Vadim Fainberg-Laika http://theswallows.bandcamp.com/

In Vadim Fainberg’s 2011 work Laika (recorded under the pseudonym Laska), Fainberg explores the relationship between found tracks and recorded, post-rock guitar pieces. Fainberg’s work provides a more expansive take on the previously (primarily) guitar driven work of the 2010 Swallows recording. This six track album begins with “A train” which features lo-fi recordings picked up from conversations on a subway in New York City. As the conversations and static progress, Fainberg introduces hints of slowly played, acoustic guitar melody lines, distantly placed in the mix. As the conversations, static, and guitar lines drift in and out of one another, the track fades away into a monotony of white noise, and the next track “NYCNY” slowly fades in with radio signal feedback. “NYCNY” drifts from ambient guitar drones into a fuzzed, wall of sound which permeates the track’s consistently grounding bass line. The track’s climactic peak arrives when the noise and feedback reach a fever pitch, eventually leaving little audible other than the thunderous bass and white noise. The next piece, a nearly eleven minute movement titled “St. Nicholas Ave.,” is the most straight-forward piece of post-rock soundscape on Laika. The first pristine, clean melody lines arrive over the still present static, but on this piece, Fainberg builds the track from a single, delayed, modulated melody to a building, progressively forward moving structure. As the guitar lines become more dominant, the static slowly drifts away, providing brief reprise from the hectic static. Like “NYCNY,” Fainberg does not leave this sense of calm for long as the distorted guitar and booming bass returns in an eruption of hissing sound. The next piece, “Beggar,” is driven by tremolo washed feedback immersing a found sample of a beggar asking for change as the shaking change cup rhythmically interacts and melds with the feedback. This short piece reflects the most poignant moment of emotional affect on the album, as cold sterility of the previous tracks seems to momentarily let its guard down and allow the listener an observation into the tangible, socio-economic realities of these voices arising from the static. The next track “Station” stands as a wall of static which neither builds nor lets up. From the piece’s introduction until its end, the guitar lines attack the dense static wall; while the least accessible piece, “Station” illustrates an aesthetic drenched in anger and violence. The album’s closer “Comedian” works similarly to “Beggar,”—a found recording of a comedian on the subway with overlays of static which shifts into a lonely accordion playing a removed and detached Eastern European melody.

Fainberg works in a manner reminiscent of the post-rock giants Godspeed You! Black Emperor (the creators of the modern soundscape/post-rock canon) and his combination of found material with slow burning movements stem straight out of their overarching aesthetic. Where he differs (an ultimately successful diversion) is in his use of noise within his pieces. While the majority of the minimalist and post-rock artists who have been critically hailed within the last decade work with clear, discernible movements lacking in density. Fainberg distances the listener from his pieces amidst the nearly constant walls of static and droning feedback, but the moments he includes illustrate a tenderness and humanism which proves troubling to the postmodern sensibilities. Amidst a society which is detached through a superfluity of media and “noise,” Fainberg uses these tropes to blatantly reference this removal and effectively close the gap between the listener and a true moment of empathy.