TBA - Post-Soviet Electronica

Born (in January 1979) and raised in Tbilisi, Georgia, Natalie Beridze made her debut very early on as a visual artist. After her academic studies in her home city, she began a fervent career producing visual works, collaborating with the GosLab movement, a group of artists whose aim was to explore the relationship between music and image, between eye and ear. Her imaginative output was rewarded at the Oberhausen Film Festival.

Her passion for art, however, led her to "stray" into music: her first appearance as a musician came in 2002, with the release of one of the many hidden gems of a trend that was emerging at the time: the pop adaptation of the most cerebral and angular electronica. The band in question is Nikakoi, and the album is titled "Sestrichka". Natalie appears in the credits as co-composer of three tracks with a hazy, decaying feel, a glowing sublimation of the acid-electro unease found in landmark artists such as Pan Sonic.

Shortly afterwards came the inspiration to put together something of her own, jealously created within the walls of a city she loved as much as her own soul. Georgia Is Like Spiritual Tokyo, charming from its splendid title alone, marks a debut rare in its intensity, imagination and conceptual depth. Poised between refined electronic pop and glitch ripples, the record displays remarkably mature compositional skills. The brevity of the individual tracks fittingly sums up the sea of ideas crowding the head of an artist who had only just started out.

In the first five tracks we encounter as many different genres. While the opening "Boot" draws on the 8-bit music of vintage video games, "Wind" (in the version with Nikakoi) excels in formal glitch-pop perfection. There's also minimalist abstraction on "Tempo For Mama" and vocal experimentation on the nocturnal "Turtle", before closing with digital effusions and a drum machine with a minimal-techno flavour on "Train".

Faced with five pieces as practically perfect as the ones just mentioned, one would already be entitled to call it a day. Yet the consistency with which Natalie carries on towards the end is still striking. Skipping over the lovely reprise of the original version of "Wind", the album continues with the quirky voice/drone/synth blends of "Geo Dna" and closes with virtuosic, playful vocoder work ("Mute"), confirming an overflowing talent.

Uneven and disorienting, Georgia Is Like Spiritual Tokyo forces the listener through numerous shifts in gear, but offers an already remarkable wealth of ideas for a debut.

Her irrepressible urge to express herself, to give voice to years of silence, led her to release an immediate follow-up the same year.

The self-titled TBA, despite coming out almost simultaneously with its predecessor, shows from the very start a cohesion far more befitting a work of real substance. Already evident here are the strong influences Natalie refers to directly, from Björk to Stravinsky, by way of the eternal Kraftwerk, Prokofiev and Aphex Twin. The folk music of her homeland takes hold in a distorted, twisted form, leaving behind faint ethnic traces amid the electronic filaments of her compositions.

One can perceive, just barely audible, strong and inspired lyrics with a cosmopolitan, worldly character ("Mom Error", the aforementioned "Wrestler"); intricate digital architectures mow down years of established structures ("Z_kluchik", "Animacia", "Emin"); typically minimal-techno tricks follow one another ("Bios", "Iarmoka"); and there are ambient, noir-film-like touches ("Intr.-detec.sys").

TBA is the key hinge of a journey that has only just begun, at times merely sketched out, but always coherent and firmly tied to meticulous production craft. The fragmentary nature of the record (never breaking the three-minute mark across all 21 tracks) does nothing to dampen the listening experience. And the considerable bulk of the work (nearly 40 minutes) becomes easy to absorb, given the emotionally intense episodes that let you catch every single detail, nuance and sonic tremor.

The record reveals an artist already mature and imaginative, capable of crafting unconventional, exploratory solutions somewhere between ethereal electronic lyricism and pop.

Still in 2003, the short-circuiting “Z_Cluckhik” was included on the compilation “The Chill Of Colette”, a release of real quality and stylistic coherence. Among the other artists featured were names of the calibre of Odd Nosdam, Martin Rev and Daedelus.

