Slava 4 your head

DD: Hello Slava! What are you doing right at this moment?

S: Haha, well, it’s 1:30am on a Saturday night and I just got home from a cocktail party where I was unable to really talk to anyone because I ate too much food at dinner (although the cocktails were quite good) and now I’m settling down to work on some programming. =]

DD: Haaaa, too much fooooooood. I’m learning a bit about programming, it’s been a slow process. How far along are you?

S: Well, fairly far for someone who’s not a ‘real programmer’. I’ve done it a bit here and there over the years, but didn’t get really into it until about a year and a half ago, while in grad school. I finally got a chance to learn Max MSP Jitter and do some audio-visual live sets as well do some iPhone and web art. I’ve been working on this website for some time recently: http://gifpumper.com – it’s a 3d communal image collage, anyone can upload images, move them around etc. I’m now working towards utilizing it as a platform for releasing music online. Pretty psyched about that. But yeah, all this stuff still takes me forever to do, but I’m learning a lot. how about you, what kind of stuff are you doing?

btw, just saw traxman http://soundcloud.com/traxman – sick dj from chicago – mostly juke but also old-school house) play a ridiculous set, people was gettin doooowwwwn!

DD: God, I’m at the lowest, lowest level of HTML. Is that programming? Haha I’m quite the noob. I got this book on HTML and am going through lessons at w3schools.org. Last night I was going nutz over your music, I think I went through all your Soundcloud songs 3 times while I was working on things, I’m quite the fan now!

S: Yeah, pretty sure html counts as programming =] And pretty much anything where you have to tell computers or other machines what to do, like programming drum machines!

DD: What kind of sound are you most ready to push with Slava?

S: In some ways I am not ready to push any kind of sound at all. The sound is what pushes me. I think the more traditional approach for electronic musicians has been to form a specific type of easily identifiable sound in a very specific and compartmentalized sub-genre. I think I’m too ADD to do that. I get inspired by various types of sounds and am interested in utilizing a wide variety of these to express myself. At the moment I’m working on some ambient material as well as 160 bpm or so footwork influenced stuff and more generally, polyrhythms. Of course is still always an underlying presence of all the music that has influenced me over the years – free jazz, downtempo jams, chicago house.

I think right now is a great time for the breaking down of genre barriers in electronic music. People are exposed to all sorts of music thanks to the internet, and they are always on the lookout for new and varied material. The music discourse has moved away from smaller, localized ‘scenes’ into a broad global discourse and if you want to contribute something relevant you have to be fluent in the language of genres – juxtapose old, new, fast, slow, play with a wide array of cultural references etc etc etc. Otherwise you end up with music that might be really good but also kinda boring.

DD: I like your approach, who are some of your favorite artists at the moment?

S: To be honest, my listening habits right now are super sporadic and I find it hard to focus on individual artists. The mixes on Dis Magazine are probably my favorite and most exiting things to listen to lately. As far as specific artists, Hieroglyphic Being is a long-time favorite. Hearing his sounds is always refreshing – he never seems to stop experimenting and pushing the envelope. And his label, Mathematics Recordings, is superb. The recent Chicago footwork sounds have been a breath of fresh air in music as well – artists like DJ Rashad, Traxman, DJ Nate to name a few. And of course friends and collaborators from Moment Sound, Future Times, WT Records, L.I.E.S.