Rave and supergroup youth optimism

This past weekend there was an official reboot of the Cobain Jackets project. The musical policy and structure of the offspring of Shura Bi-2 has become simpler and clearer, although it has not been without intrigue. “ZD” is trying to delve into the details and understand what actually happened.

“Cobain Jackets” became “KK” and the single “A lot of Light” was released under this label. A very lively dance track with a polished beat and an energetic voice. The owner of the latter is called Yulia Suvorova, along with her in the new group is keyboardist Daniil Drazhnikov and a character named DJ Hacker. This trinity, in all likelihood, will be a continuation of the project, which was an elective in indie electronics for artists, it would seem, terribly far from each other.

“The Cobain Jackets are a supergroup in the sense that they are adult accomplished artists,” says Elizaveta, wife of Shura Bi-2, whose functions from the very beginning included all producer functions in promoting the project. — It was a good experiment that allowed all its participants to get out of the usual creative rut, discover something new for themselves and maybe bring it to their main project. Everything there was based on surprises, like the contrast between Tamara Gverdtsiteli and Berlin techno. Now we are transferring the project from the status of a supergroup into something alive and mobile, passing the baton, so to speak.

The spontaneity of everything that happened under the Cobain Jacket brand was probably one of the factors that attracted attention. The release of each single was like trying to catch a black cat in a dark room, because even a clairvoyant could not guess where the sound would go this time. And there is nothing to be surprised here. Collect on one album the already mentioned Tamara Gverdtsiteli, Leonid Agutin, Manizha, Diana Arbenina, Monetochka, Brainstorm leader Reynars Kaupers and Tesla Boy frontman Anton Sevidov, add to this the arrangements of Yuri Usachev and the bass guitar part of the “Aryan” Vitaly Dubinin, as well as samples from the songs of Pyotr Mamonov and Boris Grebenshchikov and much more could only be done by people who are ready for musical adventures.

But if the album of this project was an event, albeit not an easy one, but lifting, taking into account modern communications and technologies, then only a magician could plan concerts.

– In the economy of “Kurtok” there was no mathematics familiar to the musical group. It’s more and more about being an ambassador,” Elizabeth smiles. – They did not get concerts, but a kind of phenomenon. This is very difficult to organize so that all the schedules match. And the group needs to play, and preferably more than once a year. We all wanted the project to have a clearer structure.

At the beginning of this year, a similar phenomenon nevertheless took place under the roof of the Central Arena. The event was held online due to pandemic restrictions, but even with only about fifty people from the technical staff and the immediate environment in the hall, it turned out to be very atmospheric. A round stage, as if covered with something like a glass of projection panels, star guests and a crazy rave aura, like in the good old days. It could have been a model for a half-concert, half-dj show, but it was quite difficult to plan tours at the time, so we decided to go with Plan B.

This plan was born about a year ago. The idea of ​​a competition for creative youth is certainly not new, but the Cobain Jacket ideologues wanted to play it by their own rules. “We decided to see what Russia currently has in general, to scan the space and bring up young guys,” Elizaveta recalls. – Few people believed that someone would agree to participate in this competition, but I convinced everyone to try. As a result, we offered four tracks for those who wished to remix or record cover versions on them. As a result, we were sent two hundred works. Many of them shot clips at the same time, and they were very different in style.

The trick was that everyone who showed attention to the event called “KK-cover” did not even suspect that they were participating not so much in a creative quest, but in a big casting for the reboot of “Cobain Jacket”.

“We didn’t know about the global goal of finding people for further cooperation,” says Yulia Suvorova, who, in company with Elizaveta and ZD, escapes from the terrible Moscow heat with ice-cold lemonade on the veranda of a fashion establishment the day before the release of her first adult single. – Me and my then boyfriend, and now my husband, Daniil, wanted to win the main prize – money. To spend them on recording an album. It didn’t work out to win, the first was a guy from Kazakhstan, who made a very cool split of two songs. We got the third place, but in the end everything turned out even better than we expected.

The duet was supplemented by another participant of the contest, DJ Hacker from Rostov. However, the matter is not limited to living artists. Each member of KK will have their own avatar, which in the era of the metaverse is probably not such a bad idea. After the virtual mayhem that the ABBA members staged, the term “avatar” is overgrown with some kind of high-tech madness, however, “KK” decided to take a more youthful path and settled on cartoons.

“This is not just a picture, but a real character who can, for example, give press conferences,” explains Elizaveta. – We have been developing them for more than six months, prescribing an archetype for each, consulting with psychologists. All avatars will have expertise in their field, for example, one of them is a fan of computer games. Probably the closest analogy is Gorillaz. This will be the first Russian digital group.

It must be admitted that the sound of the first single “KK” fits well with this digital binge. However, in such a situation, of course, one would like a semblance of a conspiracy theory, in the spirit of the fact that Shura “B-2”, as the ideologist of “Cobain’s Jacket”, is preparing a spare springboard for himself in a situation where a large rock band is forced to take a time out.

“Jackets” is my production project, and Shura is a music producer there,” Elizaveta hurries to explain the situation. – Now I’m left, three new guys who will be co-authors of fresh material, new arrangers and sound producers. But Shura is no longer involved in this. Are we scared without him? No. We have been doing this for a long time, this is my business, and nothing scares me. Although Shura cannot be aloof from the musical process. We somehow even had to kick him out of the studio. But with his experience, he seems to feel at a distance what is happening and how it needs to be changed.

The young, though already family vocalist “KK” doesn’t look insecure or frightened either. She is clearly one of those girls who came into show business not for the sake of finding rich patrons, but in order to realize their musical ego.

“My parents supported my childhood interests, and, apparently, at some point they realized that I have some musicality, a sense of rhythm, and allowed me to develop it,” says the singer. – I was born in the Sverdlovsk region, in the small town of Verkhnyaya Tura. Then we moved to Yekaterinburg, and then to Moscow. My hobbies were as diverse as possible. From Whitney Houston to Radiohead. I absorbed everything that was possible and tried to find my own unique genre in this way. And now I have the opportunity to reveal all my ideas about how music should sound and be visually presented.

The first single “Key Kay” will have a sequel – the musicians plan to release a new song about once a month. Of course, with the change in doctrine and the change in the composition, the project got a young enthusiasm, thanks to which the artists do not really think about the routine and terrible competition in the musical field, but are tuned in to all sorts of discoveries. Perhaps in the near future it will become clear how useful the formal proximity to the B-2 and the opportunity to consult with these highly experienced gentlemen will be for KK. And for “ZD”, given the gathered company, it was a sin not to take the opportunity to find out how our big rock band spends an unexpected vacation.

“They all got the opportunity to be dads, plunge into the family routine, for which summer is a great time,” notes Elizabeth. But there are plans for the fall. I will not say that everyone is full of optimism, but life goes on, and in the fall we return.