Nexsound label-founder Andrey Kiritchenko’s disc is a much more immediately soothing listen. The first four tracks layer acoustic guitar strumming and filtered reverberations of those strums with paper/object rustling and other ambient incidentals. Even when a thick layer of electronic reverb engulfs the other sound sources, like on “Scope of my perception”, it does so slowly that the decibel increase comes as relief not shock. The last four tracks use a piano in place of the guitar, bestowing on the album as a whole the kind of sonic balance that each track maintains. Very light plinks, soft mid-range feedback, a piano purring, backwards-processed interior landscape field recordings: Kiritchenko’s compositional elements work together, like a beer and an orange, to produce many-flavored feelings.
Andrew Choate
Review
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
Andrey Kiritchenko is, well, people who read this site regularly will know what I think of him. A very talented artist from the Ukraine. He can switch genres easily and still bring us the highest quality we could expect from anyone. Never does he release a boring piece of music.
True Delusion doesn’t differ in the least. From the moment you receive it, you’ll be fascinated. The design, which was made using razor scratching techniques by Olga Indovina, is just awesome. And then you haven’t even listened to Andrey’s music yet.
For this album, Andrey has taken on the more ambient, post-rock style of music instead of the glitchy stuff he does. I must add that I prefer the glitchy stuff, but as I said before it doesn’t really matter which style of music he comes with, it’ll sound good anyway. It’s impossible to not be fascinated by the sounds that Andrey Kiritchenko is able to produce, alter, tweak, bleep, etc. Just plain great work.
I am very grateful that Andrey releases his own stuff as well on his label, next to all the music from other talented artists. I wouldn’t want to have missed this.
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
Figura centrale della scena sperimentale ucraina, Andrey Kiritchenko e stato finora coinvolto in progetti e lavori dai contorni estremamente mutevoli. In questo suo nuovo album per la nipponica Spekk (ma ne esiste anche una seconda edizione stampata dalla propria etichetta Nexsound) viene preso in esame lo studio degli armonici minimalisti, attraverso l’accoppiamento di strumenti acustici (la chitarra nella prima parte, il pianoforte nella seconda) e scalpiccii concreti che si materializza in un suono greve e corrotto, lontane parvenze di melodia, echi di friabile delicatezza resi tangibili o fatti sparire con magica mano da illusionista. (7/8) Nicola Catalano
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
Kiritchenko’s own True Delusion is a moodier affair, taking source recordings of guitar, piano and diverse field recordings and feeding them into the ubiquitous computer, to come up with something that sounds remarkably like Giuseppe Ielasi’s two latest solo releases on Sedimental and Hapna. Imagine lying on your back in long grass on a hot summer night and strumming a few neo-folk post-Fahey licks while small insects scuttle perilously close to your earholes. Elsewhere, ultra-minimal three-note piano melodies (both pedals down) drift through a haze of glowing harmonics as the listener is inexorably drawn into a brooding melancholy world worthy of Loren Connors. The difference is that Connors comes out naked and shivering, and doesn’t hide under a digital duvet. Kiritchenko’s music is touching, atmospheric, and undeniably well crafted, but I’m left wondering exactly how much substance there is under its beautiful surfaces.
-DW
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
L’ukrainien Andrey Kiritchenko, croise chez Ad Noiseam ou Autoplate, use de son propre label Nexsound pour coproduire avec le japonais Spekk son nouvel album True Delusion. Kiritchenko confie avoir realise ce disque assez vite, en dix mois : six mois pour reunir un materiel sonore de base tout en reflechissant au disque, et seulement quatre supplementaires pour l’editer, l’ordonner, lui faire prendre forme.
L’artiste enregistre ainsi quelques notes de guitares egrenees, avec des microphones de contact, chez lui, quelques melodies de piano chez des amis, et des field recordings dans la ville de Kharkiv ou a proximite. Ces notes qu’ils jouent ne sont jamais bien nombreuses, se repetent, minimales. Ces quelques sequences melodiques se melangent a des bruits, gresillements, crachats electroniques divers – la texture digitale, parfois accidentelle, offrant un support de choix a la mise en valeur melodique que suit aisement l’ecoute de l’auditeur. True Delusion s’ouvre sur quatre compositions ou l’on trouve de la guitare, puis sur quatre ou se joue le piano. Les deus instruments ne se croisent jamais, discourent seuls dans ces atmospheres obscures toujours meditative, faussement calmes soit, mais pas forcement denuees de tension. True Delusion est un album organique, mouvant, parfois legerement orchestral malgre son denuement musical.
