Artist: Russian Futurists, The
Label: UPPER CLASS
Release: 2006
The Russian Futurists are a Canadian ‘orchestral indie-pop’ outfit who record a ton of music in their living room on next to no money.
The Russian Futurists is basically a solo project of Matthew Adam Hart, who is the heart, soul and brains of The Russian Futurists. The rest of the musical body is made up of assorted guest players, though mostly only when they hit the concert stages.
The music stretches way beyond any one frame and leans openly on the golden age of melodic pop tunes, the kind masterfully crafted back in the day by the likes of The Beach Boys, The Beatles and many others. It isn’t shy of blatant “schlager” constructions either, the kind that would feel right at home on the most Eurovision-y of Abba’s pop numbers!
And sure enough, every song acts like it slipped out from under the fingers of Brian Wilson and the production of Phil Spector, only recorded on a shoestring, in the company of an ironing board, a half-drunk, half-spilled bottle of cognac and an old transistor radio whose FM frequencies keep butting into the recording process by accident.
But we definitely can’t call this imitation or copying of those masters. All of the above are just ingredients for the main course, which undoubtedly belongs to Matthew A. Hart. It would be silly to claim the recipe and the dish aren’t ours just because we didn’t invent pepper, basil and the rest too!
Everything he makes is a mash-up of all sorts of elements, feelings, experiences and bits of magic, adding up to melodies so familiar that we’re sure we’ve heard them somewhere, sometime before, but the feeling hangs in a fog until we admit it’s simply one of the best pop creations (of recent times) we haven’t heard yet!
“Me, Myself And Rye” is a collection of songs, a kind of ‘best of’, and as the second half of the title, “An Introduction To…”, reveals, it’s a primer on the sounds of The Russian Futurists. The songs are pulled from three earlier albums (“The Method Of Modern Love”, “Let’s Get Ready To Crumble” and “Our Thickness”) and make an excellent starting point for anyone who hasn’t met The Russian Futurists yet or has only brushed past them. The collection can also be interesting to those who already know this music well, since the songs, even though lifted out of their ‘home’ habitat, come together into a very relaxed and natural flow as an album.
Highly recommended for all the fans and everyone else who likes to lend an ear to slightly more demanding pop. Pop with a capital P!
Lineup
Matthew Adam Hart – vocals, programming
Production
Matthew Adam Hart
Tracklist
01. Let’s Get Ready To Crumble
02. Paul Simon
03. Our Pen’s Out Of Ink
04. Precious Metals
05. It’s Not Really Cold When It Snows
06. Science Of The Seasons
07. Hurtin’ 4 Certain
08. Two Dots On A Map
09. Telegram From The Future
10. Your Big Brown Eyes And My Broken Heart
11. C’Mon
12. Still Life
13. You And The Wine
Album length: 44:47
