THE SOUND OF MOSCOW FROM ABOVE

If you could use your releases as a soundtrack to a film, what kind of film would that be?
Recently, we filmed a music video for the 10th release of Gost Zvuk by Vtgnike and it’s been all about air footage of our ’hood. We were filming with the drone around the wicked architecture of local suburbs.
Who is your ideal audience?
We are making it for ourselves firstly.
What is your greatest aspiration?
To push the local scene further to the moon.
Doesn’t using the Cyrillic alphabet make your releases less accessible to an international audience?
I think it’s the opposite. When I was thinking about the concept, everyone was telling me I’m crazy and nobody is going to dig Cyrillic. But people are curious, and the alphabet is really beautiful, authentic, it’s the face of the Russian world. Culture-wise, it’s the anti-global act, a firm challenge to the modern music establishment which is driven mainly by the English alphabet.
Why vinyl?
Personally, I’m just in love with this format, I love the aesthetics of the vinyl, the cover, etc. Vinyl is the ultimate symbol of music, it’s the status, the quality, the certain sound.
If each city has a specific sound, what is the sound of Moscow to you?
I believe the greatest artist that forms the Moscow school is Mikhail Chekalin.

DJ and producer Ildar Zaynetdinov – a.k.a. Low808 – talks about his label, GOST ZVUK (ГОСТ ЗВУК), a haven of Russian electronica. (NOMAS, Moscow, p. 111)