Andrey Gorokhov - music critic, radio host, writer: biography, education, career

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

At the beginning of the 2000s, Andrei Gorokhov's book "Muzprosvet" was published. The famous saxophonist Sergei Letov published his review of this edition on one of the websites.

He admitted that he received the book as a gift from drummer Vladimir Nelinov, with whom he participated in a production called Entre Nous at the Man Theater.

Sergey writes that this work by Andrey Gorokhov is the best work about electronic music, and quite possibly about art in general. The author of the critical article admits that "Muzprosvet" is quite easy to read due to the fact that the writer avoids a large number of specific terms.

He also doesn't try to sway anyone into sharing his own musical tastes. After reading Andrey Gorokhov's book, there is a desire to communicate with its author, to reveal to him his point of view on certain issues, to argue with him.

"Muzprosvet" is a brief history of the music that replaced rock and roll, which in the seventies of the XX century began to lose its former popularity. Considering modern electronics, the author describes in great detail each style and direction: its appearance, dawn and gradual fading. In addition, Gorokhov's book contains a large number of detailed descriptions of musical instruments and equipment that may be useful to professionals in this field. But the most important advantage of the work, according to Sergei Letov, is that its creator brings a lot of his own observations about the culture of our days and contemporary art in general.

Analysis of excerpts

In his article, Sergei Letov does not evaluate the book by Andrei Gorokhov, but only cites some excerpts from it and comments on them. So, he draws attention to the chapter on the genre of electronic music called Trip-Hop. One of its artistic means is the deliberate deterioration of sound quality. There are even special computer programs designed for musicians to help make an excerpt of a piece more noisy, illegible, and so on. As an example of this use of equipment, Andrei Gorokhov cites the creative method of Lee Perry, a musician and sound engineer who worked with such Jamaican reggae stars as Bob Marley and Max Romeo. Sergey, in addition to what has been said, says that Yegor Letov and the Civil Defense group used similar methods when creating severalalbums known collectively as "Communism" in the 1980s.

Pop

In his book, Andrei Gorokhov repeatedly emphasizes that all popular electronics is nothing more than just another kind of pop music. He urges not to confuse the works of serious composers written for modern musical instruments with tracks created by DJs. The author also writes that all the so-called "innovations" of pop musicians related to the use of electronic instruments are just borrowings from academic composers such as Stockhausen, Xenakis, Subbotnik, Cage and many others.

Postmodernism

In the book "Muzprosvet" by Andrey Gorokhov, electronic music is considered in the context of the era of postmodernism in contemporary art. Creative people of today tend not to do something new, but sometimes change old works almost beyond recognition. This method can be clearly seen in the work of musicians who actively use sampling, that is, composing a track from compositions of other authors or their own. The author reminds that this principle is not new. It was used by John Lennon in the early seventies of the XX century. It is known that he wrote the song "Imagin" from the album of the same name, playing a certain excerpt from Beethoven's moonlight sonata in reverse.

So the melody of the composition was born, which is recognized by many critics as the greatest hit of all time. Unlike Lennon andother outstanding composers, many amateurs who use the achievements of modern electronics are not able to adequately judge the quality of their works. Therefore, the DIY method often results in poor quality music production.

Rare Edition

The first edition of the book "Muzprosvet" was equal to 1000 copies. It was instantly sold out by people interested in the problems of contemporary music. Books from that run are rare now.

Biography of Andrey Gorokhov

The hero of this article is not only a writer, but also an artist, journalist, and radio host.

Andrey Nikolaevich Gorokhov was born in 1961. The place of his birth is the capital of our country. He received a technical education. Andrey Gorokhov is a graduate of Moscow State University (Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics) and is a programmer. In the early nineties, Gorokhov emigrated to Germany, where he changed a number of professions in a few years. Andrei Nikolaevich was engaged in photography, and also worked at a brewery and as a watchman in a television company. 5 years after his move, the hero of this article began working as a music columnist at the Deutsche Welle radio station. It was on the basis of materials for his programs that the above-mentioned book was created. The hero of the article is familiar to listeners from two author's programs: "Muzprosvet" and "Album of the Week".

Review of new electronic music albums

Music critic Andrei Gorokhov voicedreviews of new albums during their radio broadcasts. Now his comments on the new records can be read on the journalist's website.

First of all, his articles can be recommended to those who are fond of electronic music. In his brief notes, the author acts as a real uncompromising critic of the Western model. He is not afraid to give negative assessments to new works of musicians working in electronic styles. For example, Andrei Gorokhov praises the first track from the album Terrible two by the American electronic trio "Senk Yu" in 2008.

