Arsen Shomakhov
NEW
RELEASE !
Dangerous
Visit Arsen Shomakhov's Web Site
For lots of reasons, blues music got a late start in Russia. Ever
mindful of corrupting Western influence, the Soviet censorship
endeavored for decades to protect the cultural virginity of the
population by severely restricting contact with certain foreign musics
media. When Gorbachev’s perestroika brought these barriers down,
a powerful movement of youth protest appeared, organized around
rock’n’roll. Although a few bands performed the type of blues
that they had heard on British recordings - Eric Clapton, early
Fleetwood Mac, and so forth - they were generally regarded as rockers
rather than as bluesmen. But after communism, that movement
disintegrated, and the various musics within it - blues among them -
began to precipitate out as distinct forms with their own performers
and audiences. Since that time, the music has developed from
mimicry of British blues-rock, to a replication of what Russians call
the “classical blues” of the Delta and postwar Chicago, to the
production of a blues that is increasingly identifiable as
“Russian”.
Arsen Shomakhov’s musical career would be a singular example of this
larger pattern. His band, Ragtime, began with a mixture of rock,
jazz and blues in the late eighties, converted to covering straight
blues material in the early nineties and, by the end of the decade, was
adding more and more original numbers (Arsen’s) to its
repertoire. The culmination of that journey has led to this CD,
all of whose tracks were composed by Arsen
himself.
The range of styles included here - pretty much every blues form except
the country, bottle-neck variety - handsomely showcases Arsen’s
talents. His throaty yet smooth vocals particularly impress on [
name songs that appear as tracks #2, #3 and #8], leaving listeners with
no clue that they are hearing a non-native English speaker working in
an foreign idiom. His piercing guitar runs a gamut of inflections
from funk to jazz to country-western, while never straying outside the
borders of the blues itself. This CD also represents an evolution
in his tone which now sports an unmistakable twanginess in both the
upper and lower registry (check out the licks on track #4).
Throughout, Arsen is ably supported by Bek Mamyshe on drums and Aslan
Zhantuyev on bass.
Arsen and his band spent over a decade in their native town of Nal’chik
in Russia’s remote North Caucasus, honing the craft as bluesmen despite
the fact that their geographic isolation meant that there was
effectively no chance to perform in public. Their commitment to
their music eventually paid off, thrusting Arsen into the top ranks of
players in Moscow’s sizeable blues scene. This CD now makes his
music available to an international audience, reversing the pattern of
cultural imports by sending the blues back to us, from Russia with love.
- Michael Urban, Author of RUSSIA GETS THE BLUES
1. Dangerous 3:37
2. Too Hot 3:31
3. Let Me Be Your Romeo 4:03
4. You’re The One 3:20
5. Low Down Shakin' Chill 3:30
6. Troublemaker 3:54
7. Rainy Drive 2:57
8. Use What You Got 3:54
9. The Arsonist 2:18
10. Don’t Miss Your Train 3:01
11. Highway Cruise 4:40
12. I Don’t Know 5:00
13. Beale Street Boogie 3:10