After a year full of surprises and useful pointers for the future, Natalie's 2004 came down to a few targeted but highly significant appearances.

One of her tracks (“Trepa_N”) was included on the exclusive and celebrated “Clicks & Cuts” series on MillePlateaux, a compilation series that made history for an electronic ethos capable of spawning dozens of disciples. But the most important step of that year was the start of her collaboration with none other than that true authority of minimal techno who goes by the name of Thomas Brinkmann. Rumour has it the two were also romantically involved, but what matters most is the strength of a musical partnership that would lead to great results.

The track “Smattack” (featured on her debut) was included on Brinkmann's own remix compilation titled “Tour De Traum”. Though it might seem like a trifle for completists, comparing the pristine original with the remix's perfect overhaul reveals a truly admirable meeting of minds. Building relationships with important figures, perhaps ones who own a label (the venerable Max Ernst), can help achieve unexpected goals. Thus came the collaboration with the band Post Industrial Boys, formed precisely under Brinkmann's guidance, which won excellent acclaim with its self-titled album (naturally on Max Ernst). Natalie contributed to the lyrics and vocals on three tracks, set within a digital lattice of hisses and rhythmic contortions.

Destined to make waves, Tba achieved full recognition in 2005, when Annulé (the title refers to the expiry of residence visas for non-EU citizens in Europe) hit the shops.

Annulé is the result of meticulous stitching-together: a long, composite record (over 70 minutes) that demands patient commitment but rewards it with equal generosity, roaming through the varied languages of electronic music and ranging across subgenres without ever losing coherence. Without wishing to take anything away from the graceful and talented Georgian, it's reasonable to think that Brinkmann's role, here also as producer, weighed heavily in reaching that goal.

In light of these considerations, it should come as no surprise that the album opens with an electronic progressive instrumental, “Beba Plays”, in which the virtuosic repetition of the piano directly recalls the masters of classical minimalist avant-garde, only for us to witness, right after, a sudden shift into techno-ambient delivery with “I”, in which TBA displays a warm vocal sensuality: two moods so far apart, yet giving off strikingly similar scents. Sensuality, by contrast, is deliberately absent from the trip-hop of “B>lan”, which, by shunning the cliché of the four-on-the-floor kick and the alluring vocalise in favour of a whispered detachment, manages to bring out all its distinctiveness.

Another element that helps maintain stylistic cohesion is the measured way glitch is deployed, often present but never invasive: this is the case with the stark techno-trance of “Tuesd”, the twilight mood for technological hearts of “Okean K”, as well as the robotic hip-hop melodicism of the title track. Night recurs and pursues us throughout the journey: now dark, urban and claustrophobic, as in the breathless ride evoked by “Walk”, now cold and still as if observed from a darkened window (“Airoports”), now calm and melancholy (“Smashed”).

Amid watery tones in black and grey — and here the excursions into Kraftwerk-like territory on “Soshi”, whose keyboard seems like an emanation of “The Hall Of Mirrors”, are well worth noting — other spaces are embroidered in, suited to the avant-garde and to improvisation: thus, while on one hand we find in “Dread” a sort of reprise of “Beba Plays”, on the other an uncertain pulsing heart sketches out the underground, instrumental trance of “Zinavs”. The farewell thank-you comes courtesy of the melodic cascade of “Urs”, with Natalie whispering in our ear, in the faintest of voices, all the tenderness she is capable of.

The great acclaim earned by her third album brought Natalie a growing number of requests. Setting aside the numerous inclusions on various electronic music compilations, there were countless appearances as a session contributor, still in 2005. Again paired with Brinkmann, these included: a remix of a T. Raumschmiere track (“Blitzkrieg Pop”) that ended up on his single, and vocal contributions to Thomas's “Lucky Hands” (specifically on three songs, “Lucky Hands”, “Margins”, “C Black R”), delivered with a shadowy, twilight-toned register.

