Faux Russian DJ embraces a vintage vinyl future
Who
: DJ Vadim featuring Yarah Bravo and First Rate, with Insides OutWhere
: GarfinkelsWhen
: Sunday, Oct. 12Tickets
: $10Hes a Brit who was born in Russia, produces Spanish hip-hop and married a Brazilian-Swede of Chilean descent. And right now, hes on the 101 heading up from San Francisco to Eureka, Calif., en route to Canada.
Life with DJ Vadim is a life without borders.
Yet if you had to pin a nationality on Vadim, it might as well be his enigmatic Russian DJ persona. Choosing to identify with the country he left at four years old has made him the Rasputin of electronica. He titled a recent album U.S.S.R the Art of Listening (Ninja Tune), and he frequently collaborates with a group he named the Russian Percussion, even though the members are a mixed ethnic bag.
But its less a desire to actually be Russian and more a fascination with the countrys mystique that inspires Vadim.
"Its not the place that my ideas come from, but I like the symbolism of somewhere else other than the U.K. or Western Europe, or North America for people to think about," says the quick-witted turntablist.
"I like the idea of when you talk about Russia, people dont know too much about it. Its kind of an unknown entity. And thats what, in a sense, I like to bring into my music, a kind of mysticism. You cant read me like an open book."
At the present Vadim is on his way up the American West Coast along with cohort DJ First Rate of Scratch Pervert and Morcheeba fame, and MC/vocalist/wife and "Mistress of Poetic Invention" Yarah Bravo. The crew will appear here on Sunday night, another chance to thrill the Whistler crowd with a session of sly grooves garnished with Bravos verbal stylings. Its only been six months since Vadim and Co. were up this way, and for fans of progressive hip-hop, its been a long, long wait. However, the incessantly touring DJ has packed a lot into those six months, including a trip to his spiritual homeland.
He likes playing Russia, he says. "People are very passionate. They get up and dance and shout and scream and get really drunk. Its pretty groovy."
Passion is something Vadim gets behind. Its kept him in the DJ game for over a decade now, but he has no intention of slowing down, selling out or cashing in. Hes still striving to innovate and intends to avoid settling for the easy route.
"We live in a McDonalds culture. We live in a fast food culture and thats not the kind of music I want to make," he says definitively. "A lot of people have a problem with that because thats how they want to appreciate their music. They want their instant hits that they can pop in their CD player and dont have to think about. Id like to make a record that cant be appreciated in just one listen. I want to provide something that does kind of stimulate the mind. I dont want to make the lowest common denominator to music."
Hes quick to point out that he is not trying to intellectualize his sound, just distance himself from processed pop du jour.
"Im trying to do something a bit deeper that you still dont have to have a PhD to listen to. I try to pick sounds and have the music composed and arranged so when you listen to it a second time, a third time, a 10th time theres something new and exciting there," he says.
There is undeniably something exciting underscoring even the most laid-back of Vadims tracks. Its a deliciously subversive vibe suggesting that things are deeper than they first appear and another listen, just a little closer, might let you in on what that is. Many tracks are blatantly subversive; the best known of which is his collaboration with MC Sarah Jones Your Revolution, from the 1999 album U.S.S.R. Life From the Other Side (Ninja Tune). The simmering track was banned by the FCC (the American radio regulating body) from the U.S. airwaves on account of the explicit phrases used as a quiet rage against the misogynist mainstream hip-hop machine that had created them in the first place.
Bravo too, is unabashedly outspoken in her opposition to the foreign policies of the present U.S. government.
In the case of his track with Jones, free speech may be too threatening for American radio, but Vadim notes that with the advance of the Internet, music is crossing both political and cultural borders. Its the Internet, he says, that has opened up Russia to his sound, and even regimes like China are having difficulties restricting the cyber-flow of ideas, sounds, and lyrics. Over the course of the past decade he cites the Internet as having the most influence on electronic music, and music in general, and declares it the architect of the future.
"I think its had a huge, profound effect," he muses. "I dont think people understand how its going to affect the future. The way we can see music in five years time is going to be totally different to how its done now. At the moment if you go into an average house youve got the TV, a computer, a hi-fi, a DVD player a VHS player in the future its just going to be one box that will do all that stuff. Youre not going to need to have a hi-fi, youre not going to need to have a CD player, youre not going to need to have a computer, youre just going to need one gadget that does the whole thing."
But for an architect of the vinyl arts, the spectre of a future where there is no need for tactile recordings doesnt seem threatening.
"Its exciting because we live in a time when vintage things hold their value as well, an aesthetic value. We live in 2003 and design cars that go much faster, much more efficient, but people still want to drive vintage Mustangs, vintage Porsches or VWs, what have you, because they have value. So in the same way vinyls going to last."
DJ Vadim will definitely make the vinyl last through his set on Sunday night. Catch him with Yarah Bravo and DJ First Rate at Garfinkels along with Vancouver-based hip-hop collective Insides Out. Tickets $10 at the door.