He calls this piece "a real line". But the second track of this record, as well as all subsequent numbers, the author of the review characterizes as boring, uninteresting and monotonous music. According to him, listening to these works quickly gets bored due to repeated repetitions of the same phrases.

Andrey Gorokhov's reviews differ from many other similar works, including the fact that they are written by a person who is well versed not only in electronic music, but also in other genres, including classical and jazz.

For example, in the same article, devoted to the album of the "Senk Yu" group, he compares the first track from the disc of this American trio with the records of jazz luminary Miles Davis of the early seventies. Then the famous pioneer of jazz-rock began to perform music with elements of psychedelic and space rock with his band. With these works the criticcompares the first track from the album of American electronic musicians. This article has already mentioned the story about the composition Imagine by John Lennon, which can be found in the book by Andrey Gorokhov. The enumeration of such interesting facts from the history of world music makes Gorokhov's works interesting for a wide range of readers. The same can be said about his author's programs that aired in the 2000s on the Deutsche Welle channel.

Lectures on music

In addition to writing articles and books, the hero of this material is also engaged in direct communication with his audience. This happens during his lectures, which he gives in organizations such as the Sergey Kuryokhin Center for Contemporary Art in the city of St. Petersburg.

At such meetings, Andrey Gorokhov touches upon such topics as the audio recording of folk music: how works change during this process, is it possible at the present time to create something like masterpieces, the author of which is considered to be the people, and what is their difference from products of popular culture. All this and much more can be learned by attending Andrey Gorokhov's lecture.

Ethnic music

As already mentioned, one of Andrey Gorokhov's lectures is devoted to this topic. In it, he touches on such an important issue as "What can be considered true ethnic music?". The lecturer answers it as follows: there is no clear line between academic and folk art.

On the covers of many masterpiece CDsethnic music depicts not villagers in folk costumes with national instruments, but professional musicians in European clothes. When looking at these images, the question involuntarily arises as to the authenticity of the works performed by the group. The author gives an example of one of the Asian countries, where until the 20th century each settlement had its own orchestra of folk instruments. Each locality developed its own original performing technique. Even the same musical instruments were tuned in different villages in their own way. In the twentieth century, with the advent of conservatories, professional musicians of this country became interested in the folk art of their homeland.

The big question

They began to make folklore expeditions to remote areas. After some time, employees of the Ministry of Culture decided to streamline the sound of folk orchestras. Each specific tool now had to be configured only in a certain way. The works created by the people were processed by professional arrangers. It was this kind of music that was published under the guise of ethnic masterpieces. Can it be called that? This question can be answered in two ways. On the one hand, these songs and instrumental compositions are really written by the people, and on the other hand, they have reached the listener in a greatly modified form.

Question of authenticity

Similar processes took place in other countries. For example, the Egyptian intelligentsia of the 19th century, which was under the impression of Verdi's famous opera Aida, considered the entire folkthe music of one's country as an art for the lower classes.

Representatives of the elite did their best to impose their tastes on ordinary people. As a result of this, the folk music of Egypt was strongly influenced by the Italian operatic art. Therefore, discs with recordings of Egyptian folklore performers usually contain songs that are extremely difficult to call folk. As a rule, this is a mixture of European chanson, opera arias and oriental melodies.

But even if you can find musicians playing ethnic pieces in their original form, sometimes it is very difficult to make an audio recording. An integral part of some genres is live performance. When recording such works (even multi-channel), the feeling of music in space is lost.

Creativity as part of life

Another difficulty in fixing folk music is that, as a rule, ethnic works are difficult to separate from the rituals and traditions for which they are intended. In other circumstances, the performer cannot get the necessary mood for creativity. Andrei Gorokhov says that for the people, making music is as natural a process as a simple everyday conversation. Therefore, it is difficult to reproduce it outside certain circumstances.

Painting and music

In the 1980s, while living in the USSR, and later during emigration, Gorokhov was engaged in abstract painting. He also realized his love for fine arts, being one of the organizers of the Izolyatsia art fund. Within this projecta large number of lectures were held on the topics of music and painting. Also, this organization organizes art exhibitions in the city of Donetsk.

Conclusion

This article provided brief biographical information about the writer, artist and radio host Andrei Gorokhov, as well as about his educational activities in the field of art. Some of the key points of his lectures were also outlined. In his speeches and books, Gorokhov tries to convey his opinions about music to the listener in a simple way.

Andrey Gorokhov's ability to speak simply about complex, serious issues of art is the reason for the enduring interest of the public in his works.