The Russian artist takes us on a tour of her weirdest and most fantastic on-line rabbit holes
Dazed Faves is the sequence the place we speak all issues on-line – that surreal meme account you’re obsessive about, bizarre conspiracy idea subreddits, ASMR YouTubes, or slime Instagrams.
Getting into Kate NV’s world is like abandoning all logic. The Russian artist, often known as Kate Shilonosova, creates music that shrinks and expands like rubber, deploying “humorous tiny sounds” that squeak and pop and crackle, just like the sonic reply to a gumball machine. Her newest album WOW, Shilonosova’s fourth full-length launch as Kate NV in six years, is equally bizarre, full of tactile and immensely playful sounds and textures that pull the listener deeper into her childlike world. “The file could be very joyful and glitchy,” Shilonosova agrees. “I make music spontaneously and in some unspecified time in the future I realised that I’ve a variety of tracks that go collectively effectively as a result of they’ve the identical vitality.”
Impressed by early 00s Japanese composers like Nobukazu Takemura and cutesy videogame Katamari, WOW requires the listener to deprogramme any notions of conventional music shapes, as a substitute sculpting freewheeling compositions the place sounds stretch like putty, loaded with tasty plosives, percussive chirps and one-liners. Following on from her 2020 album Room for the Moon, the file options snippets of Shilonosova’s associates taking part in clarinet, flute, and marimba, that are juxtaposed towards a backdrop of glitchy, OST-adjacent melodies that really feel humorous and clown-like.
Utilizing the language of web artwork, Shilonosova’s music movies are absurd and immersive, that includes crudely rendered kittens, sparsely populated Minecraft forests, and chaotic digiscapes that really feel akin to stepping contained in the pixelated vistas of an early Microsoft 95. “It’s attention-grabbing to witness how the web evolves, how social networks have modified our notion and imaginative and prescient of others. It’s introduced loads of stress, even when the intention was good to start with,” she says. Nonetheless, Shilonosova maintains that she’s grateful for the web: “It may be a really darkish place, and individuals are typically very imply on-line. However, the web has helped so many artists to succeed in an viewers. And I’m an enormous fan of TikTok. I’ve realized a lot via it, I like that individuals are goofing round and sharing their tales.”
Kate NV: I discovered this tweet a yr in the past, and it nonetheless feels related. I truly took this screenshot whereas chain-smoking along with my buddy. We had been massively wired due to the information. It was a second when one thing was occurring each ten minutes – we had been refreshing web sites, checking notifications, not one another and simply smoking like loopy. This tweet made us snicker – at the very least we felt that we’re not alone. My buddy truly give up smoking ten years in the past, and began once more. The world proper now’s an insane place. I don’t advocate smoking although.
Kate NV: It’s exhausting to decide on one of the best Insta account as a result of there are such a lot of that I like. This one was created by my good buddy. He clearly is an enormous Evangelion fan. He’s been operating this account for years. He doesn’t submit something anymore, however the account serves as an archive — it’s one of the best. However after all, it’s good to watch Eva first. I bear in mind after I noticed this anime for the primary time, I fastidiously started to look via memes, and I discovered an exquisite mixture of heartbreaking anime and humorous jokes. Some made me snicker to tears, and for a number of minutes. It’s a legendary account.
Kate NV: It’s additionally virtually inconceivable to decide on one fave TikTok, as a result of as a median person, I’ve lots of of them saved on my cellphone. And 1000’s favored and favorited on the app. And in addition the relevancy of explicit TikTok fades away so shortly that a few of my saves don’t make sense anymore. This one is a bit nerdy however very candy and humorous. I’ve a set of TikTok like this, with various kinds of doorways “taking part in jazz”.
Kate NV: This account is already ten years previous. It was some type of a present with a loopy narrative, and the entire thing is inbuilt Minecraft. My buddy and I watched each episode. It seems to be bizarre and creepy, however music is definitely superb. It’s exhausting to overlook it when you’ve seen it.
Kate NV: OK this isn‘t a meme, it‘s a cool pic. To be trustworthy, I want I may connect my fave album, however you possibly can solely obtain it from torrents or Soulseek from the nice nerds (who’re extra seemingly those that I do know).
WOW is out now on RVNG Intl.
