We did an interview with China's Torturing Nurse a few months back, so we figured, why not give the East some more due but move it a bit more West?  Well, that means Eastern Europe if you didn't figure it out.  Luckily for us underground weirdos, we tend to know a bit about what goes on outside of the US, and several countries in the former Soviet Bloc have been making some crazy sounds over the past twenty years.  Most people don't know about it, sadly, but why?  Perhaps it's some sort of remnant of old, Cold War thinking that keeps us from realizing that Eastern Europe kicks ass?  Perhaps it's our lack of understanding of cultures that don't involve eating Americanized tacos and Chinese food?  Who will ever know for sure?  That's not our concern really, what we're concerned about for this article is MAAAA.

MAAAA is a Polish noise powerhouse duo consisting of Sergei and his wife Renata.  In the past few years, Eastern Europe has started to produce some exciting acts in experimental music.  MAAAA, in particular, represents a very harsh direction for the scene and is easily one of the better acts from the area, if not the best act.  With a sound comparable to Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck but a lot more accessible, totally unpretentious, and more interesting, husband and wife have been tossing metal and weight lifting in the crowds for awhile now.  We did a review of their Mind Flare Media release, Decay and Demoralization, last year, and considering that's the only good thing we really checked out from Eastern Europe that involved noise, why not figure out what they're about?  The following is our discussion with Sergei, the main member of MAAAA and his thoughts on noise in Eastern Europe.

DS - When did MAAAA start and why?

It is hard to say precisely why I started to do what I do. It happened in 2003. At that time I began to record sounds and even tried to connect them with some conceptions. By that time I had already tried playing freak electronics and a bit of noisy rock. Then in 2003 I got my first instrument, a Soviet synthesizer called 'Polivoks'. At first I tried doing ambient, but one day I discovered that if a knob (called gain) was turned at maximum my sound became very loud and brutal. Since then I've been belting noise out and my wife Renata helps me.

My first noisy experience in music, however, was K2's 'Metal Dysplasia'. What I heard impressed me a lot, deeply moved me, metallic roar and scratch is something amazing. As far as I remember that took place in the early 2000's.

DS- Were you exposed to K2 live or in a recording?  You say you started to play around 2003, so did you try anything before that, or did you simply start to listen to that kind of music around 2000 or so?

Unfortunately, Kimihide Kusafuka has never toured to Russia and I am afraid there isn't much chance he will ever visit Europe since he is busy with family and work. Last year he was going to visit Poland on account of a medical conference but at the last minute everything was called off. I was listening to his records at that time and was amazed by his "metal collages", however, I didn't know that I was able to create something like that by myself.

It is also worth mentioning that I got an access to the Internet only in 2006. Before that I was constantly lacking information on important issues. When I got a decent connection I started to communicate with people from all over the world discussing things and exchanging records. Before getting into Noise seriously I had a small background of playing different kinds of music during the 90s. Those early experiments were more of a game to me, a source of entertainment really so I didn't bother to set up a musical project or a band. The only thing I was really interested in was experiments with gear and sound. I liked the whole process of creating while the result wasn't of a least importance to me. In 2003 I felt like going into this more deeply and consciously in order to create something that would be worth listening to. My intention was to create something that would be interesting to my friends. Not until I really went for it did I realize that there were more people interested in my music than I had ever expected.

DS- You mention Polivoks so I'm intrigued because I assume it's an awesome, vintage synth.  Can you tell us a bit about vintage equipment in Eastern Europe?  What was the general availability of equipment in the post-Soviet era?

The Polivoks originally belonged to my uncle and I got a chance to play it every time I visited him. Then he decided to move to Finland, where the heavy synth couldn't be easily transported. Polivoks is a great instrument, everything about it is wonderful (apart from the fact that it's very heavy). It has original, unique sound, harsh filter and super rich bass. Later a local metalhead sold me another Polivoks, almost the same as mine but broken. I knew it was broken but it was a bargain anyway. When I opened the lid of that Polivoks with intention to repair it I had no idea what was wrong. I have to admit that I had no experience in this kind of thing so I couldn't come up with anything but to make a list of all the items in order to buy the same parts. So that was what I did, then I replaced everything with new items. My second synthesizer was alive once again, although what I created could be compared with Frankenstein's monster. One of the oscillators acted up a bit and the whole instrument was unpredictable. As a result of that this instrument was used only for Noise-effects, which are essential for power electronics and noise. Regrettably, I recorded hardly anything using that synth and had to sell it when moving to Poland in 2008. Of course it is all sad but I had no choice because there was no way I could transport two enormous synthesizers plus some other stuff that I needed. On top of that all I was short on money, so selling my monster seemed to be a wise decision at that point.

