Foresteppe - Odeyalo

Vrystaete's recent vinyl reissue of Egor Klochikhin's first tape under the Foresteppe name sent us down a rabbithole that's now led us to the door of French label Laaps and their 2020 release of Odeyalo,  the Russian producer/artist/educator's eighth (or so) release. That year also seems to signal the end of what was a very prolific run for Klochikhin, which, whatever the reasoning (2020 was a weird time for everyone, and Russia in particular was heading in a troubling direction), is a huge shame, as he was really on to something, though operating in isolation somehow plugging into the same underground zeitgeist that was informing Brannten Schnure, the Discreet crew and a whole host of outliers from Australia's diffuse underground. Odeyalo is the Russian word for a very particular type of blanket constructed from multiple rags and fabrics, and serves as an almost too-perfect understanding for the type of music Klochikhin makes, a collage of tape manipulations, field recordings and acoustic sounds that evokes the kind of dreamstate confusion we most often associate with Christian Schoppik. Like the blanket for which it is named, Odeyalo is a palimpsestic text that plays with notions of time and consciousness, dreamy, often beautiful, but partially uneasy too, almost disorientating in its vertiginous layering of indeterminate sounds. The kind of music you'd expect to be made when the weight of history is hanging over you. No Time to Hurry sold out in an instance, never to be repressed unfortunately. How this one is still kicking around four years after release is a small wonder. Don't miss it. Edition of 200.