This abandonment of tedium and dead weight is clearer still in the new recordings from Moscow's Cao Sao Vang, "Inna De Concrete Janhl."
That mock reference to urban life and its gangster lingo becomes ardent escapism. "The image of a Big City as some concrete jungle isn't anything new, but it seems more relevant than ever in our anxious age... People nowadays have turned into the walking dead. They wander around the noisy streets with their face shoved up against a little plastic screen. You feel as if you're back in the Ice Age, when encroaching icebergs forced everybody to move in search of food and warmth."
Some people will spend their lives amid the shining, multicolored lights of a shopping mall
Suddenly Cao Sao Vang's lyrical musings are granted an ostensible significance. His artistic hopes and fantasies might actually do something. "Art is what can save us from degradation. Art is the amazing gift of both creating and shaping reality. It lets you feel closer to the Creator himself. [Sadly] our concrete boxes that reach to the sky can also define our thoughts and way of life. People capable of ignoring that grey, concrete oppressiveness might spend their time amid the shining, multicolored lights of a shopping mall. Those who are less[!] fortunate will try maintaining their sanity in the whirlpool of absurdity that's endlessly pulling us down..."
That metaphor of a "whirlpool" or "vortex" appears in the materials from Cao Sao Vang and milktune: both men perceive a threat to their imagination or inspiration from some overtly material source. For milktune and IJO that gravitational pull downwards is viewed in terms of one's address: the dead weight of familiarity needs to shrugged off. The best way to do so is by moving away from home. And yet, for all that abandonment of a painfully familiar address, there's an equally positive connection here to physical instrumentation. A genuine joy transpires for IJO and Chikiss in the way that lumpen, almost immovable hardware can produce the soundtrack to some precious dreams.
The effort involved in making reality "sing," however, will not be easy: Cao Sao Vang speaks of those "lessfortunate" individuals who are troubled by material(istic) culture and go looking for more elusive, loftier values. They opt for the risky and worrying career of a musician. The joys they discover in hard-won creativity are few and far between. Those same infrequent moments are, thankfully, also worth the effort. The downward force of a whirlpool makes the slightest ascent seem blissful.
CAO SAO VANG - Inna De Concrete Janhl
Майк, они нашли нас.
Образ большого города, как каменных джунглей, не нов, но в наше неспокойное время как никогда актуален и переливается на пленке нашей иллюзорной реальности все новыми и невиданными доселе красками. В век когда человек превратился в ходячего мертвеца, бредущего по шумным улицам, уткнувшись лицом в пластиковую дощечку, ощущаешь себя словно в далеком прошлом, когда наступающие ледники вынуждают переселяться на новые места обитания в поисках пищи и тепла, а грубые неандертальцы совсем не понимают твоих гениальных рисунков на стенах пещер. Искусство - это то, что спасает нас от деградации. Искусство - это великий дар создавать, творить саму реальность, ощущать себя ближе к Создателю. Бетонные коробки, тянущиеся к затянутым тучами небесам, определяют наше мышление и образ жизни. Те, кто способен не замечать гнета серых блоков, проводит свое время в сверкающих разноцветными огнями торговых центрах. Те, кому повезло меньше, пытаются не сойти с ума в этом бесконечно засасывающем круговороте абсурда. Параллель между джунглями деревянными и джунглями бетонными, и место человека в этих ареалах обитания проводит в своем долгоиграющем альбоме волшебный бальзам Cao Sao Vang. Шел 2036 год.
