Motive Sounds Recordings

A joke: A Russian who learned to dance and sing despite his families hardship moved to Sweden with his mother. He saved up his money and bought a drum kit and taught himself how to play. Having to give up drumming to his parent complaints of the noise he became interested in computers and programming music. He made some music under the name Skoud compressing his forename and surname together and some famous web designer asked if he could use it for his site. The music got many compliments. He then moved to Carlisle to study. His first album get released by a relatively new label based there called Motivesounds Recordings.
OK, OK, I admit its not funny. That’s because, if you haven’t already seen through my oh so cunning charade then I can tell you that it’s not a joke. And that it is indeed real. And I do indeed hold in my hands an electronica album from a Russian come Swedish guy called Simon Koudriavtsev.
‘Systems And Drafts’ is the

easily sit behind you and become a personal soundtrack to your own life, meaning something individualistic to each listener.
Having always identified the word electronica with the more upbeat stuff you identify with nightclubs I’m not sure I’m happy saying ‘Systems And Drafts’ is an electronica album. It might be the right genre to classify it in, but for me Skoud as a project doesn’t fit anywhere in my personal meaning of that label. I’d prefer the word ‘ambient’ being used to describe this impressive body of work.
It’s something I’d never dream of picking up, but I’m very glad it has been sent to me. How many listens it will attract is anyone’s guess but this Carlisle label coming together with this Russian/Swedish student has opened my eyes a little more. I wasn’t closed to the genre or ‘that kind of laid back sound’ at all, liking artists such as Sigur Ros, God Speed You! Black Emperor, and even the UK’s own Threemovements. However, Skoud are a little more extreme again and has taken me a little

first ‘serious outing’ into CD releasing by Motivesounds Recordings (www.motivesounds.com). I must admit I find it hard to appreciate programmed music – there’s something inherently wrong with it in my view. I think perhaps because I can’t quite place seeing it live, and without that I become a little cynical and sarcastic about the whole thing. However, in places, Skoud’s debut album is so touching in its drifting, gentle melancholia, layered to create multiple soundscapes of pure delicious delicateness, that even a listener as inexperienced as I with the ‘underground’ side of the electronica genre can relate to it and appreciate its beauty.
There’s also something dark going on here. Maybe it’s my personality impressing itself upon the vocal-less ‘songs’ but tracks like ‘Maida Vale’, ‘Fu’, ‘Lystandrige’ and awesome closer ‘Requiem For The Art College’ have something deeper moving underneath their simple waves of sound. I suppose with music that does well to be a ‘backdrop’ to something it can