Pavel Milyakov (Buttechno) & Aleksandra Zakharenko (Perila) unveil their collaborative debut as pmxper with a genius act of atmospheric conjuring, full of lilting guitar, curled jazz and brushed drums, wrapped around Perila’s distinctive spoken word and poetry. Whatever you’re expecting, this probably ain’t it - a gently screwed set of sunstroke/desert songs like some Nico x AC Marias x Leslie Winer session; out of body, sleep deprived, somewhere between delirium and bliss.
Recorded (mostly) remotely between 2020-2022, but mired in a mutual interiority, their sublimely smoky venture bridges strains of spoken word, strung-out country folk, jazz and etheric kosmische with a timeless control of mood and atmosphere that amounts to one of the finest episodes in either’s oeuvre. In a properly enchanted blurring of identity, they almost entirely dispense with digital tools in favour of more pastoral and timeless energies; guitar, sax, jazzy brush drums and a Rhythm Ace FR-3 drum machine, a sort of precursor to Roland’s simmering CR-78.
It’s that sax that takes you places though, daubing accents of blushed romance over walls of guitar in various formations, all of which sidestep the widescreen cliché in favour of something more nuanced and unusual. This ain’t the open road of Lynch and Badalamenti, more the careening trailblaze of Conny Plank & Holger Czukay, Angela Conway & Bruce Gilbert, The Jesus & Mary Chain and Hope Sandoval’s Stoned & Dethroned, like a melted Venus in Furs, soft, and fritzed.
At just under 30 minutes, it’s a short and perfectly formed daydream, hard to describe, and exceptionally easy to get fully lost in.
Recorded (mostly) remotely between 2020-2022, but mired in a mutual interiority, their sublimely smoky venture bridges strains of spoken word, strung-out country folk, jazz and etheric kosmische with a timeless control of mood and atmosphere that amounts to one of the finest episodes in either’s oeuvre. In a properly enchanted blurring of identity, they almost entirely dispense with digital tools in favour of more pastoral and timeless energies; guitar, sax, jazzy brush drums and a Rhythm Ace FR-3 drum machine, a sort of precursor to Roland’s simmering CR-78.
It’s that sax that takes you places though, daubing accents of blushed romance over walls of guitar in various formations, all of which sidestep the widescreen cliché in favour of something more nuanced and unusual. This ain’t the open road of Lynch and Badalamenti, more the careening trailblaze of Conny Plank & Holger Czukay, Angela Conway & Bruce Gilbert, The Jesus & Mary Chain and Hope Sandoval’s Stoned & Dethroned, like a melted Venus in Furs, soft, and fritzed.
At just under 30 minutes, it’s a short and perfectly formed daydream, hard to describe, and exceptionally easy to get fully lost in.