Myown – Vesna review

The three 12”s left_blank have released pointed towards interesting times ahead for the label. The blossoming, multifaceted talents of Vessel and El Kid are being ever-increasingly well documented, while Visionist and Lorca were little-known upstarts treading the tripwire between contemporary electronics. Now, with release number four, it seems as though everything is falling into place and a label identity is starting to shine through.

Myown is another fresh face, this time hailing from Russia, and his sound is certainly developed for someone with just two previous releases behind him. In a similar way to the first strains of Gerry Read’s rag-tag music, Myown revels in the abandon of sampling, and seems thoroughly unconcerned with dancefloor dynamics. Dance culture informs the rhythms and tempos contained within his tracks, but swiftly gets scuppered by bric-a-brac sound sources from classical guitar to drive-time pop music, with the kitchen sink and many other implements thrown in the spaces between.

“Suromna” starts the EP off boldly with the peak of this production approach, in a paranoid and easily distracted sequence of vignettes over the course of four minutes that may or may not have the same beat running through its veins to tie everything together. It hardly matters as the first sombre bass swells grab you by the scruff of the neck and pin your ears open before they get stuffed silly. After the psychological abrasions for an opener, “Vesna” seems positively direct with a discernible garage beat draped in found sounds. It’s still a humid atmosphere that prevails, with the hooky R&B vocal gasping for breath amidst its vaporous bedfellows.

After all that darkness, “You Can Stop Everytime” shines a light on the EP with a lilting, sunkissed synth and some tender piano notes, while a slow and swung house-ish beat happily potters along in the background. After the mind-boggling array of sounds that came before, it’s a perfect tonic to cleanse the brain. And so what of the sign Myown is pointing to for left_blank? While the music on the label is overt in its leftfield stance, there is still something undeniably accessible about this kind of experimental music. The fact that an EP can start on such a decisive and daring track and not drive the listener away speaks volumes for the careful selection of what appears on each release. In that sense, the hybrid hinterland in which left_blank operates looks set to be dominated by this well-steered ship.

Oli Warwick

Tracklisting:

1. Suromna
2. Vesna
3. You Can Stop Everytime