A Closer Listen
Maria Teriaeva left her childhood home in Siberia’s Sayan Mountains and relocated to the French Alps in Savoie, where she now considers herself an exile. On Sayan – Savoie, she recognizes common threads: “what unites us, rather than divides us, especially now.” Her new home begins to remind her of her old home, sparking a sense of security, connectedness and joy, as seen in the playful, energetic video for “What Is To Be Done?” The artist is on a flatbed truck, cruising past fields of cows, then through groves of evergreens. She adjusts her Buchla, bobs her head, and cuts to images of friends dancing, lolling and rolling. During the break(down), she takes a nap. Then the jam really begins – congratulations for not falling off the truck! The final twenty seconds of the video (not the track) is just cowbells; Walken would be proud.
Answering her own question, it seems that “what is to be done” is to embrace nature, friendship, freedom and the parts of life that keep one going. This upbeat nature spreads throughout the set, which begins with the bucolic warmth of Artem Kritsin’s acoustic guitar and ends in a glorious synth excursion. The upbeat “Mon Coeur” serves as a counterpart to the finale “Out of Bounce,” a reminder of how quickly the heart can become detached from its moorings and return again. In the closing minute, “Mon Coeur” loses some of its beats, while the title track, the album’s darkest, flirts with melancholy before fading.
At 7:40, “Out of Bounce” doubles the length of nearly every other track, and demonstrates what Teriaeva can really do with the Buchla. Reminiscent of Caterina Barbieri, the track is patient and complex, turning this way and that like an examined stone in a meadow. The synth flutters, trills and drops seeds. Some of these seeds sprout into trees, perhaps reflecting the new thoughts of an artist in exile, tilting her head in the direction of joy. By the fourth minute, she’s in bounce again; the album ends in a dance of light. (Richard Allen)
Wed Feb 05 00:01:19 GMT 2025