"Sanytch is the pseudonym/nickname of Aliaksandr Niavolin from Belarus. Edu… Read Full Bio ↴"Sanytch is the pseudonym/nickname of Aliaksandr Niavolin from Belarus. Educated both in his homeland and Russia, he now resides in the Czech Republic, where he works simultaneously as a web designer, DJ, photographer, and musician. Niavolin has been employed in the field of graphic arts since 1997, and – on a loftier level – winning web design accolades since 2002. Now a member of both the Belarusian Designers’ Union and the All-Russian Internet Academy, he operates his own company, Creasence, from the picturesque streets of Prague.

He considers yellow to be his “trademark” color, and since it is also used with striking effectiveness to brand his homepage, the image above operates as a fitting calling card on a number of levels.

The first release "O" (released by Foundamental net-label) came about after Sanytch’s decision to get rid of his GrooveBox and sampler, in order to work exclusively on a laptop. Here he began chopping up all manner of audio fragments “to the point where they were unrecognizable.” Soviet-pop diva Alla Pugacheva, old movies, and retro music were all used in order “to create a completely new and unique entity.” Their presence in these recent instrumentals is indeed unrecognizable.

These kind of offhand experiments began, as with his graphic work, in the late 1990s and an initial acquaintance with Kraftwerk. Using DIY tools such as Windows 95 and Fruity Loops, Sanytch started to compose music whenever he encountered dry spells in the design business. As a result, his visual and sonic projects have always developed side by side, each one informing the other.

This sense of parallel influences is manifest geographically, too. Although Sanytch now lives in Prague, Belarus remains on his mind – and not always for the happiest reasons. The following paragraphs are taken from a recent interview on this subject (we’ve polished the English). At the outset of the conversation, Sanytch was asked about his relationship to the two cities of Prague and Minsk, and with specific reference to music.
“I know a little about contemporary Belarusian music. Unfortunately, though, Belarusian musicians aren’t exactly the most famous in the world. I’d say we have maybe 5 reasonably interesting ensembles nationwide, but the target audience of those performers remains the kind of nations that used to make up the USSR.”
One might reasonably assume that Sanytch is referring here either to commercial music (on hard media) or primetime entertainment. When he speaks – at least implicitly – of web-based, “post-commercial” outfits, things look jollier, since net-releases operate outside of market concerns – and therefore outside marketplaces with fixed addresses.
Everything develops on a much more ethereal basis.

“Nowadays, I get the impression that we [in Belarus] have a real chance to participate in the evolution of music worldwide. If I remember correctly, one of Belarus‘ ambient composers – called i/dex – is now working together with the German musician Stefan Betke of the [glitch/dubtronica] project called ‘Pole.’ Then there’s another dub-techno musician, Pavel Ambiont, who’s working with DJ Pinch from the UK.”

He goes on: “Belarus now hosts a lot of minimal-electronica events, even on an international level. Dub techno and minimal techno both seem to be very popular there. That’s a tendency I’m personally fond of, too.” As we’ll see in a few seconds, minimal techno does indeed play an important role in his musical output – and the worldview thereof.

This degree of homespun interest and (understated) patriotism logically begs the question: why did Sanytch leave Belarus in the first place? “I like the country very much; my parents and relatives still live there… There are a lot of reasons why I decided to leave my homeland. It is a long story… but, in short, I feel more like a human being here in the Czech Republic. In Belarus, unfortunately, that same feeling is harder to come by.”

Floating, therefore, between two fixed locations, Sanytch is more at home – sonically – with artists such as Moscow’s SCSI-9, Berlin’s Jan Jelinek, Pole, or Vancouver’s Frivolous – whose music makes him feel “happy and inspired.” To these causes for joy he later adds “sanity,” in other words, “I like people who are compos mentis. I also love it when people dance and smile. I guess that makes me happy, too…”
He ends with an equally simple address to his future readers and listeners: “People, don’t worry about the crisis and all that stuff. Just relax.. and listen to some good music!”

Several days ago, we wrote a few words about a recent album by his compatriot Parametric, who is working in the self-proclaimed area of “ambient techno.” His music barely contains enough of a discernible beat to operate on the dancefloor. Sanytch is a colleague at the same label. He tags the music in this post as “minimal techno, ambient, glitch, dub, click’n'cut, and microhouse.”
Those labels, likewise, would suggest that Sanytch is writing instrumentals expressive of some social intent, designed perhaps for a kind of free-flowing, “crisis- or worry-free” gathering – with beer, of course. These events, ideally, would be free of the antisocial anxieties that arise from bounded spaces, i.e., between individuals – or nations, even. Dancefloors, after all, are realms defined more by common activity than by fiercely-defended borders or limits.

And yet, if we look at the comments surrounding the release of “O,” they do not suggest that the likelihood of dance. Quite the opposite. The first remark left at Sanytch’s LastFM page said simply: “I’m off to listen to this!” Not in the direction of a club, but to a secluded place where the music will be enjoyed in isolation. The next fan wrote: “I listened to this again… It’s an excellent album! These new themes are much closer to my mood! I liked them a lot!”

Themes of quiet, “sane, and compos mentis” social states are apparently imagined neither in Minsk nor in Prague, but somewhere in between; the image above hints at a similar romance of nomadism. It’s the calming appeal of constant (potential) movement, of time spent on one’s own, armed with a set of decent headphones – and the simple pleasures Sanytch celebrates in his design work."

by David MacFadyen,
professor of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),
Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures