Fizzarum - “Vesat” Squadron 2000 IDM / Glitch / Abstract
I’m not sure I totally believe it, but while Fizzarum were doing a press tour through the UK in 2000 to promote their debut album, Monochrome Plural, Will Hodgkinson wrote in The Guardian that they are “Russia’s first ever electronica band”. Depending on how one defines the term “electronica,” I guess that could be true? I don’t know. Anyway, this trio from St. Petersburg, who started up in 1996, are certainly one of Russia’s earliest IDM producers.
The story of how Fizzarum became somewhat of a household name in IDM circles, though, is quite funny. First, they sent out tapes to a bunch of different people and music magazines. One of those tapes ended up in the hands of Autechre’s Sean Booth, who upon hearing it, wrote Fizzarum a letter, which consisted of two lines. Translated from a 2017 interview in Mixmag Russia, it read, “Cool music, do you want to publish it on our SKAM label [yes / no]?” Fizzarum wrote back “yes,” but the Russian mail service was unable to deliver their response because it had a strange mailing address. Oh well.
Around that same time though, Fizzarum had made their first official release, a 7″ on British label City Centre Offices. Founder of UK indie / electronic label Domino Records, Laurence Bell, heard the single and wrote to Fizzarum that he, too, would like to release a single. To quote that 2000 article, “Excitedly misreading the letter, the band thought they had been offered an album deal and were overjoyed. [Laurence] hadn’t the heart to tell them otherwise, so what was wished for became a reality.”
And thus, Monochrome Reality was born. One of the album’s tracks, “Vesat,” would reach stateside audiences the same year, appearing on Miami label Merck’s Squadron compilation. In a 2001 interview with Tim Koch in Igloo Magazine, Fizzarum talk a little bit about “Vesat”:
Igloo: There is no doubt that the main thing for Fizzarum is melody. You always talk about beautiful melodies and positive emotions. For some reason the tracks “Vesat” and “Torsion” are a bit dark and melodies less, why’s that?
Fizzarum: “Vesat” has a very beautiful, but hidden melody. And “Torsion” has an intriguing bassline. It’s just someone can hear straight away and someone else after a few listenings, and someone will never hear it. In these tracks we’ve created labyrinths and hidden obvious things. We are very happy about the fact that we could combine simple and complicated things.
A while ago, I wrote about another Russian IDM artist called Novel 23, a man who’s always put a premium on constructing melodies, à la Kraftwerk, and laying IDM sounds and rhythms over those melodies. Fizzarum take a similar approach to Novel 23, stressing the importance of melody in a song, something not every IDM artist concerns themselves with.
To introduce “Vesat,” I’ll use a quote that Fizzarum gave to threeoh.com: “our music is very hard to describe; probably impossible to describe it by words. That’s why we create this music and don’t talk much about it”
So, I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of this song, but I think it’s safe to say that “Vesat” is a very challenging and complex track that will either immediately drive you away or pull you right in. It’s one of the most unique IDM songs I’ve ever come across and for a genre of music that makes the idea of intricate rhythm its cornerstone, this could quite possibly represent that concept’s zenith. Its melodies are emotive and the rhythms are both ever-changing and exceedingly convoluted. That will generate either intrigue or bewilderment, depending on how you interact with music.
“Vesat” is something that is so abstract, that it almost sounds like there’s no rhythm at all. But reaching that conclusion is a fool’s errand. Repeated listenings will eventually paint a clearer picture.
One of the most abstract IDM songs ever constructed, coming from St. Petersburg, Russia.
