Andrey Kiritchenko
Enough Heaven b/w Heaven Is Not Enough
Nexsound

I have to admit that this is my first enocunter with the music of Andrey Kiritchenko. This is not due to his artistic prolificness, he's been keeping himself very busy the last 10-15 year, releasing a ton of records, and founding the Nexsound label and the NextSound festival in Kiev. I guess I just haven't been paying attention, that's nothing new, and as usual it's only my own loss.

What we have here is a mysterious little 7", pressed on clear vinyl, with no cover art and little information except the titles of the songs: "Enough Heaven" and "Heaven Is Not Enough" on the flipside. Kiritchenko has been working with experimental heavyweights like Francisco López and Kim Cascone, but this music is a lot less dry and academically foreboding than such connections could indicate. Both songs mix acoustic instruments - woodwinds, drums, maybe a vibraphone - with pretty discreet electronic elements. This is gentle music, but the sharp arrangements keep it from being lazy or meandering.

In the early 2000s the term folktronica was coined for music that mixed electronics with pastoral folk elements. I guess this could be placed in that tradition, but it's a bit more jazzy than I remember, say, Colleen or Tunng sounding like. The shuffling drums of "Enough Heaven" give it a spy movie soundtrack feeling, while the musical ecosystem of "Heaven Is Not Enough" ends up in stasis and minimal repetition. "Enough Heaven" is a humble release, both in presentation and in content, but the amount of ideas packed into these two short songs is quite impressive.

Copyright © 2015 Thor-Eirik Johnsen