''Etazhi'' (, ) is the second studio album by Belarusian
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...
band
Molchat Doma
Molchat Doma (, ) is a Belarusian post-punk band from Minsk, formed in 2017. Its current lineup is Egor Shkutko (vocals), Roman Komogortsev (guitar, synthesizer, drum machine), and Pavel Kozlov (bass guitar, synthesizer). Its style has been call ...
, first released on 7 September 2018 through Detriti Records. Following the band's signing with
Sacred Bones Records
Sacred Bones Records is an American independent record label founded in 2007 and based in Brooklyn, New York. The label has released recordings from artists including Zola Jesus, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Spellling, Blanck Mass, Crystal S ...
in January 2020, the album was released in North America for the first time on 27 March 2020.
Composition
The production of ''Etazhi'' has been described as
lo-fi
Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate stylistic ch ...
but slightly more clean and reminiscent of
'80s music than the band's 2017 debut album, (''From Our Houses' Rooftops''). A
drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...
, programmed by the band's guitarist and sound engineer Roman Komogortsev, is used throughout in place of a standard acoustic drummer. Maximilian Turp-Balazs of ''Emerging Europe'' drew comparisons to
New Order's 1983 album ''
Power, Corruption & Lies
''Power, Corruption & Lies'' is the second studio album by the English rock band New Order, released on 2 May 1983 by Factory Records. The album features more electronic tracks than their debut studio album '' Movement'' (1981), with heavier use ...
'', especially for the album's opening track, ("At the Bottom").
is the musicalized version of the poem "" ("Enamelled Bedpan") by the late poet and writer
Boris Ryzhy.
Release
Over a year prior to the release of the album, the eighth track, ("Businessmen"), was self-released as a digital single through
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...
on 24 July 2017. ''Etazhi'' was first released on 7 September 2018
through German independent label Detriti Records as a download and 12-inch vinyl.
The album was also unofficially uploaded in full to
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
by a user named "Harakiri Diat", who had also uploaded full albums by other
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...
and
synthwave
Synthwave (also called retrowave, or futuresynth) is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with the Film score, film soundtracks of action films, science fiction films, and horror films of the 1980s. ...
bands. That upload of ''Etazhi'' garnered two million listens before eventually being taken down due to a
copyright notice
In the copyright law of the United States, United States copyright law, a copyright notice is a notice of statutorily prescribed form that informs users of the underlying claim to copyright ownership in a published work.
Copyright is a form ...
in 2020.
In January 2020, Molchat Doma signed with American independent label
Sacred Bones Records
Sacred Bones Records is an American independent record label founded in 2007 and based in Brooklyn, New York. The label has released recordings from artists including Zola Jesus, David Lynch, John Carpenter, Spellling, Blanck Mass, Crystal S ...
, who later reissued ''Etazhi'' on 27 March 2020. The reissue was also the first North American pressing of the album.
Throughout the first half of 2020, the album's seventh track, ("Bedpan (Boris Ryzhy)"), gained viral popularity as a result of the song being used often as background music on
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
;
the song has appeared in around 225,000 videos on the platform.
The song peaked at number two on the
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
Global Viral 50 chart
and number one on the United States Viral 50 chart in early May.
Album cover
The building on the cover of the album is "Hotel Panorama" which is located in
Štrbské Pleso
Štrbské pleso (, , , or ) is a picturesque tarn (lake), mountain lake of glacial origin and a top tourist destination in the High Tatras, Slovakia. It is the second-largest glacial lake on the Slovak side of the High Tatras, after Veľké Hi ...
,
Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
. The design of the building was made by
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''ÄŒesko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
n architect
Zdeněk Řihák.
Track listing
Personnel
Molchat Doma
*Egor Shkutko – vocals
*Roman Komogortsev – guitar, synthesizers,
drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...
,
mixing, recording,
mastering
*Pavel Kozlov – bass guitar, synthesizers
Release history
References
Notes
References
External links
*
*