Sam Riley
Listening to Leningrad Collective Improvisation, 1983
– Sergey Kuryokhin and Friends, recorded by Hans Kumpf

An analysis (2023/2024), as part of a PhD thesis about experimental music in Leningrad /
St Petersburg, 1978-1996, University of Birmingham, UK
See also
Hans Kumpf: My Trips to Russia. Leningrad August 1983 more >> .
Hannelore Fobo (2017 / 2018):
Sergey Kuryokhin and Friends: Leningrad Collective Improvisations 1983 more >>

The following is a brief overview of my close listening to the first side of the tape recorded by Hans Kumpf in 1983. The tape’s first side features a recording of an improvisation session that was led by Sergei Kuryokhin more >>. I received a copy of the tape from Hannelore Fobo, with kind permission from Kumpf, and in part I hope that this report of my listening to it may be of some help or interest to them (as the tape has been to me and my research). In terms of my approach here my attempt is primarily to describe what I found to be of interest when listening to the tape. This is not to say there is no paratextual material in the following, but more to point out the primary aim of this document is to get inside the tape through the sounds inscribed on it. In my thesis, where this listening will feature, the engagement with this recorded material will be positioned in relation to other performances and recordings during this period and will be joined by a wider range of sources — such as archival documents and oral history -- that will be collected with further research. With this project, I hope to shed more light on the cultural politics of improvisation during the late Soviet period, and recordings such as this are pivotal to finding answers to questions of this kind.

In this report of my listening, I have two focuses. The first regards the instrumentation of the recording: responding to the questions raised in Fobo’s reading of the performance (surrounding the mysterious source of clear electronic tones) more >>, I have spent some time considering what sounds the electronics in the ensemble were able to produce. The second focus regards the structure of the improvisation, where I offer a structural map of the performance in comparison to Kuryokhin’s instructions audible at the start of the recording. Towards the end, I offer some speculation about how this overall structure aligns with a wider reading of Kuryokhin’s “generic structures” of the early 1980s immediately preceding the formation of Popular Mechanics.

***

From the musical performance on the tape alone, it is sometimes difficult to piece together exactly where sounds are coming from. Musicians switch instruments regularly and performers create sounds with objects (such as a teapot more >>) that are, to say the least, often difficult to recognise. This is, of course, not unusual in free improvisation — perhaps the most notable example that this brought to mind was the multi-instrumentalism of the Art Ensemble of Chicago — though it does add a layer of uncertainty to my account that I would like to highlight. Indeed, I am wary to not to repeat the mistakes of critics who assumed that Soviet ensembles such as the Ganelin Trio must have had extra participants in the performances, due to the switching of instruments within recordings.[1] As such, I should clarify that some of the claims I suggest about instrumentation (especially where it is unclear) are only tentative, and are provided as possibilities rather than as a necessary statement of fact (though I hope it helps us get somewhere close to accuracy in understanding what went on in the performance).

Helpfully, the first five minutes of the tape feature Kuryokhin instructing the musicians and audience of the format of that afternoon, which means it is clear who was playing and, for the most part, what instruments were being played. Additionally, of significant aid is the transcription of these instructions provided on Fobo’s website more >> and the images there (captured by E-E Evgenij Kozlov and Hans Kumpf more >>). The table below illustrates the performers and the instruments they played, constructed from these photographs and the introduction Kuryokhin provided. He also overviews the structure of the piece, which I turn to shortly.

Musicians	Instrument
Hans Kumpf	Clarinet
Igor Butman	Alto Saxophone
Vlad Boluchesvsky	[Tenor] Saxophone
Sergei Kurekhin	Tenor Saxophone[2]
Sergei Letov	Alto Saxophone and Bass Clarinet
Vyacheslav Gayvoronsky	Flugel Horn
Vlad Volkov	Double Bass
Boris Grebenshikov	Acoustic guitar and small instruments (radio, teapot, [bird?] whistle, etc)
Timur Novkikov and Ivan Sotnikov (New Artists)	Utiugon (wooden table, metal wire, irons, -> contact mic -> [phaser]-> amplifier)
Alexander Kondrashkin	Percussion (homemade, soup cans etc.)
[Audience]	"… and everybody else who wants to take part may produce some sounds that blend well with the overall composition"

