Ilya E. Monosov - Poems and sounds suspended in silence

Research and improvisation, melody and pure sound, tenderness and intensity, notes and silences. The music of Russian-born American singer-songwriter Ilya E. Monosov is a jumble of contradictions that bow before the romanticism of his lyrics. His emotional involvement with the culture and history of his homeland, his passionate curiosity toward every form of art, and his instinctive, all-consuming way of experiencing feelings — love above all — are all reflected in the atmospheres of Monosov's latest work, “Seven Lucky Plays, Or How To Fix Songs For A Broken Heart”. We spoke with Ilya, a man who is at times introverted, yet at the same time extremely kind and forthcoming, about all of this.

Looking through your biography, one notices an all-round artistic involvement: music, poetry, graphic arts, which inevitably tend to influence one another, often overlapping. In particular, “Seven Lucky Plays…” is based on poems and stories you wrote between 1996 and 2007. Can you tell us about the beginnings of your literary path?

I spent the first ten years of my life in Soviet Russia. As a child, I wanted to write. My family encouraged learning and, to some extent, dissent. Most families try to stamp out the rebellious nature of children. My family, for better or worse, did the opposite. On top of that, my relatives loved listening to Russian bardy — especially Alexander Galich and Vysotsky. I think all these factors led me to dabble in writing from a very young age. I started taking it more seriously as a teenager.

Among the scarce information available online, one can indeed come across a mention of your “early exposure to the dissident Russian culture of the late Soviet period.” Also, on your Myspace, among the people who influenced your music, you mention Aleksander Galich, who is considered one of the fathers of “bard poetry,” the Russian singer-songwriter tradition born in the 1960s, centered on minimal arrangements and often politically engaged lyrics. How do you relate to “bard poetry”?

Well, politics is always a mess. Galich was interested in large-scale politics — the politics of society. And he did it in a unique, seemingly direct way. I've always thought of some of his songs as great love songs, even when they carried some political intent. Galich loved his homeland deeply. My songs are political too, but I'm more interested in small-scale politics (love and relationships between people), which is often even more intricate than social politics. In my songs I feel the urge to address exactly that kind of chaos.

Speaking of Russia, what bond do you have with your homeland? Do you go back often?

What ties me to Russia are my ancestors and my grandfather, who died in Moscow just as I was leaving Russia in 1988. And memories. I also have a close relationship with the spirit of dissident culture. My grandfather spent nearly a decade in a political prison, and I feel particularly connected to the reasons why he did. I'm very fond of the Russian people, but at the same time I have great contempt for their current government, which behaves in a shameful way. I hope the country grows to understand that the kind of “order” they're used to is not the kind of “order” from which people can truly benefit. They gave up too easily during the transitional period that led to “democracy” and brought Putin to power. In fact, I'm actively seeking help to publish my grandfather's autobiography, and that's one of my main goals for the coming years. I believe it's historically important, especially now, to understand why and how Russia became what it is.

Listening to your music, at times one almost gets the feeling that the guitar comes alive with feelings of its own, especially when it strains to the breaking point during the most anguished moments of the solos. Could one assume that this way of playing represents a kind of projection of your soul?

I don't know. I have to force myself to compose, because when I play I really like to improvise a lot. While working on songs, I try to let the meaning of the lyrics interact with the music. Right now I'm working on a second record, which will have more moments of improvisation. It's hard to find a good compromise.

In your songs you give a lot of space to moments of “suspension,” which precede more or less tormented instrumental passages. What value do you give to silences when you compose?

Silence is important. It's important for theatre, important for truly listening to something, and important for thinking. Pop music in general doesn't have many moments of “silence.” I think the repetition and minimalism of early blues definitely contain silences and slow progressions, which certainly can't be said of a good deal of rock music…and that's a real shame.

