Tyoma – From Russia With Love

Can we expect this album to arrive this year?

I think yes. Now I’m ready to talk about my forthcoming album. It’s almost ready. Some technical moments remain, to work on which I’ve already booked studio in Berlin. After that it will be possible to announce a specific release date.

A general theme in the album is my sincere belief that you don’t have to be obsessed with your studio and your setup. New ideas come through communication and meeting new people. Accordingly, recording and selection of material are the first stages of the work for me. Then comes the turn of mixing and mastering.

I don’t want to send my material somewhere and just wait for someone to make my sound cool. It’s much more interesting to go to colleagues and exchange experiences. In different studios, with different analog processing, the difference in sound of the tracks can be striking. And then the most difficult and responsible moment comes – searching for your ideal sound. Each component, including quality of sound is important. Your music can only become really catchy if you take into consideration each and every moment.

How would you characterize the sound of the album?

I can say that this album is definitely not standard 4 /4 people dance to in clubs usually. This is more like mix of down tempo, forward-thinking electronica and saturated analog sound. This music demands a lot of space.

Talk us through your plans for a live show.

We’re working with guys from Cyber Tiger, thinking of interactive installation and trying to solve several technical and creative problems at the same time. We’re looking for a shape, which would allow us to do the show on different stages: be it a club or museum, or art gallery or rooftop, planetarium, or field. The most important is right atmosphere that helps audience to feel Tyoma’s music.

Sounds intriguing! Whose expertise you rely on in the development of such innovative project?

We were initially aimed to create something special, something new. But, of course, we can’t manage without inspiration sources. We are closely watching everything that is going on and have already studied live shows of Björk, Richie Hawtin, Moderat and many other artists well.

I hope that as a result the show will have absorbed all that we have seen and our own experience in organizing large-scale projects. I say ‘we’ and ‘us’ because a large number of people are involved to this live-show preparation. In any case, you don’t have a long time to wait. I think the premiere will take place in the beginning of next year, and we’ll see how that turns out.

An enduring theme that runs throughout your music is its cinematic nature. Even knowing that you’re preparing a special show, I still think that this doesn’t exhaust the flow of visual images that inspire such tracks as ‘1st’ and ‘Unclose’. What about music videos? Are there any ideas in this direction?  

Thank you. I take this question as a complement, because it isn’t easy to write music in cinematically. Perhaps, my previous experience with music for various videos has affected mehere but, as we’ve already managed to understand, Tyoma is equally both musical and visual project. It is a symbiosis of two closely connected types of art. We have some ideas for several videos. We plan to shoot them in Moscow and Kiev.

Will Tyoma always be strictly solo project or will we see you collaborating with other artists?

I’m always down for collaboration! I’m always excited to work with Nata Zhyzhchenko, with whom we started with club tracks, and then moved on to more complex compositions for Kooqla. Of course, when Nata released his first track as Onuka I immediately said: “Give me the a capella and I’ll remix it!”.

This eventually came out and as far as I know Nata liked it. I’m good friends with her and her producer Eugene Filatov. I have several joint tracks with Nata but it isn’t clear yet whether or not they will be included in the debut album of Tyoma or will be released as a separate singles.

Are there any producers from abroad who could take part in the work on your new album?

I can recall a few sound engineers with whom I met while working on the album and these people offered up a completely different approach. Of course, I have many artist friends who periodically offer their participation. Several of them want to create tracks together so there’s of communication going on.

There is also a stunningly talented Berlin pianist Uri Gincel, a former member of the band Bonaparte, whom I once booked to play Live on Mars. He offered to help me record a piano version of “Unclose”. He played it on the piano in his studio in Berlin and, of course, I released this version. He’s coming to stay with me on a musical vacation soon and I’m sure that we’ll make something new together.