A warm lullaby drips a song of elegant sorrow. A swirl. A drone…a kaleidoscope.
Kedr Livianskiy is an artist, originally from Moscow whose feline electronic notes have garnered considerable international attention. Your Turn, the latest September single breathes a rhythm of humble desperation polished with silver. Glamorous vocals as quiet as Russian snowfall but as fierce and blistering in its beauty. We get to know more about the Russian sorceress.
Electro, indie, alternative, jungle…how is it that your music covers so many genres?
It seems to me that for our time the mixing of anything and everything in culture is becoming quite normal. There are artists of a narrower focus in terms of style, or more subcultural stories. I also scold this…but I will say that I do not know how it happens, sometimes I suffer from this because it seems to me that the music is simply overloaded and torn in all directions. But I can’t help myself…probably this is since I am a music lover myself and my soul lies in a very wide range of musical directions. It has been like that since childhood. Today I wake with the mood I’m soooooooooo RnB, ha-ha. But tomorrow I wake up with a total gothic mood, the day after tomorrow it will cover it for a week, so I only listen to black metal and go for a walk in the damp autumn forest.
How big a role does nature play in your musical identity?
I’d rather say this, nature plays a big role in general in my personal human identity, and in music. Over the years it has only intensified. Now it comes to the point that to write music I need to move especially deep in the countryside, cut off the Internet, and then it really starts to overwhelm me. It’s hard to feel inspired in the city, for me personally. For creativity I need total peace and a view from the window into an endless field, only in interaction with nature do you really begin to feel the important things and meanings, in city life they often go into the background, unfortunately. There are elements-water, fire, air, earth-and there is music-this is the same element, the fifth element. For the music is just as mysterious, elusive, endless as wildlife…music is nature.
How much did your studies in literature contribute to your artistry?
As much as possible. For example, I can clearly see the lyric hero of my songs (where he is present)-I can collect it from the words of images.
Your music encompasses a broad range of rhythms and beats, which is your favorite?
There is no such thing to be honest, I would like to write in the future more abstract rhythms that do not directly refer to any genre. Livelier, less sequence.
How would you best describe your lyrics?
Suitably visionary. In the spirit of romanticism; something local, sometimes simple. Spirit of the eternal through the spirit of time.
How does it feel singing in English?
The song I have in English is simple enough. That’s why singing it was natural and understandable for me. That is, these are the words that I have understood one hundred percent since childhood, and they are native. I feel that I sing as if in Russian, only the phonetics and melody are different.
How do you think that your music is perceived in Russia?
It is difficult for me to judge myself that way. They write that I am the ‘Queen of Russian Electronics’ but it makes me laugh to be honest. It seems like they also say that I catch some nostalgic, specific, very Russian notes, but not forgetting about modernity and the world musical context.
How would you map your artistic process? Do you imagine the result from the beginning, or do you allow the idea to mold into something on its own?
I am not a conceptual artist, rather a visionary artist. I start spontaneously and just in a relaxed mode I write music, sketches, so as not to frighten off inspiration. But when a certain number of drafts are typed, I begin to feel a common link connecting all these sketches. Then a strong image is born in my head, several images, for which I already go, and to which I already bring all the works in the process of their completion and writing texts. I seem to be walking through a labyrinth myself, and at the end everything is connected. By the time of mixing, I can already formulate all the concepts that are present in this album. And I see all the images in them colorfully.
What is your favorite club in the world?
It was in Moscow, and it closed…NII (Science and Art).
STORY / Alexander Mays PHOTOS / Anastasia Pozhidaeva
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