All in all I happened to play several Soviet synthesizers, each of which was unique in its own way. I like these contraptions but recently I've noticed there are a growing number of people who are lining their pockets by inflating the prices of Soviet stuff. In case you are interested in Soviet instruments, I recommended to check out Museum of Soviet Synthesizers' website  http://ruskeys.net . There you may find some things that are even more interesting than Polivoks. There are a great number of people in Russia who prefers to use Russian electronics. Moreover, I enjoy using some Soviet sound effects such as Lell and some others, especially Lell CZ, it is my favorite. As far as I know some non-Russian bands, such as Sonic Youth, Echo is Your Love, etc. are also keen on Russian instruments and effects.

As for equipment in general, I can only say that it was easy to get a lot of vintage stuff from 1995-2002.  After the end of USSR there was a lot of stuff and most of it was really cheap. You could probably get a synth for a bottle or two of vodka.  But After 2003 many people tried to sell Soviet stuff abroad and all of prices rose dramatically. Now it's quite expensive, but if you have money not a problem to pick up some stuff.

DS- What does the band name 'MAAAA' mean and where did it originate?

Maa is a Finnish word for "Country", "Land", "Village". Any of these definitions could be applied to our music and to everything we do. There are stressful situations and chaos on a daily basis all over the world, almost everywhere. That makes us see majestic beauty of our Land, our Planet but at the same time we cannot escape from witnessing barbaric exploitation of nature and constant destruction of the Earth by our parasitizing human race. What is more, we create provincial country noise that is inconspicuous for majority of hot-shot noiseheads. Later I decided to add two extra "a" to the name to make it more abstract, but of course it doesn't change its initial meaning. Also I remember having a dream where I decided to name my band MAA, then I woke up and thought "Damn, this is a very good name".

DS - I'm interested in this Finnish connection.  From what I read in your Mind Flare Media promo package, you are from an area close to Russia, but not really Russia?  Explain how your cultural/ethnic/social background may have influenced your music.  If not, just explain a bit about where you actually are and culturally how that fits into the post-Soviet regions.

Well, it is better to start from saying that Karelia is an area currently divided between Russia and Finland. The place where I am from belongs to Russia and on maps it is referred as The Republic of Karelia, you may check it out, it is a north-western part of Russia. Karelia is a very beautiful place of mysterious woods and dark lakes, rivers and mires. All of that can provide an artist with constant inspiration. I love Karelian nature and I do really miss the taiga being away from it and living in Warsaw. The Karelian landscape, language, and partially the culture have a lot in common with Finnish, but with a slight Russian influence. Karelia is connected to Finland in many ways, even in more ways than to Russia. Not every Russian knows what and where Karelia is, while every Finn is bound to know a great deal of stuff about Karelia.

DS- Did you have a start in music before MAAAA?  If so, what was it?

For me it was my uncle who opened the world of music to me. He possessed a very extensive cassette collection with electro and industrial. He also had different instruments, synthesizers with lots of buttons and knobs, an electro guitar, mysterious boxes - sound-effects. From time to time I got a chance to play with him, of course what we did couldn't be called music but it wasn't noise either. I regret to say that all of those records didn't survive. That is because we usually used the same cassette over and over again and at the end I used all of those cassettes to record something like black metal that I liked to listen to at secondary school. One day being at our summer cottage and dying from the heat we recorded our first noise track using a radio, I was about 13 then. At that time it seemed to be a data transmission from space.

As for other bands and music, when I lived in Petrozavodsk I was a member of a metalpunk band Antimelodix, we toured Europe and recorded an album 'Hellfuck 2009' in 2008. Then I moved to Warsaw and the guys went on rocking without me, a new 7”EP  called 'Hellfuck 2011' was released few days ago.

DS - I seem to remember reading that Eastern Europe was really big on cassettes even after CDs came around.  Can you explain the impact of the digital age on Eastern Europe?  Do you see it changing music as it has in America (for the worse), or do you think more people in Eastern Europe are still attached to the 'hard-copy' mentality?  What were some of the bands your uncle listened to?

I know what you are talking about, though the situation in the Eastern Europe changed a few years ago. It is true that in 2002 there still were several huge and lots of small shops that offered all kinds of cassettes. Cassettes were inexpensive and most people seem to possess either a tape-recorder or Walkman. Many used to have vast collections of cassettes but on top of those musical collections would be no more than just 1-2 discs at best and a CD-player was an even greater rarity. I remember when my neighbor that used to play in a local death-metal band released their demo on cassette – 500 or even 1000 copies!  And it sold quite fast. In comparison to cassettes and CDs it was much more troublesome to get vinyl records. That was because Soviet factories were dead and imported vinyl was expensive.

