Strange music for Three Tune Tuesday 🤪🤪🤪

Let me educate you about this date: August, 24. I wanted to make this blog 2 weeks ago, but due to my usual habit, I slow down, so I'm letting this out today :) Are you in the know of this Day? Since 1997, it became celebrated as the Strange Music Day. The idea was proposed by New York musician Patrick Grant (note, originally it was just an original way to promote his new album “Fields Amaze”. Grant was mixing different genres in music, due to that he could not find a label willing to release his album, so Grant released it on his own label, which he named precisely as 'Strange Music'). However, the idea and its relevance touched the public, after Millennium the popularity of Strange Music Day grew a lot, Grant noticed the Day was already celebrated in Europe, and added to the name the “International” part.

The idea behind the Day is to encourage people to learn to hear new sounds, create their own music, as well as listen to less conventional music that has not yet been appreciated enough, and expand their cultural horizons. In music, everyone tries to please - and in fact, this is the last thing to do, in art it is harmful to repeat other people's successful recipes (a copy is always worse than the original ... "already was in the Simpsons" causes a lack of interest). You have to be yourself, show your individuality, your own new style/sound, be different from everyone else.

As proven by the British scientists, music affects greatly our mind and body; it is believed that if you expand your musical spectrum, then you change your outlook on various aspects of life. And thus, International Weird Music Day is also a day of expanding boundaries and openness to everything new and unusual. The best way to celebrate this day is to listen and play some weird music. I took one of my khomus (also named as 'Jewish harp') off the shelf and did a meditative 6-minute musical improvisation. As a matter of fact, I do this periodically and without any Weird Music Day, when the corresponding impulse from space catches up with me.

One of two khomuses I have in my collection, in luxurious hand-made carved walnut case. (And no, I still don't record videos and can't present you me playing music...)

The most difficult part for me is choosing 3 certain names from a huge matching list. Whom should I introduce you today? Whenever I face this choice problem, it makes me procrastinate and delay the result for many days. So, today's artists: Leonid Fedorov, Sergei Kuryokhin, UUTAi.

Leonid Fedorov is a famous Russian rock-musician, leader of 'Auktyon' band. Since late 90s, he has been more developing his own solo career, but his old band has not disappeared either. Within his solo career, he "allows himself" much more avant-garde music. There is a solid back catalog of interesting avantgarde and experimental records, a sufficient part of the songs came as accompaniment /interpretation /soundtrack/ synthesis of absurdist Oberiut Russian poetry of the beginning of the century.

This certain track from 2005 is called 'Bin Laden' (of course you know said person -- and yeah, this already have been in 'The Simpsons' ;). The song mixes several unusual ingredients: violin concerto, Georgian choir, London, some obscene vocabulary ... there came out a stunning dramatic energetic poetic cocktail. I wonder how it will taste to you?

This musical piece is familiar to the general Russian public, as it was released in the classic rock album 'Radio Afrika' by Aquarium back in 1983 ... but I'm not sure about foreign music fans. Russian avantgarde composer and pianist Sergei Kuryokhin (he tragically died in 1995) is considered to be one of the most interesting figures at the Russian underground scene in the 1980s; he participated in a huge number of interesting projects and left a comet-like trail.

They called him a bully genius. He was a virtuoso performer, conductor, arranger, actor, journalist, bibliophile, party-goer, showman, ideologist, politician... tried to create his own universe out of chaos. The figure is more abrupt than Bowie. No, I cant say his music to be very accessible, but if you are sick of dumb pop melodies and rock cliches, and wanna have a sip of something different, to re-load your musical perception receptors, this one is for you. (and, well, this track is among the most accessible and appealing ones, hehe).

A nice bio was written by Alexander Kushnir: «Sergey Kuryokhin. Crazy mechanics of Russian rock». A while ago I was lucky to get this rare book at a second hand market, for rather silly money. As far as I know, there exist no English translation, sadly enough.

Прекрасную биографию написал журналист Александр Кушнир: «Сергей Курехин. Безумная механика русского рока». В свое время мне посчастливилось купить ее в секондхенде за вменяемые деньги, каких-то 800 рублей, я был счастлив как слон. Английского перевода, насколько мне известно, не существует, а единственный русский тираж (2013 года) давно распродан.

When I was preparing this blog, I came across an interesting modern version of this great art piece - made by violinist Alexei Aigui and comrades. The grandaddy in the video, saxophone man - is the avant-garde musician Sergey Letov, who contributed to many of Kuryokhin's recordings and was one of his favorite session musicians. Music continues to live!

I have been obsessed with Tuwa throat singing for more than two decades, and although this particular artist is not my favorite one (among more fave names are Altai-Kai, Vladimir Oidupaa, Chirgilchin) - but the skill of performance speaks for itself, this is the real top of the tops. Do appreciate how masterfully she extracts various sounds from the khomus and her throat, how she imitates the voices of birds and animals from the native Siberian taiga ... that is why I included to my selection her name.