Another very interesting project is the first instalment of the compilation 4 Women No Cry (the second volume would follow in 2006): four women across 20 tracks: besides Natalie, there are Rosario Bléfari (Argentinian), Églantine Gouzy (French) and Catarina Pratter (Austrian).

Bléfari, amid flashes of pop guitar work and convulsive rhythms, delivers the first four songs with great personality. Natalie, meanwhile, offers five tracks sung in Georgian, in which the influence of her country's music comes through more strongly, always colourful and lively. More skeletal compositions, guitar phrasing stripped to the bone, electronic beats that are less funereal and more playful, willing to ham it up, as on “Hextension” and “Late”. Églantine Gouzy offers brilliant, intense folktronica, while Catarina Pratter brings abstract, postmodern melodies.

The following year, the collaborations continued, and the range of compositional solutions put forward by the artist from Tbilisi grew ever richer.

In February 2006, Natalie sings on two tracks (“Walzer”, “Mutes”) of “Easy”, credited to Wechsel Garland, confirming her considerable skills as a performer too. Behind this moniker lurks the multifaceted and histrionic Jörg Follert, already the author of records under several other names, including Wunder, Moter and Saucer.

The lovely “Smashed” (from Annulé) is included on the compilation “Folk But Not Folk!”, a fine collection of more or less acoustic electronic experiments. Meanwhile, Natalie teams up once again with Post Industrial Boys for their second record, “Trauma”.

The most significant development, however, is the change of pseudonym and the release of Stupid Rotation under the name TBA Empty. Written jointly with faithful collaborator Thomas Brinkmann, the record takes shape somewhere between the techno leanings of Tba's early work and the distinctly minimal contribution of the German composer.

From the opening “Tour” onward, the pair display a very full-bodied, opulent groove that never turns coarse or cumbersome, framed by synths and brimming with technoid rhythm. This is music substantially removed from Natalie's solo career, though it always surfaces in her live shows.

A sculptor of killer beats, Brinkmann makes his presence felt loudly and clearly: tracks like “Briday” and “Kit Landing”, for instance, recall the sound of his album “Rosa”. And the symbiosis with the former Tba member doesn't always feel natural: after all, if Natalie's solo records are “cosmopolitan” art, this music instead suits a particular kind of world, mindset and setting.

But despite the “heft” of certain tracks (averaging around 5 minutes), the liveliness and above all the shape-shifting nature of the two artists keep the album from sinking into anonymity. Natalie's voice, whenever it appears, lends crystalline light (“33 Pharell”, “Readers R Fools”, the title track) and dynamism. Electro-clash undertones in “Kit Landing” are as “delicate” as a sandpaper abrasion, while monothematic, heart-attack-inducing lashes in the more percussive “Infectious” ripple through the surrounding air.

The closing “Masa” and “Rocks” double down on the minimalism, ending up among the sharpest tracks of the bunch.

Either way, between genre quirks and towering peaks, the record deserves more than a positive verdict, on the path toward an ever more successful integration of the respective “worlds” of the Beridze-Brinkmann duo.

2007 sees the release of two works that once again shuffle the deck, showcasing a mind that rejects any trace of standardization, forever in search of recipes capable of ranging across contemporary classical music, glitch-pop and distinctly techno passages.

Under the name TBA comes the lengthy double album Size And Tears: Alice In Wonderland, a genuine musical epic inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice.

Just as the Disney film flows through shifts in pace, surprises and bursts of color, with a contagious pull in its swirling, disorienting nature — a true journey into the mind and dreams of a little girl — so too does Natalie Beridze's performance shine with embarrassing consistency across 48 compositions ranging between 4 and 5 minutes each. The length might seem excessive, but the sheer imagination on display banishes any risk of boredom: different genres, sudden shifts in rhythm and mood, some of the strangest ideas, and rivers of disorienting audio flow follow one another in succession.

