NARUZCO (Russia): Groovy ambient synthwave
Naruzko are three pieces experimental ambient trip-hop project from Kupchino, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. They present themselves as follows:
‘We are just ordinary people from a residential area. We go to work, sit at night on the Internet, we hate everyone and everything. We blame anyone, but not ourselves.
We are just ordinary people, like everyone else. We are ordinary - like you.’
The band’s lineup is:
Konstantin Datkunas - guitar, voice
Dmitriy Afanasiev - bass, effects, laptop
Sergei Tumanov - drums, effects
Their music work to date is:
Вероятность как прах | Probability as dust, LP, October 2015
Пороки нашего времени | Vices of our time, LP, March 2019
What is your music about?
Our music is what we get after we add sounds that we like. It’s like a process of putting different layers of sounds one above another, till the moment when you hear how they work all together and you like it. This is our mood at a certain moment of time.
For example, today I came up with a drum set, which we sort of put under the mix, as a background. A week later the bass parts came to my head, under which we put some rhythmic noises. It is something new and unusual, always.
Music for us is a struggle of interests, attitudes and compromises, of which my team and I put together the plot. Lyrically our music itself is about loneliness that surrounds us from every sides. About hopelessness in trying to get rid of it. Every song of NARUZKO is telling the great tragedy of a little man which reflects on different topics.
Perhaps this might help listeners to associate themselves with it and understand where in this world you are at this very moment.
What are your goals as an artist artistically/commercially?
We think that if our music pleases someone and comes out to certain masses and when we notice that our listener will demand a continuation from us, we will provide it. We would love to read comments about our work and I would love to collaborate with our listeners as one big team.
It's very cool when you have a huge team that can enjoy the process as well as it gives you energy to grow and move on! Such commerce would be really pleasant to everyone. We are aiming and we are trying to create something honest and understandable to many, and most importantly not to deceive ourselves. And then we would repeat it again, and again, and again... and once again…
Who would you want as a dream producer, and why?
Dmitry: Honestly, I didn’t think about the producer and I can’t say for sure if he will spoil our views and our music or, on the contrary, will get something out from us that will increase a number of listeners and raise our interest and in general our quality of performance. However, I’m very certain that movement is a necessary “tractor”, which will pull the composition. Anyway, there is a very important condition, without which this composition will crumble at full speed - one wave with the musicians.
Kostya: I grew up with Nine Inch Nails music - I would be interested to work with Trent Reznor. With the young Trent, from times of the album Pretty Hate Machine, but the main thing is that I don’t want him to interfere much in the process and not interfere with the guys. Otherwise, somehow I did not really think about it.
Sergei: I don’t think we need one. We came from experimental music environment and I work with this field most of the time. I believe that we have to gain our own experience and knowledge in whatever we are doing as NARUZKO as well as whatever is happening around us and this is our production.
What are you trying to avoid as a band?
Mmmm, probably avoid the lack of time for everything. We have pretty much limitless amount of ideas, but the time is our brake, which is constantly on.
Bloody time... who invented it after all?! You have to always be in a hurry, you have to hurry to live, hurry to rest, hurry to enjoy, hurry to invent.
Life is a race against time, slow down and immediately you begin to be late in everything and everywhere. People, you must learn how to forget about time, it should not exist at all in a happy life. Also, despondency and self-repetition. All that you see in your music if you often go to rehearsals or recording your ideas.
Explain your songwriting process.
We think that every person, if he is not a robot and not a zombie, has thoughts that he or she expresses in various ways. We can write music, writing it in any accessible way. Most often this happens like this - damn, what a cool synth, you need to twist it, it is very in tune with our mood now, and then we distort it so that it resonates with our auditory receptors.
Then we take any other instrument and weave it into the mix. When everything gradually gathers into a heap, we meet all together and then break our creation to pieces, only instruments and notes remain. Then we all spontaneously shake it all up, find the general mood and add up again.
Very often, we compose on the go and write to a portable recorder. Kostya writes a new lyrics, and we all come up with a new basis for it, which Dmitry later carefully transfers to the mix.
Then we listen to a finished track and change something again. This is a very good feeling when all of us are really enjoying with the result.
Why do you make the music you make? Is it in you? Is it your environment?
It’s better to say briefly. This is another way to take a break from everything. Music in our case is a rest. And this is a boundless imagination and constant development.
Each new track is received with even more experience and quality, you see these metamorphoses, you can correct them and get “high” from the writing process to the final result.
Describe your palette of sound.
Noise and deep surround sounds. Synthesizers with dozens of effects and distortions. Live bass and deep electronic bass. Live and distorted sound of drums and electric guitar. Yes, there is everything.
We completely removed all the boundaries from our sound. Each track can vary greatly in style. New albums will have a new palette of sounds and instruments every time. We ourselves do not know what will happen next. This is the key.
You are from Russia, what are the advantages and inconvenients?
Russia is a country with unlimited possibilities, if of course you are not lazy. Here you can achieve a lot, or you can go into the outback and slow down your entire life.
At the moment there are all the possibilities to do your favorite thing on a global level with “the world quality”.
Of course, there are inconveniences, but where are there not?! You just need to turn them into amenities, or learn how to not to notice. A person can adapt to any conditions, especially if this person is a creator.
