07.10.06 Bowerbird, Philadelphia: Grundik Kasyansky (feedback synthesizer) w/ Shige Moriya (video), Ninni Morgia (guitar), Juan Merchan (movement)

Grundik Kasyansky is a sound artist composer and sound designer who apparently divides time between Moscow Tel Aviv and New York City. In 1995 he formed Grundik and Slava with Slava Smelovsky in Israel. Their 2005 concept album Frogs was the most compelling example of electro acoustic avant garde electronica that this writer encountered last year For his solo project however Grundik has stripped things right back. To the extent that he is working with delicate pitches, fragile textures of static and sharp pin pricks of sine tones, forming these almost intolerable micro symphonies of sound. His main instrument is feedback synthesizer, though he’s also working with radios in which he mines the gold barely off channel, computer and theremin. There are subtle skips, clips, tiny flutters of static as the radios and the digitalia bubble and pop aimlessly. Though generated via feedback these are quiet sounds requiring active listening, possibly best with headphones to block out any extraneous environmental sounds, as otherwise it would be easy to lose some of the subtlety in Grundik’s composition.

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Released in March 2005 as a joint effort between the two labels Auris Media and Topheth Propheth, ‘Frogs’ of the Israeli-American electronic duo Grundik+Slava is the direct follow-up (and the second instalment in the ‘Fauna’ series) to ‘… for electronic and birds’ (out on State Art a couple of years ago).
As suggested by the cover album and track titles, it is a conceptual opus dedicated to frogs, that also marks a collaboration with Victoria Hanna (vocals), Igor K (bass) and Vadim Gusis/Chaos As Shelter (vargan). The cd contains 10 tracks, ranging from experimental, ambient, (sometimes tribal, sometimes atmospheric) to avant-garde electronics…. The music, built upon a mixture of traditional instruments (guitar, ocarina, mbira…) with electronic sounds, ambient drones, and field recordings… manages to create a very special and organic atmosphere. Probably that free noise improvisation passages and the fact that the (voluntary absence of) structure of the tracks (that doesn’t make them sound like ‘real songs’) could make this outing difficult to apprehend. However, ears used to experimental de-constructions shouldn’t pass by this strange opus… Perhaps, will you even succeed in unveiling the mystery of the cd tray sentence ‘only frogs know…’.

‘Frogs’ comes in a slipcase featuring a frog on the (front and back) cover and includes an insert on special paper with information about the album and a live photo.

Nathalie F.
Winter 2006

A free downloadable Grundik+Slava live recording (in Jerusalem, April 15, 20004) is available via Qube and Topheth Prophet: www.qube.co.il/qarts.asp?qid=612

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01.10.06 – Grundiks’s electro-acoustic Kol Nidre with Frank London, Pearl Gluck and Michelle Miller at Tribeca Grill, 375 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10013