trippin' the rift can you trip like i do?

Ru Trip Community – Da Story Never Ends

I don't know about you, but for me this post is very important. Probably because I have a lot in common with the three people I interviewed here. And also because I believe that I am near the origins of something big, something that is yet rather less known but has already left an important imprint in the lives of many people, and that certainly deserves more attention. Ru Trip Community is not just another web-portal about Russian trip-hop, it is, as the musicians participating in the project admit, really a community, and its leaders are exceptionally friendly, open and understanding people. I had a lucky chance to talk to these heroes (a big word? How about you try carrying the development on the entire genre in one particular geographical unit!), and the results were quite fruitful. See for yourself:

tipkin - How did the idea come about? What were the first steps?

Maxim "Personal Light" Svetlichnyi - The idea came about as follows. Once in the beginning of the year 2009 I decided to check on the web - is there such a movement in music as Russian trip-hop. After studying a few forums and sites I stumbled upon releases by some less known bands (if I'm not mistaken they were Асфодель ("Asfodel"), Лирика Ватных Стен ("Lyric of Cotton Walls"), Kamio, Moresebya). To be honest - at that time I wasn't impressed... I was expecting something different. But about half a year later I accidentally stumbled upon the album Кремировать дождь ("Cremating Rain") of the same Kamio on my computer. Listened thoroughly. And realized that I was mistaken... The material turned out to be very interesting. The same evening I was digging through VKontakte* for a long time looking for trip-hop. Turned out, that there were quite a few acts out there... Маша Сальери (Masha Salieri), BBG, Kubrick's Cube... All this came down on my ears right away. And actually at that time the idea came to my mind that I wasn't alone - lots of people would be interested in finding out about this movement. So I decided to create a group at VKontakte where one could systematize all the data about the musicians, links to releases, etc. This is how the community was founded by the name of "Appreciators of Russian trip-hop" which was later renamed into "Appreciators of Russian trip-hop and abstract hip-hop". Every day there was more and more members. And what was the most pleasing, that the musicians joined the club (Masha Salieri was the first, huge thanks to her for that). A bit later I was joined by a volunteer - Макс Гущин (Max Gustshin), who made his contribution to the development of the club and became the second admin. A year later we got the third admin - the designer - Vix. About half a year after the opening we renamed ourselves into Ru Trip Community. We wanted some participation, so we promoted the releases, shows of our musicians. There was less of that later on, and as an experiment we decided to release our own compilation of domestic trip-hop. It was released on independent Japanese label Bump Foot.
Maxim Gustshin - I joined the development of the community at the very beginning. I remember that at that point our community (it was called "Appreciators of Russian abstract hip-hop and trip-hop") according to VKontakte had 27 members [Ru Trip Community has over 3,000 members today - tipkin]. And the first step was, naturally, the developing of our club. Maxim and I created a few additional accounts at VKontakte, since the rules of social networking prohibit inviting more than 40 people per day into a group. And like that the tow of us were inviting 250 people every day.
Vix - Actually I was watching the project from almost its very birth, and in the beginning it was really more like just a community where people are united by one common factor - love for the music.

t. - Do you yourselves create/perform music?

M.S. - I don't think you can call that creating. I'm trying to write some beats on Fruity Loops, but it's very primitive and just strictly for myself. It's definitely not going to be released anywhere , especially not within the Ru Trip Community framework.
M.G. - No, I don't do that
V. - No, but currently I'm mastering harmonica *laughs*

t. - What are the biggest challenges you have to deal with?

M.S. - There are various challenges. But the main, as usual, is the one - lack of money. If we had the funds, we could organize shows featuring musicians-friends of Ru Trip Community, release, even if with limited printing, CDs. RTC is a non-profit association, we don't get any kind of money from it, and invest our own is not an option yet.
M.G. - I think the biggest challenge was in fact the development. Out those 250 invited a day on average only 5-10% are accepting the invitation. And out of 5-10% only 1-3% are actually showed some activity. But little strokes fell great oaks
V. - Um, well, out of difficulties that were getting in the way of particularly Ru Trip I would point out some lack of interest, especially in the beginning. The majority of people in modern society have a very narrow range of interests, and for some those interests are even imposed, therefore there are very stereotypical ideas about things that are not interesting for the society. They heard once from somewhere that trip-hop is a sad music and don't approach it anymore, satisfied with scanty and degrading commercial material.

t. - Were there moments when you felt that you're doing something meaningful, big? And, on the other hand, moments (and I have a suspicion that there were more of those) when it seemed that no one cares and you wanted to give up?

M.S. - Sometimes musicians thank us for help. Also when regular listeners make compliments, cheer us up, often ask our opinion about some of their projects. Moments like these are very pleasant and make us want to keep going.
There were moments when we felt that no one cares and wanted to give up, sure. First days after the release of the first compilation for example. We expected a quite different reaction. Some people dumped too much negativity. And there was no will whatsoever to do anything like that, to keep going. But after all, thanks to support of many people, we kept going. Some of them we mentioned in the compilation, on the cover for the Japanese release we wrote in the names of 3 girls noun as Света (Sveta) Strick, Катя Море (Katya More - "Sea"), and Бесформенная Кома ("Shapeless Coma"). There are also people like Слава "Hideki" Ивонин (Slava "Hideki" Ivonin), Dany Shh,  Дима Игин (Dima Igin), who are always with us. We are extremely thankful to them for the timely support.
M.G. - Yes, there were, of course The first time when I got the feeling that we were doing something meaningful was when we first came up with the idea to put together the compilation The Collection Vol.1.
There were some unpleasant moments as well. I remember that once there was a total stupor in our group - no activity whatsoever. But we knew that there was no way back, and despite everything we kept moving only forward, utilizing all the methods we had in our arsenal.
V. - Yes, there were tons of such moments. I'm generally more of a pessimist and melancholic, but for some reason this project in particular gave me hope that the interest to beautiful music will be awaken in people. This is why I kept running the thoughts of something great  through my head. To show, to open the eyes for the ones, whose eyes can still be opened. I'll quote one acquaintance of mine, how he commented on one of his works: "Dedicated to everyone who can perceive, feel and is not dead." I read this long after I listened to this composition. And you know what - he was right. Look at the society - it's dead. But there are still people who could be reached and reanimated.

t. - Has the interest to the project increase after the first release? Was there any interest from the "big" music world (press, radio, etc.)?

