Svoy

Svoy serves as the solo outlet for Mikhail Tarasov, the Russian-born singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist whose output stretches from bold electro-pop tracks to expansive electronic symphonies. His first release, the 2005 album Eclectric, gathered emotionally direct pop songs whose rhythms evoked drum'n'bass and IDM; four years later Automatons placed him on the Japanese charts. Tarasov has since issued further electronic pop albums alongside an ongoing sequence of experimental symphonies that began with Symphony No. 1: What Happened When I Was Asleep in 2015. Among his collaborators are Meshell Ndegeocello, Claudia Acuña, Demir Demirkan, and Kenny Garrett on the 2024 project Who Killed AI?.

Born in Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, Tarasov trained for seven years in classical piano with professor Mary Kalman before relocating to Moscow for further instruction from Igor Bril and Yury Saulsky. A full scholarship then took him to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where he completed a Professional Music Degree with a jazz-piano major. In 2002 he received the BMI Pete Carpenter Fellowship Award from television composer Mike Post, and in 2004 Yoko Ono presented him with the BMI John Lennon Award.

Tarasov self-produced the debut Svoy album Eclectric, which first appeared on his own Sixteenth Republic Records imprint in 2005 and was later reissued worldwide by Rendezvous Entertainment—the label established by Dave Koz and Frank Cody and then distributed by Universal. Automatons followed in 2009 and contained the Japanese radio hit “Beautiful Thing,” an album and single that together earned multiple honors at the 2011 Independent Music Awards. His third album, Grow Up, arrived in 2011. Additional credits include work with Meshell Ndegeocello and the Roots’ Mark Kelley on a project by Chilean jazz singer Claudia Acuña, plus guest spots on Kenny Garrett recordings. He also assembled the 2005–2012 retrospective Yours, Svoy: The Best of 2005–2012 and the EPs Solved and Lovedso, which were combined into the 2014 full-length Lovedsolved.

The more experimental avant-pop series opened with Symphony No. 1: What Happened When I Was Asleep in 2015; Amurdeswa and 321 both followed in 2016. Beautifulie appeared in 2017, succeeded by the symphonies FRea in 2018 and Tocktick in 2019. Tarasov released the album Won in 2020, then returned in 2024 with Who Killed AI?, the full-length electronic-jazz collaboration with Garrett issued by Mack Avenue.