PORT MONE: Dip (2009)

It's a mistake that best albums comes from the West only. Here is one of the best albums of year 2009 and it is coming from th East, from Belarus. This is something really fabulous.

I met this band accidentally during compilation "Capitan Woof Woof's Guitar" (2009, Bearsuit Records), where they were presented with a song "River" that amazed me curiously. I contact them and they did answer me and offered me their debut album they just finished work at. Neither David Hillary from Bearsuit Records and his connections in Horvatia nor Therapy's editor-in-chief probably would never knew about this exclusive band through the "third hands". The album was officially released at October 1st 2009 and as it seems to me these are first responses on their work.

These three men established the band in 2005 in Minsk (Belarus Republic) with idea of live perfomances only and creation of music for movies and plays at times in triangle Minsk-Moscow-Istanbul. Band members are: Alexey Vorsoba (accordeon), Sergey Kravchenko (percussion) and Alexey Vanchook (bass-guitar). By myself I say it's hard to compare this music with any styles and forms (and it's true) because of it's mix of ambient, noise, experimental and classical, traditional music. So at first...

These three are brand-new phenomena in this everything-mixed music. PORT-MONE do not trying to be avantgarde. They are. They reached exellent instrumental compositions that connects the whole palette of modern classical music from rock, ambient, psychedelic and extraavantgarde experimental music to pop-music. With only three instruments this band could unite the essence of all modern musical culture legacy into brand-new stylic form. They brings something new big and geniusly performed to the basement of known cultural legacy. And it can't be boring. 14 instrumental compositions are relatively short (from 2 to 4 minutes). 14 miracles starting with heavy noise-rock/industrial introductive pieces "Horse" and "River" (in "Capitan Woof Woof's Guitar" compilation) ending with last "Youth". There are fantastic things among them, that connects psyshe post-rock ("Cold Water"), post-punk/blues (big dance trip-hop "Tuna" with rich accordeon gradations of Alexey Vorsoba), and fantastic-dance "Trout" that differs with slavonic-russian melodies in absolutely unusual minimalistic style. Awesome! And original. Without a doubt this is one of most important hits of year 2009. Further "Underwater Cavern" trumps as an Ace on Ten by it's trance-ambiental/industrial rithm of lelujavućim dance. And from that point the whole album comes to final with a spiritualistic seance "Catfish" (a videoclip for this song had been shot) that in it's minimalistic (and accordeonistic) sequence reminds the very things of best quality no one can recall where could he hear it. Fantastic colour. "Crossing" is a strange figure on the album. The first part quasi extracts best from an arsenal of Meredit Monk, at that time second part is crossing with the best gothic post-punk staying in previous limits, and it's good. I had a feeling that I'm listening great Meredit in Dali's Car adaptation (Peter Murphy ex-Bauhaus & Mick Karn ex-Japan). "Sea" is very interesting with a theme where Vorsoba is simulating synthsizer sounds with accordeon and then he is getting over to regular accordeon sound changing the whole song into bright sea view. No words to describe effect of these masters of relatively simple music. It have to be heared. In my humble opinion this is one of the most original albums of year 2009 in the world.

Check it for sure!

horvi // 14/10/2009