KOT? RECORDS: Solo Operator / Brinstaar / Bred Blondie

Moscow Department of Culture

Manege Association

“Up Above Moscow” is a cycle of music nights at a venue offering unique views of Moscow. In warm seasons, the performances are staged on the rooftop of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman pavilion, at the footing of the iconic 24-meter sculpture, a world-renowned symbol of the Soviet Union. At all other times and depending on the weather conditions, the concerts are held on the fourth floor with admission to the rooftop during the break.

Music nights at the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman are conducted in two formats, with ‘Rooftop Jazz’ performances on Wednesdays and ‘Electronic Thursdays’ given to electronic musicians and sound designers. The organizer of the project is the Manege Association.

KOT? RECORDS at the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman Center: Solo Operator / Brinstaar / Bred Blondie

20.30 – arrival of guests
21.00 – performance

On October 15, the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman center will host a performance of the members of Russian label KOT? RECORDS. The Moscow-based record label specialized in avant-garde and experimental music works with artists across the world but focuses particularly on promoting the local music scene.

“We are striving not only to release albums, but to really work together: we get people acquainted between different musical circles, for instance, in the electronic and academic environment, whose paths rarely cross in their professional life. We are very careful in our selection of artists we work with and we only release what we are confident about”.

“Despite the popular opinion that vinyl is much more important than sound tracks found on the Internet, we would not treat digital albums as something inferior; our digital releases match the same quality of sound as vinyl and are mastered by the same specialist,” the founders of KOT? RECORDS explain.

Brinstaar is a project by versatile performer Mikhail Myasoedov, co-founder and co-owner of Kot? Records. Myasoedov creates the sounds designs he likes using various instruments and constantly changing their mix and number. The defining staples are guitar and modular synthesizer, joined by jaw harp, harmonicas, pipes, toys and everything that squeaks, rings and sounds. The result is a mix of chaotic noises, rhythmic compositions and calm ambient tunes.

Mikhail Myasoedov

“I have explored spontaneous improvisational creative acts. Each new concert comes as a big surprise for everyone, me included. It is interesting to witness the instruments setting off on a journey and discover what it brings. This is also the way how I work on my studio recordings, playing with stuff and guitars until I get the right sound I like and then getting immersed in a long musical meditation-improvisation”.

Solo Operator is a multi-instrumental musical project of Alexander Serechenko. Compositions are created as programmed sequences of sounds, their repetitions and digressions: recorded immediately in front of the audience, saxophone, drum, electronic and other samples get combined into tunes.

Alexander Serechenko was born in Zelenograd. He got his first computer when he was seven, and simultaneously with his first classes of coding, his studies at the musical school began. At the intersection, the contours of his future emerged. In the 2000s, he got into in free jazz, saxophone, the international experimental stage, and DIY home recording in parallel to his studies of cryptography and information security at MEPhI.

It was through his involvement in musical projects like Wrist, Magical Unicellular Music and Ensemble of Children’s Musical Instruments that he finally managed to bring together his vision as a programmer and a musician, which expanded his scope and brought about several media-art and science-art projects.

Loyal to analogue sound recording and the cassette culture, Bred Blondie has kept his real identity confidential, describing his project as a synthesis of blues and experimental techno, ancient practices and new technologies, capitalism and DIY, pop culture and underground self-publishing.

Tickets are available at the box offices of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman and online at the website of Manege and Voxxter.ru.

The ticket price of 300 rubles also includes admission to exhibitions on the day of the performance.

Media accreditation:

Manege Association | +7 (495) 645 92 76 | pr.manege@gmail.com
Head of PR Department Elena Karneeva | e.karneeva@moscowmanege.ru, +7 (926) 576-40-53