“Chudo Pustih Ruk” (Чудо Пустых Рук / The Miracle of Empty Hands) is the third collaborative release from musicians
@glovedhands and
@hand_model , and the first release on the label
@dumb_edge . Watch the video for “Skali”, stream the track, and pre-order the limited edition 7” on Bandcamp. “Chudo Pustih Ruk” will be released March 27th.
Gloved Hands created four lo-fi but biting instrumentals and invited Hand Model to perform vocals over the music in his native language of Russian. Created in the California cities of Sacramento and Los Angeles, far from the golden cupolas of Leningrad, the result is a post-soviet whirlwind of hiss and psychedelic nostalgia. The four tracks are built on a foundation of scuffed drum machine sounds, yearning lyrics, and forgotten synthesizers one might find half-buried in frozen mud. On top of that, the enigmatic DJ Mantis takes “Teflon” to another realm with the addition of her steely vocals.
Dusty rhythms and spellbinding choruses carry the listener back to the 1990s, a decade marked by the global yin and yang of irreversible dissolution and dizzying prosperity. It is in the everyday minutia between these world currents that “Chudo Pustih Ruk” finds its home. Nonstick cookware, once-forbidden cassette tapes, and pigs, both literal and capitalist, frame a childhood marked by ideological and geographical transition.
If nostalgia is a longing for the places of the past, can there be any resolution or return to that which has long eroded or is now inaccessible? The answer, of course, is a bittersweet yes: by having a drink.