Perhaps the greatest uncertainty of the instrumentation of this performance, however, as raised in Fobo’s description of it, is what produces the mysterious sine-tone like pitches occurring ~28 minutes into the tape. As Fobo suggests, there are two candidates for this electronic sound: (1) Grebenshikov’s VEF 202 transistor radio, and (2) the New Artist’s utiugon. Fobo suggests that the radio is likely the source of the sound more >>, and I am very inclined to agree. For starters, as the figures below illustrate, the VEF 202 had a tone control that could be turned (if done with the right frequency being picked up by the antenna) in order to create the melodic tones of the excerpt (figure 1).[3] Moreover there is something of a smoking gun (as Fobo points out): at one point when these electronic tones are heard, there is an audible inflection of symphonic strings that appear mediated by the transistor’s speaker — suggesting that, indeed, the sine-tones and the strings stem from the same sound source (figure 2).

Figure 1: Diagram of VEF 202 from 1976 operating manual.
Note the tone control, that could be manipulated, on the side.

Figure 2: Visualisation of 28:26 onwards, showing the clear tone and broadcast strings in the background. Created with Sonic Visualiser 3.3.

I had shared with Fobo, however, the initial impression that the utiugon might have produced sounds like this. So, I started to think: if it was the radio that had produced these tones, what exactly did the New Artists’ combination of contact microphones, wires, and dangling irons add to the tape’s sound?

I began to listen more closely for it and attended to the visual documentation of the instrument. Turning to the image that gives the clearest view of the speaker set up (figure 3) reveals some helpful insight into ‘sonifying’ the utiugon and identifying what its electronics added to the sound of the performance. Perched above the amplifier is an effects box that immediately stuck out to me: it is quite an unusual shape, at least to my eyes, and it has the added quality (I suspected) of being two effects pedals joined in the same chassis. So, I turned to the internet to search through the gear-collecting forums popular with guitar players and electronic musicians alike. These searches were quite broad — such as simply looking through ‘Soviet-era guitar pedals’ listings — yet, in a combination of luck and the relatively few pedals manufactured in the USSR, I came across the image of a 1983 Dzhet-Fazer (figure 4).

Figure 3: Kumpf’s photograph of the Utiugon during the 1983 improvisation.
Note the dual effects pedal on the loudspeaker in front of Timur Novikov.

The “dual” pedal combines an overdrive with a modulation section that can be switched to phaser or vibrato effects; (an overdriven phaser is able to produce the ‘jet plane taking off’ sound characteristic). It does so by having two pedals in parallel, sharing the same chassis with 4 control knobs, and has the distinctly angled form visible on top of Novikov’s amplifier. This seemed to be likely the effects used in the image above. So, I began listening to the tape with this in mind. Immediately, something clicked that hadn’t before: The utiugon’s use in the recording is often dripping with phase (adding an aura somewhere between a psychedelic ‘freak-out’ associated with the effect in the 1960s, and the warbling modulated guitar sounds that would become common in post-punk of the 1980s) and could be discerned at various points throughout the recording. For example, the utiugon is stark at 07:36; where the sound of some objects on the table is sent through the effects box, adding its distinct timbre to the improvisations sound world. With this ‘sonic signature’ in mind, it becomes possible to hear this at various points in the tape. Of course, though, the utiugon does appear at times without the distortions of the dzhet-fazer’s modulation: on occasion, there are distinct moments of clanging objects, audibly amplified, that seem unlikely to have come from anywhere else. It is likely that turning each of its effects on and off, and altering each parameter (speed, resonance, distortion, sustain) was part of the performative manipulations that the New Artists used with this messy assemblage of objects in the performance. Thus, it seems likely that it is precisely the dzhet-fazer that the utiugon utilised here, creating the undulating electronic soundworld of various parts of the recording.

Figure 4: Image of a 1983 Dzhet- Fazer. Taken from sales listing at youla.ru External link >>.

***

In Kuryokhin’s introduction, he also announces the structure that the group improvisation would, in theory, follow. In brief, the performance would be a collective improvisation with everyone joining in; a solo by Hans Kumpf; a duet between him and Volkov; a trio with the addition of Gayvronsky; and then another collective improvisation — including (or perhaps followed by) an almost complete uncertainty of ‘develop[ing] unpredictably’.

These sections prior to the final collective improvisation make up only 10 minutes of the performance, as the table below illustrates. The rest of the performance is this ‘unpredictable’ development for over 30 minutes. However, Kuryokhin’s description does not quite match the sonic content of the performance following it. Despite this ‘unpredictability’, much of the spontaneous musical performance builds from (or recalls) earlier material from the performance. This shows something of a unity tying the improvisation together as a single text, with its varied and contrasting moments unified in the abstract whole.