M.S. - Yes, it has. There are many who want to participate in the future releases, the number of community members increased. We find publications about us in blogs.
Press and radio hadn't come up yet. They're always welcome to
M.G. - Yes, undoubtedly the interest to our community has increased. The worldwide  bit-torrent tracker RuTracker.org especially helped us [I want to add that this is indeed an excellent resource for all music fans, that periodically posts releases by the authors themselves -  tipkin]. Huge thanks to it for that. The number of downloads from that source is 70-80% of the total number of downloads.
Press and radio unfortunately didn't pay any attention to us. But we didn't count on that. Our goal was to become innovators in Russian trip-hop and abstract hip-hop. To present folks with something new, exclusive. Something, that wasn't around before. But after the release of our compilation I started noticing little articles about us on the pages of various blogs and electronic diaries like Twitter or Livejournal etc. There were more and more such articles with every week. It's actually extremely pleasant. Thanks to everyone, who put in an effort.
V. - To be honest, I didn't expect the release to be so popular. I thought we'd all get together in our small cozy group, listen and discuss what came out *smiles*
But after that the release went down the tracks of internet realm. Whoa, how interesting it was to observe this, the majority of people weren't left indifferent, and this is already a huge plus. And during all that time that the release was flying around the vastness of internet, one could read so much about it that was more than Rolling Stone Russia or Billboarв would ever write in their articles. But of course that was some criticism, which was duly noted. But another interesting moment was the fact that the first compilation was noticed in Japan - and this is something that made me personally very happy.

t. - What are your plans? Are you hoping to become Russian Matt Black and Jonathan More (founders of Ninja Tune)?

M.G. - As far as plans go - to accomplish the release of the second compilation entitled Отпечатки ("Imprints") - sooner. Right now there final preparations, soon it will appear on the Net. There are also ideas for the third release, but they are transient and empyrean. But it's definitely better than nothing
M.S. - Yes, the most important right now is to release the second compilation. We want to put together a show in Moscow or St. Petersburg. And then we'll see. In general, Max is right, we already have an idea for the third compilation, but it's way too soon to talk about it.
Matt Black and Jonathan More? Why not? We'll see.

t. - I'm not going to ask about the favorite artists from the project contributors (I know you don't want to upset anyone), but I will ask about music preferences outside of it. What do you listen to, what do you like?

M.S. - I like foreign trip-hop, nu-jazz, downtempo in general, alternative rock, French neo-chanson, classical music. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there. Generally, I can digest anything other than "blatnyak"** and pop.
M.G. - Other than the styles that our club's work is dedicated to, I like to listen to rap music - Russian, English and German. But I mostly listen to the Russian, since I like to catch the meaning in the songs, listen thoroughly to the lyrics and analyze every line.
V. - As a matter of fact my way into trip-hop didn't go through (as it usually happens) Portishead and Massive Attack. Nope. With me it all started with a quite interesting collective that has a very sonorous name Myod (the collective doesn't exist anymore). I was with them since almost the very beginning and it was very interesting to see how the project grows and develops. Honestly, I'm very sad that those four people are not working together anymore. Only after I immersed into their atmosphere I began my immersion into this small and vociferous term "Trip-hop". WE are listening to a lot of interesting stuff, in most cases they are releases by Ninja Tune, Warp. But there is one man who amazes me up until this day. It's no one other than Menton Matthews. More known to us by such projects as Saltillo and Sunday Munich. Their music in particular reflects my music taste.

t. - Tell us about the second compilation, which release a lot of people (including yours truly) eagerly await. How soon?

M.S. - Ru Trip Community - Отпечатки ("Imprints"). This is going to be a double release. The first part of it - 16 tracks. The second (main) - remixes of those tracks. Remixes are written by the project's participants. But no one chose what they were going to be remixing. It was determined randomly - by drawing. This way old tracks acquired the new sound. Each track bears an imprint of the musician's new vision.
This compilation is taking a lot longer and is more difficult to make. We were planning to release it back in the beginning of June. But encountered a lot of difficulties in the process. We hope that everything works out soon and you will hear it.
M.G. - All the information about the compilation you can find here.

t. - How can one become a member of Ru Trip Community?

M.S. - It is extremely easy to become a member of Ru Trip Community. Find us on VKontakte and join, participate in the life of the community. We also have a page on ucoz, promo dj. We always welcome any help, any ideas, and new creative people!
M.G. - In fact, it's enough to just get in touch with us, and then we'll figure it out

After the interview was completed, the founders of the project thought there should probably be some sort of conclusion, an epilogue, a summary of some sort. And I was going to do that, but then I decided that the best conclusion for this interview is the absence of such. The story of Ru Trip Community has begun, and it's conclusion is, luckily, isn't anywhere in sight. Instead, I want to offer all the lovers of beautiful music that is trip-hop (and, naturally, its creators) not to miss their chance in the writing of that story.

And below is an exclusive gift from the founders of Ru Trip Community to our readers.

Open present!

*the biggest Russian social networking site - tipkin
**genre of prison-originated music, extremely popular in Russia - tipkin