"A good concert is a meeting of infinities"
The Megapolis group plans to perform in the nature reserves of the Kuril Islands and the Perm Region. The first music that appeared on Earth was associated with mystical consciousness. And today, the task of a musician is not to lead people forward, but to bring them back to their starting point. But neural networks can't do that. Oleg Nesterov, the band's leader, told Izvestia about this and many other things on the eve of the concert presentations of the new album "With the Strength of a Thread," the first of which will take place this Thursday, April 17, at Moscow's Kristall Recreation Center.
"About fragility and antifragility"
— I was surprised that your new album turned out to be such a bright record, despite all the circumstances that are happening in our world right now. It leaves a feeling of some kind of light flight. How did it happen?
— This music came to us during our so-called sessions, when we improvise together and immerse ourselves in the stream. There were 14 sessions, which took place over a couple of months in early 2021. And then we started learning how to play the material we found, assign it, match it. At some stage, I had an absolutely clear mindset that this was an album about strength and weakness, about fragility and antifragility.… But this album is definitely about light and hope. We all need light and hope in our world today. Actually, that's how the album turned out.
— How was this work going?
— I had to choose from the recordings the moments where we steadily got into the stream, assign them some initial names, hashtags, and then listen, listen, listen... Out of 56 selected fragments, at some stage there were 30 with a little, then 20 with something, and finally 12. Some of these fragments hardly needed our subsequent intervention. I don't think we've changed a single note in three tracks, just cut off the beginning and the end. The second category is something that needed some clarification. Somewhere we were recording something, somewhere I was re-recording the vocals. The poems also came in a stream, and in some words the tongue could not keep up with the heart. Well, the third part is the songs that we should have played back altogether.
— Why did so much time pass between the studio sessions and the release of the album — four years?
— When you're in the flow, when you let the music in, you don't belong to yourself, everything plays and sings for you. And then the door slams shut, and you're left, in fact, with what you've accepted. And then, actually, with your human experience on the shore, you should somehow try to correlate your human experience with your spiritual experience. Learn how to play these songs. Jimi Hendrix said, "Music is not about notes and beats, but what's inside, between notes and beats." During these four years, we had to find what was between the notes and between the beats. We had to learn how to match the music that came into this world through us.
— Is this music that came in the stream completely improvisational, or do you make any preparations before the sessions?
— Completely improvisational. We have been practicing this since 1990. We sit down and play, relatively speaking, whatever comes into our heads. And there are nuances here, too, because at first you try to play the most beautiful, the most powerful, the most beautiful music on earth, and in the end you get cliches. This is not a stream at all. And to get yourself out of this state and enter the stream — this requires the appropriate experience, techniques that have accumulated in our arsenal over 35 years.
— The German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen has a piece "From Seven Days", which is completely intuitive, where the trumpeter plays exclusively on the basis of short verbal instructions. "Play one sound… Play it until you feel like you can stop." And the most interesting thing is that the performer had to prepare for this act for a long time: to starve, to be completely alone, without communicating with anyone, and so on. That is, the composer had a whole set of such requirements for the musician. Do you practice any similar techniques?
— In our case, these may be residences. We're going somewhere out of Moscow for 10 days, we live in a small house, we play, sitting in a circle. This way you have a better chance of letting the music in, just like the trumpeter who starved a week before. But there are still quite effective techniques. The most basic of them is when you play the same thing. Maybe the simplest, most primitive phrase. And after a while, a pathway is highlighted for you. The music becomes voluminous and simply immeasurable. You immerse yourself in the very fabric of it, in the fabric and look from there from the inside. It's like you're climbing some magical staircase into a secret room and looking around.
By the way, Stockhausen is one of the founders of intuitive music in general. He introduced this concept back in the 1960s. Although, on the other hand, there was nothing new in this. The first music that appeared on Earth in the prehistoric era was associated with mystical consciousness. Tambourines, drums, connecting to a single whole, dissolving into a common self.
"We played from boats near Olkhon Island"
— You will have a concert presentation of the album now. The first one, in the recreation center "Kristall", has been around for a few days. Others will follow. When you play at a concert, do you also join the stream? And how close do you perform the songs to their studio versions?