Side A Structure: Kurekhin's introduction	"The first piece will be long and divided into parts"		Times from listening	Rough Length
1	Collective Improvisation	"A general collective improvisation, a very quite one. A tutti part of sorts"	[04:36]- [08:01]	3m
2	Hans Kumpf solo	Clarinet	[08:02]- [12:09]	4m
3	Kumpf and Volkov duet	Clarinet and Double Bass
4	Kumpf, Volkov and Gayvoronsky trio	Clarinet, Double Bass, and Flugel Horn	[12:10]- [14:35]	2m
5	Collective Improvisation	"There will be another tutti part, after which events will […] develop unpredictably"	[14:36]- [46:18]	30m
	Collective Improvisation	"It will be better if we don't play simultaneously all the time -- it will be better if there are duets, trios and solo parts […] Don't begin to play all at once, some instruments simply cannot be heard"

The first thing that I noticed while attempting to map out the structure of the performance in comparison to Kuryokhin’s introduction was that, in effect, Kumpf’s solo differs from Kuryokhin’s description. Kumpf performs a solo as usually conceived: from 08:02, the ensemble dies down and Kumpf’s clarinet offers sparse tones in high tessitura, accompanied by Volkov’s bass which plays a triadic riff at a quiet dynamic with high natural harmonics. The clarinet definitely has the dominant voice here. This goes on for around a minute, and between 09:01-09:32, the bass voice begins to merge with the clarinet - passing notes between them - until about 09:32, when the texture definitely suggests more of a duet (or, precisely, the Kumpf-Volkov duet Kuryokhin described in the introduction).

But Volkov’s additional accompaniment in this first minute of the solo differs from Kuryokhin’s description. In his introduction, Kuryokhin dictated that for this section immediately following the opening improvisation: ‘Hans Kumpf – we’ll leave him alone – he will play solo, he will play alone’ (emphasis added).[4] So, though this first minute or so is accurately described as a solo, it is not quite the same vision of Kumpf performing alone that Kuryokhin appears to ask for. There are possible reasons for (very minor) diversion from this description. Perhaps Kuryokhin misspoke as he explained to the audience; perhaps Kumpf had not been informed of this structure (which was, for the most part, delivered in Russian); or perhaps Volkov’s early entry in Kumpf’s solo (albeit, distinctly as an accompanist) was operating within the more free flowing rules of the performance — after all, as Kuryokhin had informed the audience, ‘everybody else who wants to take part may produce some sounds that blend well with the overall composition.’ Or – most likely - it was simply a result of the realities of live performance: in a recent reflection, Kumpf informed Hannelore Fobo that ‘Kuryokhin’s introductory speeches were not particularly relevant to him, he just followed the tune’ (Fobo, e-mail).

Of additional interest in this performance is a feature that took my ears a few listens to notice with consistency. This is the variety of material that reappears, is developed, or recapitulated later in the improvisation after first being introduced in some cases half an hour prior. Some of these motifs and ideas are clearer than others, and there are likely other moments that recur throughout the recording that I have not yet noticed. For now, though, I will offer just three examples that I think are the most salient.

Illustration of the tritone idea

 First is an idea that opens the performance. At 05:29, in the ‘general collective improvisation’ (as Kuryokhin names it), a strident tritone melodic fragment interjects (example 1) into what could be characterised (for the most part) as a droning texture of pianissimo clusters. This becomes repeated elsewhere in the ensemble — picking up the louder tritone inflection and following chromatic downward runs and glissandi — before returning to something of the more static droning soundworld that had preceded it, with a low bowed bass and a high chirping whistle sound being produced. The improvisation then continues in other directions, moves through the solo/duo/trio, and returns to a collective improvisation. In this section eventually, around 30:23, the ensemble has returned to a similar texture — low drones, static harmony, and the same high chirping sound coming from someone in the ensemble. Then, across the thirty-first minute of the tape, the same tritone melodic figure interjects, appearing in fragmentation, and descending chromatically, across a range of the forces in the ensemble, momentarily shining out from the murky background. Thus, I would suggest that this moment is a development of the motif that appears first in the opening.

