Sergei Tumanov is a sound artist, musician and producer, specialising in experimental sounds and as with many in this field blends in sounds from rural and urban environments. His discography and collaborations are far too long to list but he’s been releasing material since 1996. He is the owner of the NCTMMRN label, so he’s very much at the centre of the world of the experimental sound art movement.
This three track, 22 minute EP gives an insight into Seregei’s strange world of sound. Floating on the surface is a distant sound wave, silence almost, echoes of voices and animals disappearing in the wind. Coming through the surface is a series of truncated and distorted quarter sounds suggesting that the aliens have landed and are coming to visit us. It’s like turning on a radio years ago and tuning into the channels. Here and there is a recognisable sound. A brass symphony, birds communicating in a colony on a seashore, rainfall … but that’s just my interpretation. There’s no answer really, because the sounds are cut. The appeal lies in us relating this to our experience and use our imagination, as Sergei has done. For some there may be no appeal at all. No art form has “the answer” even if we knew what the question was and this certainly doesn’t, but I welcome Sergei’s suggestions. It gives me a bit of escapism and something to fertilise my imagination.
I hear water bubbling at the bottom of a drum but it could be the inside of someone’s stomach. There’s a faint female voice. This is the strangest of industrial processes, or it could be a radio transmitter searching, searching … The deep sound could be a musical instrument, a viola or violin perhaps. It cuts out. Reception isn’t so good today. Ah, maybe it’s a brain tuning exercise. Seagulls? Someone is treading on gravel. The birds shriek. If you were to ask me to define this multi-faceted minimalist world of sonic waves and crackles, then I couldn’t. But they evoke more images than the mere description of these dissonant passages might suggest.
It sounds like a symphonic orchestra is tuning up. Those birds, or at least those birds that Sergei has implanted in my imagination, are at it again. The ambient sounds could be from the sea. I visualise the breathing of a sea monster. A sharp symphonic sound is the signal to cut us loose momentarily before the deep sonic waves continue, the birds make their communal noises and there is an echoing human voice. Life goes on and loops round in repetitive pattern without interference. It’s a bit of a nightmare but I think the faint beat confirms that we’re still alive.
It’s a concise mix of the real and unreal world. “2021.2.4.12.3.1” is about what we want it to be about. Technically, it’s carefully constructed and of course highly experimental. To satisfy my own curiosity, I did contact Sergei to find out if there was any purpose outside that of stimulating the listener’s senses. I was pleased to learn that unlike his previous album, this was as he put it “a sound collage” where he has developed his interest in sound experimentation without the constraint of a theme. And so we have the freedom of “2021.2.4.12.3.1”.
(8/10 Andrew Doherty)
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