The opening section (the first 7 tracks) centers on a series of piano experiments that recall certain strands of contemporary classical music, filtered and twisted through a hallucinated approach. This is far removed from some of the pianistic modern classical efforts so fashionable in recent years; there's something more here (or less, depending on your point of view), given that electronics are practically absent. Frenzied scales (“Exercise (Wanna Leave)”), bold notes (“Teacher”) and a striking display of technical ability add up to an eccentricity of rare sweetness and sharpness. The point of no return in this introductory section is the splendid “Itaka Farewell March”, a crazed piano score subjected to a dark, shadowy drum-machine beat, almost as if the performer's own heartbeat had been amplified to disproportionate levels.

Once this first stretch comes to a close, the record moves into its more horror-tinged section, driven by decidedly dark electronic passages, at times very close to examples of dark-ambient from the Cold Meat Industry cauldron. In “BRIDGE/Post Itaka, Waiting For Yulaya” we're confronted with whispers, digital puffs, strange metallic creaks, ambient patterns straight out of a top-tier horror film. The shift in overall tone is evident in the following “Song Of Yulaya (U Lier)”: although the piano remains ever-present, its resonance chamber is exaggeratedly long, generating a deliciously tomb-like echo effect; the vocals, moreover, moving across overlapping and crisscrossing layers of performance, give way to a flow of words perfectly embedded within the crevices of the composition.

From “March In Snow”, a truly “icy” pilgrimage, to the funereal “Meta Winter In Her Eyes” (it almost sounds like listening to Dernière Volonté), passing through the techno-pop tinged with dark omens of “Flag Conv. In Her Eye”. Also worth noting is another possible single, the sprightly “Her Jewels”, with vocals that are as flawless and flexible as ever against the musical backdrop.

The first disc comes to a close with a few somewhat different moments, such as the lounge-pop of “Over The Wrist – ForeTelling In The Bar” or the bewitching “BRIDGE – Towards Herby”.

The title track opens the second CD, which, all things considered, turns out less cohesive, veering towards gentler melodies and a decidedly more accessible feel in its calm, measured pace at times, while splitting into impossible rhythms at others. The choice to shuffle the deck so drastically was a risky one; the hefty runtime of the overall work already counts against its listenability, and this further choice has made the whole thing considerably harder to follow.

The two CDs are two fistfuls of songs kept in watertight compartments, almost like two different works, to be listened to at different times. TBA puts its admirers to the test, subjecting them to a demanding, intricate listen that's thoroughly fascinating but just as tortuous: those who appreciated the synthesizing qualities of Annulé may well end up disappointed. That said, this is the only real downside of the work; if we can grant ourselves a couple of hours, we'll enjoy a rich array of aural emotions, with songs that are never banal or insipid.

Worth framing are the slowed-down, pathos-laden pop of "Topeka Exists", the swirling motifs of "Bea, Plaster", the noisier episodes (perfectly interspersed with brief pseudo-ambient pauses) and wonderfully goofy nuggets of instrumental glitch-pop à la Suck und Blumm. There are attempts at terror-shrouded, primordial trip-hop ("Silent Flow (Ag. Cooper)", think of Antenne?) and crossbreeds of glitch and techno ("She Would Run"). Rounding things off, there's even a dancefloor number, "Scull Disco Vs Bermuda".

A monumental work, then, that offers the listener only one option: dive in and let yourself be completely submerged. Beridze herself would later describe it as the work that most faithfully represents her.

A few months later, a work under the name Tusia Beridze surfaces, The Other, which changes course once again.

It confirms Natalie's determination to develop parallel ideas, concepts and projects that are different from, even in conflict with, one another. Where the Alice kolossal was long-winded and fragmentary, The Other is cohesive, built on lengthy compositions, with "only" 13 tracks. The one thing the two works have in common is the ever-present catacomb-like atmosphere, comparable to techno-industrial works twisted towards dark tropes, like a circus set in the middle of a graveyard. Here that mood takes shape even more sharply and decisively.