Two other moments of building on/recalling occur in this final section of collective improvisation. When the ensemble come together for ‘another brief tutti’ (as Kuryokhin called it) between 14:35 and 16:29, the ensemble sounds almost like a swing band. There is a swung cymbal performed by Kondrashkin (presumably), and the horns play chord stabs in a distinctly ‘big band’ style.[5] It is almost as if this riff gets the collective back together after the earlier solo, duet and trio. After this ‘brief tutti’, follow free cadenzas, noisy interjections of vocal screams, screeching electronics, and almost satirical imitations of call and response. Yet, at 25:37, the horns stab again, to the same rhythm, with an upbeat swinging ride cymbal. This is, albeit, at a faster tempo than the earlier iteration, but it is – again – a development of earlier material.

Finally, perhaps one of the moments that really stands out of this final performance is a melody that becomes sung between 39:16—39:44, to the syllable ‘La.’ This “La” melody is characterised — in non-exact terms — by a repeated two bar phrase: first is a 4 beat repetition of the syllable, followed by four quavers, each descending chromatically, down to resting for two beats on a note a major third below the starting pitch. Now, upon becoming familiar with the way that such a melody sounds, I found the germination of the melody can be heard in a bass fragment at ~37:15. It is almost as if this song fragment grows out of this figuration in the bass; with the winds taking on a similar idea, and then the human voice spelling it out most clearly. At 39:44, the performance ceases this song-like sound, and returns to sparse, high clarinet textures and whistling electronics. But, at the final moments of the performance, the “La” melody gets an echo: between 44:52 to the end of the performance, the material of the “La” melody appears in fragmentation and transcription; numerous instruments of the ensemble begin it at different points — the instruments echo each other in this moment, and they echo themselves earlier in the performance. This demonstrates a profound economy of material, squeezing every drop out of each musical idea.

***

How does this tape inflect a general understanding of Kuryokhin’s oeuvre during this period? Further investigation of the tape might ask whether it fits into a kind of ‘generic structure’ that Kuryokhin (may or may not) have described as characteristic during this period of the 1980s – a period marked largely by group collaboration, but immediately preceding the formation of Pop Mechanics.

It could be possible, perhaps, to approach the tape’s recording through another Club-81 “recording” from a few months prior: SHOW with KURYOKHIN (1982).[6] SHOW reveals Kuryokhin’s performative wit, absurd humour, and omnivorous ability to traverse stylistic boundaries. But, perhaps most peculiar is that SHOW is not an audio recording, but a written one -- amplifying Kuryokhin’s discursive, rather than sonic performance. At first glance, the performance appears to be transcribed by Vladislav Kushev, a writer and member of Club- 81, and the document was disseminated through the club’s samizdat imprint, Chasy.[7] However, it is worth mentioning that this text, written in a dramaturgical form, may be a work of fiction. Kushev was a playwright and his creative works, such as 730 Steps (1992), are almost identical in form to SHOW with KURYOKHIN. Indeed, it is clear that at least some of SHOW is fiction: at the end is a collection of imagined responses to a listening of Kuryokhin’s Ways of Freedom (1981). Looking through these final pages reveals the creative approach that Kuschev took in the process of disseminating Kuryokhin’s oeuvre: a polyphonic commentary on the record offers the thoughts of some expected voices – e.g., Efim Barban, a critic deeply involved in the Leningrad scene – but is joined by an additional range of illusory figures such as Levi-Strauss, Hegel, and Beethoven. Nevertheless, SHOW exists as a document that reveals something of Kuryokhin’s status in the early 1980s – whether that is a fictitious narrative, or faithful recitation – that might hint towards some answers to wider questions about the scene in this period. And, given Kushev’s membership in Club-81, he may still capture something of Kuryokhin’s approach here even if not transcribed verbatim.

In Act 2, Kuryokhin offers a description of how he constructs his performances. Briefly, he describes this structure in a general way as a ‘through piece’ method. An archetypal version he offers can be summarised as follows (drawn from Kushev 1982: p. 246-247).

Such a simplified form of description aids in categorising the shifting textures, dynamics, rhythms, that make up the ‘block’ like sections of this performance. Though utilising different techniques (i.e., a regular rhythm is not often the cause here), this general structure illustrates common means that Kuryokhin conceptualised the improvisations that he led during this time period – means that are, at various times, audible on the tape. This is a performance that moves though states of flux: amorphous and shapeless textures divert into swinging riffs, which in turn build to climaxes of shrieks and cacophony. After each, the ensemble falls back, to begin the process all over again.

© Courtesy Sam Riley, 2024

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Uploaded 20 July 2024