Popular Mechanics 'Insect Culture' • Популярная Механика 'Насекомая культура'

photo: Valery Alakhov

In the spring of 1985, British film director Richard Denton came to Leningrad for a documentary about Sergey Kuryokhin. He had been refused official permission, and the film was based on private scenes, without any public Pop Mekhanika performances. It did, however, show a small session at the LTO-81, Leningrad’s club of progressive writers. “Comrades: All that Jazz” was broadcast by BBC on December 1, 1985, as the third of a total of twelve documentaries on life in the Soviet Union. Through Denton, Liverpool audio and sound expert Colin Fallows established a contact with Sergey Kuryokhin. Fallows had previously edited the record “Dada For Now (A Collection Of Futurist And Dada Sound Works)” on ARK Records, a label he had created together with Pete Fulwell, and was interested in new avant-garde music.

Around the time of the BBC filming, Sergey Kuryokhin invited Leningrad based New Composers (Новые Композиторы) Valery Alakhov and Igor Verichev to take part in a new project later to be known as Popular Mechanics. Insect Culture.

Alakhov and Verichev had started to experiment with sound collages in 1983 – Soviet melodies and speeches, as well as technical sounds and noises – “industrial avant-garde”. With their innovating sampling – which they did at home, using little more than a high quality tape recorder and chrome tapes – the New Composers immediately made themselves a name within the circle of Soviet avant-garde artists and musicians.

How and where Kuyohkin originally planned to release Popular Mechanics Insect Culture can no longer be said. Possibly, the BBC production stimulated him to go ahead, or maybe he was promised help by the film crew. London based Leo Records is another option, since Kuryokhin was continuing his collaboration with Leo Feigin, which had begun in 1982 with the release of "The Ways of Freedom”. At any rate, by the time ARK Records first contacted Kuryokhin, the music and E-E Kozlov‘s material for the album cover had already been produced. In his letter from October 1985 to Catherine Mannick (Letter L), Kozlov writes:

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For the joint project with Kuryokhin, Alakhov and Verichev created new material, from which Kuryokhin made a selection. He did the final (secret) recording in 1985, at the House of Radio, with his synthesizer improvisations and Igor Butman on saxophone; the New Composers were not present during this recording. Kuryokhin also added “Tibetan Tango”, a composition he had recorded earlier with the band “Aquarium”. However, “Insect Culture’s” predominant sound is that of Alakhov´s and Verichev’s collages, some of which they later re-used in their own projects, while the remaining material is still waiting to be released. Kuryokhin's master tape was given ARK records.

Soviet pop songs sampled by the New Composers appearing on Insect Culture include:

Valery Zubkov and the Stas Namin band А ты люби / Love me (1980)
Music: Валерий Зубков Valery Zubkov; Lyrics: Владимир Харитонов Vladimir Kharitonov

Dan Spătaru На машине / In a car, from the movie Песни моря & The songs of the Sea (1971)
Music Temistocle Popa; Lyrics: Роберт Рождественский / Robert Rozhdestvensky

Maria Mironova Песенка о Метро (1950) A Little Song About the Metro [Underground]
Music А. Островский M.Ostrovskiy, Lyrics Н. Лабковский N.Labkovskiy

Bedros Kirkorov Мечта / Dream (1973)
Music: Арно Бабаджанян Arno Babadzhan; Lyrics: Леонид Дербенев, Leonid Debrenev

Cover Photograph

Sergey Kuryokhin asked (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov to create the LP cover design. It was Kozlov´s second cover, after “Nachalnik Kamchatki” for KINO the year before more >>. He decided to invite Kuryokhin, Alakhov and Verichev to a photo shoot in the centre of Leningrad, in the street and inside the “Passage” building, a historical, then socialist shopping mall. There is also a spectacular shoot of the New Composers standing on a rooftop, displaying the skyline of Leningrad.

Kozlov borrowed a medium format film camera (6x6 cm) from his friend Evgeny Yufit, an artist, photographer and filmmaker. When processing the black-and-white film, the size of the negatives allowed Kozlov to draw into the moist emulsion not simply patterns, as he often did, but figurative elements and elaborate designs. These drawings look quite striking, especially on his vintage prints, which he also coloured. For instance, in the above-mentioned picture with the skyline of Leningrad, a huge angel extends his arm towards Alakhov and Verichev, emitting hieroglyphic (letter) sounds.

Kuryokhin or Fallows selected an unusual top view for the LP cover. Kozlov took it from a pedestrian bridge on the first floor of the “Passage”, looking down on the visitors. He asked the three musicians to walk towards the bridge with quick steps. The idea was to freeze the movement with his camera, similar to Iain Macmillan’s famous picture of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road. Macmillan had also been standing above the group of musicians, on a ladder. In fact, just as the Beatles had to walk back and forth for the photographer until Macmillian captured the magic moment, so had the “Pop Mechanics” musicians for Kozlov. The main difference was that Macmillian took six pictures and Kozlov – one.

This shoot fixes the very moment Verichev looked up to him while the others were caught in their own thoughts. The motion makes their bodies and faces blur (unlike those of the other visitors). Yet this momentary eye contact creates an intense interaction between photographer and musician. In 2017, Kozlov explained such a relation as an invisible “dotted line”: it cuts through the blur. Time comes to a still-stand. Unfortunately the record sleeve has a very dark version of the picture, which makes this effect less obvious. Many details that are clearly visible in the original negative have disappeared.

Kozlov printed the pictures in his own laboratory. From a total of eighteen exposures preserved, ten are still available in his own collection as vintage prints. The photo shoot starts with two pictures from the above-mentioned jam session arranged for Richard Denton’s BBC documentary. These two prints are added at the bottom of the page.

In the succesion of negatives, they come before nine Insect Culture shoots, followed by three pictures with the New Composers, but without Kuryokhin. Four pictures with the New Composers and E-E Kozlov, shot on another occasion, complete the series. In other words, during the filming for the BBC documentary, the idea of a joint musical production by Kuryokhin, Alakhov and Verichev already existed.

ARK Records released “Popular Mechanics Insect Culture” in 1987. Fallows also designed the title and created the reverse with ants and a text by Olivia Lichtenstein. The reaction of music critics was quite enthusiastic. In the Blitz magazine, July 1987, , "At various points, I thought my roof was leaking, my walls were shaking, my plumbing bursting and that next door neighbours were involved in some noisy, unshapely coupling involving utensils and lawn-movers." (See bottom of the page)

"Insect Culture" was the first LP to carry the name “Popular Mechanics”. The same year Leo Records released “Introduction in Popular Mechanics” recorded in 1986. In the Soviet Union, the name "Популярная Механика" or “Popular Mechanics” officially appeared for the first time only in 1988.

In 1998, “Popular Mechanics Insect Culture” was re-released by SoLyd Records, Moscow on cassette and CD with more pictures by Evgenij Kozlov.

In 2022, Mashina Records released the album imenno segodnya imenno seychas, a compilation of New Composers songs from the 1980s. Two views from the Insect Culture series of the New Composers on a rooftop (see above) – vintage prints designed by Valery Alakhov and Igor Verichev in the 1980s – were selected for the front and back covers. more >>

In 2023, Sam Riley, a PhD student from Birmingham writing his thesis on experimental music in Leningrad and St Petersburg, 1978-1996, discovered two of the painted pictures from the Insect Culture series mentioned in Kozlov's letter from October 1985 (see above). These two pictures are now in The Pete Fulwell archive, which is part of the Special Collections and Archives at Liverpool John Moores University.