BIONIKA

It has been way too long since there has been an album from one of my favourite Russian experimental prog bands, but finally, after a gap of four years, they are back with their eighth studio album, 'Bionika'. I have been fortunate to review all of their releases to date, enjoying them all, but yet again we have had a significant change in line-up with only founder member Konstantin Mochalov (guitar) still there from 'The Big Adventure' while Anton Efimov (guitar), who played on some earlier releases has returned, and they have been joined by Daria Solovyeva (beats, synths), and Nikolay Filimonov (bass). Anton was the person who sent me the album to review, but I thought nothing of that as he has sent me many releases by the excellent Addicted label over the years, and he did not tell me he was back on this one.

Apparently, the concept of this album came together in the Bio-Organic Music Lounge at Disen Gage's New Year "corporate party" on 29/12/2021, where Alexei Borisov (Nochnoi Prospect, F.R.U.I.T.S., Astma) brought fellow musicians Eugene Voronovsky (Cisfinitum) and Misha 'MOX' Salnikov and everyone started talking about a collaboration between Disen Gage and these noise/ambient artists (who are all credited on the album cover) to create something which was aligned to the experimental roots from one side, and the ambient from the other. The result is something which is aligned to the band's earlier works as well as feeling closely related to New York's Gridfailure. As with the rest of their works this is not something which can be played in the background but needs to be listened to intently on headphones, is not something which can be fully understood on the first time of playing and will definitely not be to everyone's tastes.

This is abstract, industrial, experimental, with notes and instruments being brought in and out, layers of sound being used to create emotional responses with some being fuzzed and distorted, others being clean and clear. Sometimes it feels as if no-one knows what they are doing, while there can be focussed vision at others, the true reality is that this is music which creates an audio image in our ears which is both compelling and disturbing. Organic, yet with hard edges, this is for people who want to be adventurous and feel that Can and Art Zoyd never pushed hard enough.