Winter. Well it’s not all doom and gloom: some of us quite enjoy it. Mug of herbal tea, slippers, some beats: heaven. And now, in keeping with the fresh mood, this earthy debut on the Burelom imprint, fresh from St Petersburg: ‘Haze/I See The Light’. It was time to huddle up, stoke the fire and catch up with Burelom boss Line Out (below) to guide us through the foliage, not to mention the Enei connection… & with possibly the best labelname-conception story ever.
Is this first release an indication of things to come for the sublabel, Burelom?
Yes, sure. ‘Burelom Music’ shows us more dance-floor music than the [parent label] Audio Plants, which is focused more towards home listening.
You’re motivated to produce something unique with Burelom?
To emphasize the difference between dance-floor tunes of Burelom & Audio Plants I choose a different style, different design and even vinyl weight! It is 180-gramme 12-inch plate for this time in contrary to all Audio Plants’ plates.
So speaking of the distinction between the two, when did the concept for ‘Burelom’ arise?
This is a rather complicated story. The first of all I planned to run the drumfunk only sub-label. By listening to amen loops, my mind saw a dark thicket with lots of roots and lack of light.
I tried to find a word which could reflect the darkness, dark forests. And could not find it in English. But there is such a term in the Russian language. Burelom (pronounced ‘Boorelom’) is a Russian term describing a difficult terrain with lots of wind-fallen trees.
Back to that complicated story you mention… could you tell us more?
In the spring of 2013 I started Audio Plants. In parallel with Audio Plants, me and my friend planned to publish a 100% white release: without any information, as a dubplate..
I was looking for the second track and then I met Hidden Element. As time progressed it was right to start work on a debut release on Burelom: a sublabel which I thought would be more strong, strange and hard. And ‘I See The Light’ by Hidden Element & Liquid Break & Kiyomi was ready to be included.
At that time I had many conversations with my friend from Moscow Roman AKA Impish from Occulti Music. Once he sent me a few new tracks from his coming album and song called ‘Haze’, which caught me: I was really feeling it. This track was written for Occulti Music, but we agreed that it goes here.
Enei has mastered this, and I think the artwork is beautiful too so in general are there lots of people surrounding this material? Who are they? It feels like a collective.
Enei lives in my city and is actively involved in the development of the Russian music scene as an artist and an mastering expert.
The release artwork founded by Impish. He found a tasty photo by Sergey Anashkevitch who allowed us to use it as an artwork for this release. I also want to thank Marco Grijsen and the ‘Triple Vision’ for the opportunity to get a representation of the different parts of the world.
And the artists? Could you tell me about them?
Vasilisa and Impish (above) are from Occulti Music and are jazz-funk and rock music lovers, specialized in deep-neuro D&B… and sometimes liquid-D&B.
Hidden Element (below) are Nil Tarasov & Igor Kirilenko from Ukraine. Now they are experimenting with a cross-genre, cosmic and borderless electronic music. They collaborate with people such as Detail, Physical Illusion, Marginal, Kiyomi Yamashita, Galia Shkoda, Notion, Fade, Pavel Dovgal, Against, Rogue State and Nic TVG.
Liquid Break is a Ukrainian drummer called Artur Spivak. He working with Hidden Element since 2011.
Kiyomi is a Japanese singer and song-writer. For a long time she lives in London.
Was vinyl a special consideration, for you?
Vinyl issue for me is an experiment which I prepared for almost six years. Burelom Music is experiment inside the experiment, but I liked what happened in the result. I’m already looking forward to what happens when I begin to prepare a ‘Burelom Two’!
When does it drop?
Vinyl will be on sale January 27. About a month after the vinyl released I am planning to release an extended digital version of the Burelom One. I think – in May. I will release another track ‘How Can I trust U’ from the Hidden element project on Audio Plants 2 x 12 compilation. Impish prepares to release a new album called Underwater with his lovely singer Vasilisa Jarlier and with Fade on Occulti Music. I am also focusing on releases for Audio Plants: Queensway’s Away EP (APLANT02), will be released in late February and in mid-April, we all can expect the Forgotten Tones EP (APLANT03) from Nuage.