While "Afta Me In Soft Placet" reduces techno matter to small pulsing elements, the gorgeous "Beam Plaster" weaves a male voice together with lively inlays and patterns. Marcus Schmickler, with his world-weary crooner vocals, delivers the finishing touch, gifting some exhilarating moments. "Into The Lost Moments" is techno-pop worthy of applause, moving between pauses and enchanted lyricism, "Kid" ranges through cosmic sounds with frothy synths and Martian beats, while "Stay On Watch" complicates matters further, tangling up the pieces of the mosaic to thoroughly unsettling effect.

Great variety continues throughout the rest of the tracklist. "Weeksends" raises the stakes and the beat count: shards of hardcore-beat collide with finely engineered, modified piano virtuosity.

The more "pop" surges, however, often arrive unexpectedly, and despite the constant, undying sense of distortion running through the music, the songs instil a feeling of openness, of hope: "Waters From Ur Eyes" is a clear example of this.

As the title suggests, "Break" slows the overall pace right down, giving us a moment to unplug, and works as an excellent dividing line between the first and second halves of the record. "Love U" isn't especially anxiety-inducing either, hinting at certain amusing interactions between piano scales and assorted stretched-out digital textures. "Hero", by contrast, experiments with yet another approach, trying to juxtapose strange, tangible concretisms (metallic objects, presumably) with digital mush of avant-garde extraction.

Episodes of glitch-pop fuelled by subterranean intuitions ("Somewhere There's A Father", "X.It Snow", "Blue Shadows") form a strongly introverted closing trio, bound together with great personality, with small touches of skilful melody casting a discreetly graceful spell.

An excellent record, in the end, one that confirms the precious talent of an artist who, moreover, still hints at untapped potential yet to come.

In 2008, worth mentioning is Natalie's involvement in Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Chain Music" project, which also featured figures of the calibre of Fennesz, Agf, Pan Sonic and Thomas Brinkmann.

Confirmation of this still very young artist's stature comes with her new live performances, out-of-the-ordinary shows that have also brought her to Italy.

Every two years, the Georgian artist releases a pair of records that lean into certain pop tendencies already hinted at in the past. "Pending" settles into certain techno-pop territory she explored effectively early in her career, while "Forget'fulness" lands with a resounding thud in fairly disarming electro-pop ordinariness. If the former retains a dignity owed to the artist's sheer class, the latter is a muddled jumble of not particularly incisive singles. On "Pending" we find rhythmic ideas worthy of her dance soul (the industrial collusions of "Everything Pushes Me Further Away", the lively synths on "Legoteck"), combined with a few brushstrokes typical of her varied style (the piano writing of "Iced Turns End", the hazy pop of "Isole"). However, with as many as thirteen tracks, this good material isn't enough to paper over gaps in inspiration that are at times genuinely wearying. Two years later, with "Forget'fulness", this path of indecision would be pursued further, with even worse results.

Undecided whether to push toward more pronounced experimentation or dissolve her pop leanings into a more accessible formula, the Georgian artist fails to convince with a record that leaves one perplexed. Although there's no shortage of interesting ideas scattered throughout a not inconsiderable eighty-minute runtime, "Forget'fulness" conveys a genuinely worrying sense of incompleteness. If the brilliantly chaotic melting-pot effect of her best moments was once well supported by a wealth of illuminating ideas, what's missing in the last two albums is stylistic variety. A string of more or less rhythmic electro-pop singles, neither good nor bad, might not look out of place on a debut album, but certainly not on a record by an artist capable of upending the electronic market with her masterpiece "Annulé".

TBA urgently needs to reassess her goals: the potential to become an artist of international standing is there, and she proved it with her early work. Her young age works in her favor, but in her next releases we expect something more than run-of-the-mill electro-pop business as usual.

Contributions by Marco Bercella ("Annulé")

N.B. Unless otherwise specified, all the appearances cited include a number of monikers used by the artist in various instances, including Tusia Beridze and others such as Beridze, Tusha and Tusia. On discogs.com you can consult her personal page, which lists in detail all the appearances/collaborations mentioned here, plus others omitted here.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google