Biography
Belorussian avant-prog collective Rational Diet embarked on an expansive project at the outset of 2011. By February 2012, after extended sessions at Vozdookh studio in Brest that concluded that month, the musicians emerged to discover that Rational Diet itself, at least under its original designation, had dissolved. That same February instead witnessed the official launch of Five-Storey Ensemble, built around several core Rational Diet participants. Internal friction also produced a parallel outfit, the Archestra, assembled from other ex-Rational Diet musicians who had taken part in the recordings. Although devotees might have regretted the demise of this inventive Rock in Opposition-inspired unit, its dissolution actually yielded two active ensembles. Five-Storey Ensemble reached the public first, issuing its debut album Not That City in February 2013, only a month before the Archestra delivered its own more electrically charged rock statement, Arches.
Following the Italian AltrOck label’s issuance of three favorably received Rational Diet albums—the 2007 self-titled debut, 2008’s At Work, and 2010’s On Phenomena and Existences—the musicians, in shifting combinations, undertook two 2011 endeavors. One supplied the soundtrack for Bondman’s Wings, staged by an experimental theater company in Brest, Belarus. The other involved a summer partnership with Belorussian poet Andrej Khadanovich that produced the album/audiobook Milosz pa Bialorusku (Milosz in Belorussian), for which the group supplied musical settings to recitations drawn from the writings of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet and author Czeslaw Milosz.
During those same Vozdookh sessions, spanning 2011 into February of the next year, Olga Podgaiskaja (keyboards, vocals), Vitaly Appow (bassoon, saxophone), Dimitry Maslovsky (bass), Nikolay “Gumberg” Semitko (drums), and Kirill Krystia (violin), together with additional players that included Kirill Krystia’s wife Nadia—a vocalist, violinist, and cellist—captured pieces written chiefly by Podgaiskaja, with several contributions from Appow. Certain selections incorporated lyrics by avant-garde Russian poet Alexander Vvedensky, who perished in 1941 following his arrest on charges of counterrevolutionary activity in the Soviet Union; these texts were performed by soprano Podgaiskaja and tenor Sergey Dolgushev. Material from the Bondman’s Wings soundtrack was likewise committed to tape.
AltrOck issued the resulting 11-track Not That City in February 2013. Podgaiskaja’s compositions, rendered in a chamber-classical and at times operatic manner, formed the album’s core. Liner notes, without naming Rational Diet outright, described an evolution that had begun in early 2011 with Bondman’s Wings and continued through the Milosz pa Bialorusku project, thereby justifying the adoption of a fresh ensemble identity. Rational Diet founding guitarist Maxim Velvetov was absent; both acoustic and electric guitar duties fell to Andrey Evdokimov. Archestra guitarist Yuri Korogoda, violinist Kirill Krystia, and Nadia Krystia (appearing here solely on cello) received guest credits on several pieces. Rounding out the Five-Storey Ensemble personnel heard on the record, alongside Podgaiskaja, Appow, Maslovsky, Semitko, and Dolgushev, were accordionist Alexander But’ko, oboist Natalja Malashkova, flutist Olga Polakova, violinist Anastasia Popova, and bassist Vyacheslav Plesko. The notes further noted that the group drew members from Fratrez, a Minsk-based quartet balancing improvisation with “archaic, folk, and modern composition.”
While Five-Storey Ensemble coalesced, Kirill and Nadia Krystia simultaneously established the Archestra, a rockier, more intricate, and electrically oriented septet devoted exclusively to Kirill Krystia’s compositions and also featuring Appow and Semitko. The Archestra’s debut Arches, mastered by Udi Koomran, appeared in March 2013 as the first release on the Soleil Mutant imprint of the French Soleil Zeuhl label. Five-Storey Ensemble meanwhile declared its own septet configuration—Podgaiskaja, Appow, Popova, But’ko, Malashkova, Dolgushev, and double bassist Yury Naumenko—for a forthcoming engagement at Portugal’s Gouveia Art Rock festival the following month.
Following the Italian AltrOck label’s issuance of three favorably received Rational Diet albums—the 2007 self-titled debut, 2008’s At Work, and 2010’s On Phenomena and Existences—the musicians, in shifting combinations, undertook two 2011 endeavors. One supplied the soundtrack for Bondman’s Wings, staged by an experimental theater company in Brest, Belarus. The other involved a summer partnership with Belorussian poet Andrej Khadanovich that produced the album/audiobook Milosz pa Bialorusku (Milosz in Belorussian), for which the group supplied musical settings to recitations drawn from the writings of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet and author Czeslaw Milosz.
During those same Vozdookh sessions, spanning 2011 into February of the next year, Olga Podgaiskaja (keyboards, vocals), Vitaly Appow (bassoon, saxophone), Dimitry Maslovsky (bass), Nikolay “Gumberg” Semitko (drums), and Kirill Krystia (violin), together with additional players that included Kirill Krystia’s wife Nadia—a vocalist, violinist, and cellist—captured pieces written chiefly by Podgaiskaja, with several contributions from Appow. Certain selections incorporated lyrics by avant-garde Russian poet Alexander Vvedensky, who perished in 1941 following his arrest on charges of counterrevolutionary activity in the Soviet Union; these texts were performed by soprano Podgaiskaja and tenor Sergey Dolgushev. Material from the Bondman’s Wings soundtrack was likewise committed to tape.
AltrOck issued the resulting 11-track Not That City in February 2013. Podgaiskaja’s compositions, rendered in a chamber-classical and at times operatic manner, formed the album’s core. Liner notes, without naming Rational Diet outright, described an evolution that had begun in early 2011 with Bondman’s Wings and continued through the Milosz pa Bialorusku project, thereby justifying the adoption of a fresh ensemble identity. Rational Diet founding guitarist Maxim Velvetov was absent; both acoustic and electric guitar duties fell to Andrey Evdokimov. Archestra guitarist Yuri Korogoda, violinist Kirill Krystia, and Nadia Krystia (appearing here solely on cello) received guest credits on several pieces. Rounding out the Five-Storey Ensemble personnel heard on the record, alongside Podgaiskaja, Appow, Maslovsky, Semitko, and Dolgushev, were accordionist Alexander But’ko, oboist Natalja Malashkova, flutist Olga Polakova, violinist Anastasia Popova, and bassist Vyacheslav Plesko. The notes further noted that the group drew members from Fratrez, a Minsk-based quartet balancing improvisation with “archaic, folk, and modern composition.”
While Five-Storey Ensemble coalesced, Kirill and Nadia Krystia simultaneously established the Archestra, a rockier, more intricate, and electrically oriented septet devoted exclusively to Kirill Krystia’s compositions and also featuring Appow and Semitko. The Archestra’s debut Arches, mastered by Udi Koomran, appeared in March 2013 as the first release on the Soleil Mutant imprint of the French Soleil Zeuhl label. Five-Storey Ensemble meanwhile declared its own septet configuration—Podgaiskaja, Appow, Popova, But’ko, Malashkova, Dolgushev, and double bassist Yury Naumenko—for a forthcoming engagement at Portugal’s Gouveia Art Rock festival the following month.
Albums