— In a state of flow, a thousand-year-old musician accepted this kind of music, which you now need to repeat in front of an audience. Without straightening the patterns, without smoothing, without decorating anything. It is extremely difficult to learn to play the music that once entered this world through you. That's exactly what we're doing. From experience, I want to say that it will take two years for the cuttings that have taken root in our country to eventually blossom into a full-bodied vine.…
You can rehearse as much as you want, but nevertheless, the revelation usually occurs at the concert itself. Because a concert is when music meets you and everyone who listens to it. There is infinity in each of them. A good concert is a meeting of infinities. Everything sparkles there. This spark helps music to strengthen itself in the everyday world. And music helps a person. The monks stood up, began to sing, and everything smoothed out — around and inside.
— Do you have any plans or just a desire to perform in some unusual places? In Tibet, on a desert island, somewhere else...
— We have a plan to play this music, interacting with some amazing environment. Once in 2021, we had an experience: we played from boats off the island of Olkhon on Lake Baikal. Huge rocks in front of us, the setting sun... We started playing very slow instrumental music. The vibration of the strings combined with the vibration of the rock. The microcosm was connected to the macrocosm. Everyone who was present felt it very strongly. And the idea came up to do such musical immersions that would correspond to a particular place. And we have many such strong points in Russia. It is not necessary to come to Tibet for this.
— And where, for example?
— On the Usva River in the Perm Region. I even looked for a place for our musical interaction.: these are the Usvinsky pillars (a landscape monument of nature, where limestone rocks from the Paleolithic period are located. — Izvestia). There are also White rocks on the island of Iturup... We have plenty of similar places.
"Music exists independently of us"
— You say that you have been working on this technique of entering the stream for 35 years. Do you think your music has changed during this time? Has she experienced any impact from the changing world? It is clear that over the last third of the century, a huge number of new styles and trends in music have appeared.
— The thing is, it's not our music. This is the music that enters the world through us. Of course, our spiritual experience, human intelligence, our bodies, fingers, vocal cords, and, after all, the instruments we play interact with it. Based on these external signs, something can change. For example, we hired brass and electronic performers. But music itself exists independently of us. And who connected to it, who let it in, in this set of tools or another, is the tenth thing. The main thing is, the more accurately you let it in, the more accurately it will work.
— What does "work" mean?
— To align the listener and the world that surrounds him. Actually, music is needed in order to bring us in line with the world. And the music that is let in in the flow state is the purest. There is nothing artificial here, you let her in, fixed her, gave her to people. People listen to her and come to terms with the world. There are two approaches here. The first one is compositional and innovative: each subsequent piece should be different from the previous ones. The author must move forward. The second approach is called "bricolage". This is when the person who lets the music in does not lead people forward, but, on the contrary, returns them to their original zero point, where you are the world, and the world is you.
— What do you think about the music created by neural networks? How does this relate to what you just said about composer's and non-composer's music?
— I can only assume that neural networks can help musicians by solving specific applied tasks. But no neural networks can replace a person. You know, all music can be divided into two types. Live music that aligns us with the world and helps us, and music that is created artificially. This is not necessarily about AI, it can be written by a person. And, in general, she can also be pretty and quite good-looking. But her days are numbered. She won't live long. And it's not useful. Most likely, it is even harmful, because it occupies a wrong place in the world. Live and non—live music is not a genre, not a style, not a direction. Some kind of live orchestra can play absolutely dead music, and the most electronic electronics can be more alive than all the living. It all depends on how accurately this music is let into our world. If it brings you in line and gives you strength, this music is alive. Will music created with the help of artificial intelligence give you strength? This is a question and a topic for observation. I know that its use is prohibited in China.
— Anton Belyaev (Therr Maitz) took part in the work on your album. Are there any other musicians, maybe of a completely new generation, that you would be interested in working with?
— Definitely there is. And young musicians often come to me. Sometimes I participate in their projects in one way or another.
— But in general, how do you view the younger generation of Russian musicians? With hope or with skepticism?
— Of course, hopefully. Looking at young musicians with skepticism is the same as watching the sunrise with skepticism. There will be outstanding artists among them. One hundred percent.
— So you don't see any decline?
— No matter what times there are, it does not affect the level of a person's talent in any way. Any time, simple or complex, produces geniuses. And sometimes a tough environment gives birth to geniuses more than quite comfortable conditions. I'm saying terrible things right now, but it's true. Circumstances with a minus sign often motivate artists.
— So, we are waiting for a surge of geniuses?
— No, each epoch gives its own geniuses, there is no surge and there was no surge. As many as there were per capita, so many will remain. At all times.
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