The outfit Nadto Sonna was formed in Kiev - late in 2005 - by two friends, Andrei Prokopenko and Dorialan Marchenko. The former brought his expertise with drum-machines and programming, the latter was a dab-hand on the guitar and keyboards. Immediately they set to work preparing a series of net-releases, the background to which we offer here.
The twosome claim their early influences to have been Bjork and Nine Inch Nails; their stage name (an essential issue to be resolved at the outset of any ensemble) was taken from a contracted version of the phrase “Not today; I’m already too sleepy” (Ne segodnia, ia uzhe slishkom sonnaia).
If you say the Russian really quickly, the desired effect is achieved. As is the need for a second moniker, the much easier 2sleepy.
The music produced to match these fun-filled phonetics was defined by the band thus: “Aggressive electronic textures, together with the kind of fragile, touching melodies that’ve already attracted a large number of people.”
Their confidence came quickly: “The group successfully made use of the web to distribute its music; 2sleepy lost no time winning over the ears of Ukrainian music lovers!” It must be strange honing your artistic output for a specific body part.
Expect tunes for tummies very soon.
Adding a bass player to their line-up for live performances, Nadto Sonna/2Sleepy released a debut album in 2006 called “Fragments of Sleep” through the Austrian label Laridae. Keeping to the same core themes, early concerts bore conceptual titles such as “Black and White Dreams” and were performed on a monochrome video backdrop.
Late last year their bass player was obliged to leave due to other artistic responsibilities (with a solo-project) and a second keyboardist was brought on board, Seva Solntsev. This change coincided with the release of an album by the fellow Ukrainian outfit “I drug moi gruzovik” (And My Friend the Truck), whose work we have covered elsewhere. Nadto Sonna contributed their expertise to five numbers on the CD.
Fittingly enough, most of that editing and remixing was done in the bedroom of their studio: soft surfaces for softer sounds.
That background sketch brings us to current material. Although the title of the Nadto Sonna’s new release, Art Fraud, steps away from the emphasis upon slumber, it does, nonetheless, mark another attempt to fashion gentle, “warm, and romantic electronica.”
The main reference points and inspirations drawn upon during the production of Art Fraud were New York’s Au Revoir Simone and Germany’s Notwist. Hence the “unhurried rumble of drum machines, together with lots of analog synths.”
Perhaps because this new album has only recently appeared after a long period of intense experimentation, talk of lethargy has returned… yet again. This isn’t exactly rock and roll; there’s certainly insufficient energy to throw TVs from hotel windows, let alone drive a Rolls into a pool.
In their promo-materials, the band members always note how much time they spend in bed (an enviable 8 or 9 hours). Although generally inclined to swap the high life for regular shuteye, they did manage to stay awake recently, long enough to conduct a telling interview with the Ukrainian press.
It began by asking Nadto Sonna what exactly crosses their mind when they… start to… feel… sleepy. Soltsev replied: “Not long ago I dreamed of the North Pole. There was a boundless, snowy plain in front of me, plus a tribe of local people. It was all very real. The colors and shades were all really rich.”
Marchenko’s reverie is more active; he noted that his worst ever nightmare involved an army of “devil-engineers[!]” attacking mankind. Members of the human race threw themselves onto the demons’ swords, “simply in order to escape to the netherworld…”
A little less cheese or caffeine might solve that.
Why spend so much time under the sheets? What’s so awful about the outside world? The suggestion is made that Art Fraud’s title might indicate some bitter experience of deceit in the musicians’ own lives. “We run up against it all the time,” they admit. “Especially with taxi drivers who try and rip us off…”
Back to Pillowland, then.
In their desire to somehow escape the nastiness of the outside world, the band has recently come to the conclusion that “we’re not at all a fashionable, popular group. We’re a kind of enclosed system, moving from one rehearsal to another. To be honest, we’ve no idea what people even say about us! Today, for example, I simply got up, brushed my teeth, and headed off to the studio. ”
Wearing dark glasses and a brown paper bag.
Time for some positive thinking. Asked what sources of inspiration allow the ensemble to ignore fraudulent reality when awake, the members of 2sleepy each give a brief answer, resulting in the small, but treasured list of “music, art, and a beautiful woman.”
These are the same motivating symbols that’ll nudge 2sleepy onwards, out of the bedroom and into the next project. It’ll take time, though; baby steps from the sheets to the shower.
Solntsev notes: “When I finished work on this second album, I was sooo stressed out! I couldn’t go outside for several days. It was like giving birth; work on the album had lasted nine months. Finally I got over it all… Only now have I got around to thinking about my ‘third child’!”
Marchenko chips in: “The third album will be a surprise! Wait and see!” We will - as long as there’s a successful transition from pajamas to pants.
