pan y rosas release entrance to hades by alexei borisov and jelena glazova

Alexei Borisov was born in Moscow on December 7, 1960 and graduated from the Moscow State University where he studied History and Arts. His controversial performing career as a guitarist began in 1980 in the new-wave group, Center. The following year he formed the mod-band, Prospekt, which transformed into the shifting Notchnoi Prospekt in 1985. After the dissolution of Notchnoi Prospekt in the mid 1990s, he surfaced again in the “noise reconstruction and techno acoustics” duo F.R.U.I.T.S. with Pavel Zhagun as well as in various art/noise/industrial/impro acts like Sever, Joint Committee, Atomic Bisquit Orchestra, New Russian Alternative, Gosplan trio and more. He is a co-founder of the N&B Research Digest label and curates the international festival of experimental music, Noise and Fury. He also works as a DJ in clubs and on various radio stations in Russia and abroad.

Jelena Glazova is a sound/visual artist and poet from Riga, Latvia. She works in interdisciplinary areas of contemporary art – combining image, poetic text, experimental sound and installation in her pieces and performances. Her sphere of activity in experimental music is drone/noise, usually constructed from processed vocals. As a conceptual artist she relies on her voice as a generator, heavily altering and manipulating it through digital processing. She considers this destruction of the vocal element as a way of expressing unpronounced speech – connecting it with her practice as a poet. As a visual artist, Jelena works with physicality which extends her sound art paradigm.

Their first album as a duo for pan y rosas was recorded in Moscow and Riga in 2023 with tapes, electronics, processed vocals, laptops, and controllers. The sound contains long form drone electronics with squelches, bends and swells.

Get the album here!

kind words for marta smilga, jelena glazova, tay_ploops, lola de la mata, nhung nguyen, anna xambó, and bella!

the extended kindness comes from closer listen. read the whole thing there!

Many labels make an effort to raise the profile of female electronic musicians, but pan y rosa discos goes all out. Of their fifteen releases so far this year, eight are by women. Their music demonstrates an incredible variety of styles and is drawn from a wide variety of countries…

When listening to the first few seconds of attractive synthesis by Latvia’s Līga Smirnova, one thinks, “oh, it’s just another club-based synth track.” But listen just a little longer, and all preconceptions will be destroyed…

Jelena Glazova may be another Latvian artist, but her approach is vastly different from that of her labelmate. Relying on heavily processed voice, Glazova creates soundscapes that flutter and pop without providing any hint of their human genesis…

The script flips again with tay_ploops (Jessica Gabriel). The Vancouver-based artist also uses voice, but her voice is recognizable throughout, delving into poetry, fragment, onomatopoeia, and all manner of stutter and loop. spool oops is a fun album, as one might expect from the title, as well as by some of Gabriel’s other careers (puppeteer, clown)…

Shifting gears once again, we encounter the work of London’s Lola de la Mata, an impossible to categorize artist whose work demonstrates incredible intelligence and complexity. de la Mata’s main interest is the kinesthetic nature of the body in relation to movement and sound. Her work has often been used in dance performances, as the nuances of her compositions lend themselves well to creative interpretations. In Remise en Bouche (Palate Cleanser), one can hear percussive breath and snapshots of song, along with static and feedback, trains and bells, violin and voice…

Vietnam’s Nhung Nguyen (Sound Awakener) offers an intriguing combination of static and chime on the 12-minute single piece Oblivion. The drone influence is apparent along with the “drifting, falling” feel of ambience, justifying the description of the work as “calm, meditative, chaotic and noisy.” While listening, one feels the tug between peace and activity, retreat and forward surge, work and play, regret and letting go…

Those listening to these releases in order may flinch when they reach Anna Xambó‘s H2RI, a collection of twenty one-minute tracks rife with feedback and noise. The album would make a great alarm clock. But there is also pattern in noise: frequency, repetition, dynamic contrast, give-and-take…

The latest label release comes from Brazilian artist Bella, and captures a live half-hour performance inspired by water and light. The piece, titled UN, is as dark as the unmapped fathoms, where furtive movement is often imperceptible and creatures create their own illumination. One can imagine this piece filling the performance space with reverberation, sound waves bouncing off walls and traveling through bodies…

kind words for the malady of death by jelena glazova

avant music news:

Sparse waves of distortion overlap to create constructive interference in the form of beats. These oscillations combine in pairs or triads. The elements mainly explore the lower-registers, often hovering in a frequency range that is easy to overlook. At times, these sounds resemble adverse weather patterns (e.g., thunder and lightning) or extra-planetary noises, which are in line with the overall emotional tone of the album.

pan y rosas release the malady of death by jelena glazova!

jelena glazova is a sound/visual artist and poet from riga, latvia. in her pieces and performances she combines images, poetic texts, experimental sounds and installations . her sphere of activity in experimental music is drone/noise, usually constructed from processed vocals. she relies on her voice as a generator, heavily altering it and manipulating it through digital processing.

she created the malady of death in 2017, using her voice, a laptop and controllers. the album is dedicated to the french writer, marguerite duras. bass flutter. sweep drone. grit phase. plates shift. molten.

get the album here!