Kiritchenko y montre tout son talent a l’art de l’infiniment petit, a ce travail exemplaire sur les couches sonores, mais accouche d’un disque tiede ou l’emotion n’est pas toujours communicative, ou il semble regulierement se cacher sous son processus creatif plutot que d’exprimer son ressenti.
par stephane
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
Nexsound label founder, Ukrainian sound artist Andrey Kiritchenko releases his new solo album simultaneously on his onw label and the Japanese spekk. While “True Delusion” integrates well in the still small spekk catalogue that so far includes the likes of Taylor Deupree and William Basinski, for those digging the glitches and electronic noises that dominate Nexsound and the artist’s previous oeuvre the sparse acoustic guitar (first half) and piano (second half) sounds on this album will take a while to get used to. Using harmonic overtones and field recordings, Kiritchenk carefully and tastefully places each of the eight pieces in the narrow space between reality and fiction, to create indeed a feel of delusion. (Andreas)
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
Quando Karl Jaspers parlò per la prima volta della “delusione” nel suo saggio Psicopatologia Generale, operva una distinzione fra le delusioni primarie e quelle secondarie. Le prime (note anche come true delusions) sono contraddistine da una radicale trasformazione di senso -direbbe qualcuno-, cosicchè il mondo o aspetti di esso vengono interpretati in maniera totalmente differenti dal soggetto deluso, in base ad un processo che a molti può apparire causato da fattori psicopatologici. Jaspers individuò quattro tipi di true delusions: quella legata all’intuizione (in cui la causa scatenante non è esogena, ma dipende in gran parte dai cosiddetti “blue states” ovvero degli stati di melanconia), quella percettiva (in cui la percezione “normale” ingenera “delusione” nel soggetto), quella “atmosferica” (in cui un qualche fenomeno esterno fa percepire il mondo in maniera alterato, quasi che fosse investito da una rivelazione portentosa o sinistra, capace sensazioni o percezioni ritenute prodromiche) e infine quella legata alla memoria. La classificazione richiamata, nonostante sia stata criticata sotto vari profili, sembra essere ripercorsa da questo disco di Andrey Kiritchenko, notorio sperimentalista ucraino, fondatore della Nexsound, eccellente etichetta che sta contribuendo alla fama della già apprezzata scena elettronica ucraina e ad accreditarla come tra le più interessanti dell’Europa Orientale. E in questo disco tra qualche spiegazzatura minimalista e molte inflessioni strutturaliste che Andrey sembra che -quasi inconsapevolmente- abbia voluto impressionare un viaggio intimista. Del torpore mnestico che avrebbe tirato fuori Jaspers o meglio i suoi seguaci c’è ben poco, visto che Andrey sembra trovare perfetta collocazione del suo vissuto (percettivo) nella musica che sembra dimenarsi nel groviglio di rumori d’ambiente e glitcherie pregevoli. Come ammette lo stesso Kiritchenko, il progetto era nata con l’intento di esplorare gli overtones armonici per tramite di una chitarra acustica (“l’unico strumento che suono più o meno bene” ricorda Andrey), ma pian piano una qualche impellenza ha visto l’intromissione del pianoforte (“perchè amo ciò che Charlemagne Palestine fa con questo strumento” ha dichiarato di recente in un’intervista). Il processing in altre parole sembra (stranamente) messo in secondo piano, anche se riteniamo che le field recordings rimangano ancora il nucleo dello stile di questo musicista. La con/fusione degli strumenti con i suoni reali sussegue nella ricerca espressiva di questo genere di sperimentazioni, per cui non meravigliatevi se qualcuno avrà la parvenza di essere calato in un’ambientazione surreale in cui gli strumenti più convenzionali (nella fattispecie piano e chiatarra) sembrano gradualmente impolpettarsi con ogni oggetto fonte di onde sonore percepibili da orecchio umano. Ed è proprio in questa “surrettizia surrealtà” che va individuata la fonte di quella “true delusion” a cui Andrey allude nel titolo di questo album, che viene pubblicato anche dalla giapponese Spekk in confezione di cartone riciclato.
Andrey Kiritchenko – True Delusion
Ukrainian sound-artists Andrey Kiritchenko had a different perception of how new technology could aid in the act of music making. “True Delusion” is in fact equal parts field recording, real instrumentation [guitar and piano] and computer processing. All of these elements are wrapped in a warm, soothing blanket that invites the listener to repeat the listening process again and again. The album starts off with warm guitar plucking that sounds as if surrounded by an aura of humming or buzzing. Minimal plucking is what Kiritchenko had in mind all along. His vision was to bring a meditative glistening to the recording, something that is immediately apparent. With tapes of crickets, dim nightfall and sounds of something that resembles dried leaves, the music [whether processed or not] gives an appearance of something that is embracing and natural. Though much of Kiritchenko’s sounds fall in the serene category, he’s still successful at retaining a factor of underlying tension. From one moment to the next, the listener is unable to guess and predict what’s coming up next. Will the sounds continue to caress the ears or will the change in direction be so drastic that we’ll sit up and take notice of the strangeness factor? His experiments with piano are especially welcome. Half-way through the record, it’s the piano in fact that takes over as the predominant instrument. “Illusion of Safety” [not to be confused with the band of the same name] features wads of light keys clicking. Though pleasant at first, the sound appears to be shrouded over with a mysterious substance, almost like an oily filter that leaves a dirty sound behind. The beauty in all of this is how well the sounds flow from one point to the next, from one idea to the next. Kiritchenko is teasing listeners with an intense game of connect the dots. Everything is logical and nothing sounds false or contrived. Almost like a little kid who’s connecting large dots on a piece of paper; like an artist who’s filling his blank piece of cloth with paint, listening to Andrey Kiritchenko’s “True Delusion” is like watching someone give birth to their newborn.
– Tom Sekowski