Then the real CD-era came after that and cassettes finally became a thing of the past. Very soon there were piracy problems and they got the upper hand. Greedy pirates were creative enough to invent MP3 collection CDs. Inevitably people would buy these "collections" because they cost 2-3 $ per CD (professionally pressed CDs with pictures and articles about an artist and even an MP3 player). It was easy to find an MP3 CD with 10 albums of Merzbow in a local supermarket. So pirates were offering pretty much everything: Abba, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and there also you could find Aube, Daniel Menche, Merzbow, and many more, all of them sharing the same supermarket's shelf.  Of course now we have MP3/Flac, Facebook, Youtube and everything you want can be easily found on the internet, absolutely free. There are so many young people who haven't bought a single CD in their lives because everything is downloadable and that is a problem for the music industry. As for my uncle, he was keen on listening to stuff like Laibach, Kraftwerk, and Depeche Mode.

DS - Describe the current noise scene in your area.  Is there a lot of support?  How old, to your knowledge, is the scene?

Our provincial Petrozavodsk could boast about its noisy stage in 2005-2009, we had a great number of original bands and we had plenty of gigs organized on a regular basis that always attracted a lot of attention. There were a few noise labels, a printed zine and a couple webzines. Noiseheads from St. Petersburg were amazed by us and like to visit our place and perform with us. Regrettably now everything is different.

Most of those people got bored by all this. Some joined the army, some just grew out of it and some of them ended up being trapped in their addiction to drugs and alcohol. But the main reason was that most of them never really treated noise as something deep and meaningful so it was inevitable that they got tired of it. As far as I know there are some former artists who decided to change their direction and now they are night-clubs DJs. One day I just simply realized that there was no active project that I was aware of.

However, noisy Petrozavodsk is not lost yet, lately there's new stuff around from Love Cult/Full of Nothing that has started to develop rapidly. They are releasing a lot of stuff nowadays, doing gigs in Russia and Europe (even in Turkey), doing “secret” gigs in Petrozavodsk and that’s awesome!

About Warsaw.  I am sure there is a lot I need to learn about Polish noise basics and I haven't got acquainted with all contemporary artists but I got to know and keep in touch with Marcin (Mantichora/Schmerz) and Bartek (XV PARÓWEK). Both of them started in the mid-1990s. Now Bartek is up to organizing a concert series Noise Waste, where we get invited quite often. Also there are some labels in Warsaw: New Nihilism, XVP, Bocian, Triangle, Monotype etc. What is more there are a lot of projects that originated from different cities of Poland, such as Kielce, Wrocław, Łódź, etc. There are a lot of nice people on our Polish scene and I really like it.

DS - Where do you primarily perform?

Currently we perform in Warsaw most often, though sometimes we get the chance to travel to other Polish cities. We enjoy performing in Wrocław, because there we always have amazing gigs and responsive audiences. As for Russia the best place for us is obviously Petrozavodsk. I've been thinking about an European tour, but haven't proceeded because of the absence of either money or time or both. Of course we would like to visit the USA and maybe Japan or Australia, but right now we haven't even started to contemplate these possibilities. We are planning to start from neighboring places like Germany or France. This summer we are planning to have some gigs in Finland and Russia. I am looking forward to this tour because it will give us an opportunity to get together with our friends.

DS - From what I've read online, Mind Flare Media was your first exposure in the West.  It's a newer label, but we've done a few reviews for them.  How do you feel it has helped your career, if at all?  Have you worked with other labels?  What do you like about them, dislike about them?

It is true that the majority of our releases came out due to our own efforts (triangle.records) or due to our friends' help. So when I received Stan's [one of the co-owners of the label - ed.] e-mail, I was amazed. It's been a year since Decay And Demoralization came out and looking back I can clearly see that everything was done right. Stan is a great person and I have never met anyone as devoted as he. He is very much a hands-on person and he does his best to make bands happy. Even a whole year since our release but he is still sincerely concerned about us trying to help us in every possible way. He also sends a lot of CDs to review. I am just happy to work together with him. Moreover, that was our first big release of 500 copies, which is quite significant for us because before that we had only had small releases like cassettes or CD-Rs. Soon after our Mind Flare Media release a CD Sampo Distortion came out (also 500 copies) in Moscow from 24919 Records. All in all, last spring was extremely productive for us, although this spring won't be less active and nice, for example, I am about to release our split CD with K2.

DS - Where do you see MAAAA going in the next few years?  What are your plans?

I'd like to perform more live, visit new places and meet new people. I'd like to spread our noise as much as I can and you probably will see new stuff sooner or later. Right now we have two different split 7" in the way. But I have no idea about a full album at this moment.

For the information of our readers, MAAAA has just released their split with K2.  Hopefully we'll receive a review copy, but you can otherwise start searching for it online if you're interested.  It will presumably be sold through Russia and hopefully some Western distros and labels.  Thanks to Sergei for taking the time to talk with us.

By Arkus