commentators often state that they cannot find
something specific to the Russian electronic scene. Do you agree?
What did these commentators
hear? And who did advise them on? I showed Exotic releases to different
western experts and always our production called a invariable interest and
surprise. Our electronic projects are constantly invited abroad. Just for
the last half of the year Nuclear Losь took part in funk festival in Helsinki, Bigoudi – in Germany, Los
Chicatilos – in Sweden. But the absolute champion in this is Alexei
Borisov and his project F.R.U.I.T.S. His record includes France, Belgium,
Austria and Finland and also an invitation to participate in the biggest
festival of electronic music “Sonar” (Barcelona). So, I think it’s a
high time to talk about the specificity of a Russian electronic scene and
about a “new Russian Sound”.
If you were to present a program for MTV-Europe about
Russian Electronic Music, which artists would you choose to promote that
scene (let's say 5 of them)?
I would have chosen 5 different projects for the
audience to see the diapason on the whole:
Bigoudi (retrofuturism/loungecore),
Volga (ethnoelectronic),
Zoom.Ra (experimental funk/hip hop/electro),
Nuclear Losь (trip hop/downtempo),
Brothers In Mind (electro/loungecore).
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