Music as meditation. Music as testimony. Andrey Sirotkin has described his creative process in terms of sublimation; the act of transmuting the most difficult and destabilising of emotions into something tangible and shareable rather than absorbing them entirely.
The Kyiv-based producer built his catalogue under the Shade of Drums alias before switching to his own name in 2019, a decision driven by a desire to make music that carried genuine emotional weight.
He also produces drum and bass under the I Wannabe alias, and runs a monthly show on Data Transmission Radio alongside his own Vyrii Records imprint and co-ownership of Cyclic Numbers records.
Support from Richie Hawtin, Maceo Plex, Joris Voorn, Marc Romboy, and John Digweed has followed, with releases on Systematic, Brique Rouge, Diffuse Reality, and Default Position. Nothing Behind the Words is his new album on Vyrii.
The album is a collection of works recorded during the Russian attacks on the Ukraine. Borne from these circumstances is an album of viscerally emotive techno; perhaps knowing the context adds to that emotion when listening, but without the context, they are still techno compositions that move the mind, heart, and soul, as well as the body.
We begin with the thundering What Hero of What Story Am I. Pure power techno with a deeply abrasive edge that gives it a borderline industrial quality; perhaps the echoes of conflict we are hearing, or at least the frantic panic such conditions give rise to. It is not an easy listen by any stretch.
Non, Je N'Ai Pas Le Temps follows with a broken beat approach; off-kilter percussion and a syncopated kick emulating the mechanical ticking of an alarm clock, while synths blare and acid basslines ebb and flow. The string pads that close it out are sublime in juxtaposition to everything that precedes them.
Who Am I When Nobody's Watching melds aqueous sonics; digital droplets and bubbling aural liquids colliding with propulsive drum programming and an absolutely fantastic oscillating synth, sustained for long periods as it granulises and reforms. Amazing.
Wise words follow, as a robotic mantra tells us to Be the Change in Sirotkin's superb acid-drenched end to the album's first half. An exhilarating track, with triumphant synth stabs puncturing the hyperkinetic drums. Fuck yeah.
The acid doesn't let up for I Will Give Everything I Don't Have, which features some of the most face-contorting sonics we've heard in some time (which is a good thing, of course). Despite the emotions deeply rooted within these productions, they never lose their dancefloor relevance.
Message to Indifferent features distorted chatter and digitally decayed signals, evoking a bit-crushed space where communication holds no sway, or is lost in transmission entirely; surely a reflection of the climate of conflict from which this music emerges.
We move then into See No Light; minimal in comparison to what precedes it, though it doesn't take long for discordant, jarring synths to dissolve any comfort we may have assumed.
We are on a very melodic tip with the penultimate track, some fantastic synth work riding alongside a groove-laden rhythm section. Always Missing and Living in Absence does, however, feel at times like a hospital scene; the muffled conversation and heart monitor synth adding an unsettling clinical quality to the melodic warmth.
The collection rounds out with Be With Me. Sirotkin brings the tempo down to a housier chug, a vocal refrain echoing the track title among silken keys. An ending that lifts the mood after what at times has been an uncomfortable yet utterly brilliant listen.
Grab it on Bandcamp and take the journey for yourself. This is a truly fantastic album.