Regarding your debut album “Vinyl Document #1,” built mainly around sounds derived from broken or damaged machinery, you say: “I think music can be found in practically any object, just as it could be said that everything has its own musical quality.” Your sonic research has led you, and still leads you, to a rather refined form of experimentation, very evident both in the arrangements and in the atmospheres that characterize your songs. What is, if there is one, the preferred path that leads you to discover new territories (in terms of instruments, styles, genres…) to explore?

Improvisation and daydreaming…that actually ties in with the previous question. If you listen to music all the time, I think it's genuinely hard to think about it. I find that a combination of thinking and simply exploring something without a concrete plan is a good way to work with sound. For “Seven Lucky Plays…” I wrote the lyrics first. Then I simply experimented until I was satisfied with the sound of the guitar.

From your more experimental past work, you've moved toward conceiving and creating a more singer-songwriter-oriented album. Was this a deliberate stylistic choice, an attempt to bring your work closer to as many people as possible, or was it a spontaneous, instinctive inspiration?

I think it's a natural progression for me. I started out experimenting with pure sound, and I'll keep doing that. But I also wanted a way to share my lyrics and poems with people. I believe songwriting is a very natural way to achieve that.

“Seven Lucky Plays…” is a record that sounds classic and original at the same time. Was that a result you were consciously going for in the studio, or is it simply the fruit of your earlier experiments?

I have to thank – and blame – my friend Greg Weeks, who recorded the album. His analog studio helped give the record that warm, “classic” feel. Greg also handled the string arrangements, which really bring out the quality you're referring to as “classic.”

This album has been described as a private celebration of human experience. To what extent, and in what way, do you think the personal and the universal can coexist within a song?

Love songs have magical powers. Love is a kind of madness. It's something that transcends logic. One of the songs on “Seven Lucky Plays…” is about my grandfather, but most people think it's about a woman. I won't tell you which song it is, but trust me on this: it's true.

The vocal arrangements on this album were recorded at Hexham Head in Philadelphia, a studio that's also hosted artists like Marissa Nadler, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Espers, Meg Baird, and Picastro. The recordings were made by Greg Weeks (Espers). How did that collaboration come about? Had you worked with a producer before? How was the experience?

Well, actually I sang and personally arranged all the vocal parts on my record myself. Greg Weeks recorded the album and arranged the strings. He's a wonderful person and a great musician. I'll definitely make another record with him soon, hopefully again for Language Of Stone. Besides Greg, I also work with Preston Swirnoff on the project The Shining Path. Preston is a producer who does very interesting experimental work and produces a lot of music across different genres. I started collaborating with him back in 2001 on the Monosov / Swirnoff project – our improvisation duo.

You come across as something of an “outsider,” and yet on this album you collaborate, besides Greg Weeks, with other fairly well-known musicians from the indie folk scene. Do you feel part of that scene in any way? And are there any bands or musicians you particularly admire?

I don't feel part of any scene. There are a lot of musicians influenced by “folk” music who are simply great: Fern Knight, Josephine Foster, Greg Weeks. My friends Mountain Home are making some interesting recordings of improvisation sessions. I'm also very interested in Japanese folk music by Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami. I like some of the hip hop scene too, which I consider to be America's true popular music. Lately I've been listening to Black Milk and Guilty Simpson. In recent times folk music has become the current American experimental culture – people from every small town coming together to make certain sounds their own. As Abner Jay said, “Folk music is high-class music played by a large number of low-class people.”

In “I'll Live My Life Without Pain” you sing: “Darling, stop, do not cry/ I’m telling you these stories just to explain why/ I’ve got to do my doing in the rain/ I can not stay, I’ll live my life with out pain/ I’ve chosen to live my life with out pain.” Do you believe that living without suffering means giving up everything, love above all? And is it worth making such painful sacrifices just to avoid suffering?

No, it's not worth it. For me that's what that song is about. It describes, and brings back to mind, several dark moments in my life and in the lives of people close to me. I think those difficult moments could have been avoided if certain decisions had taken other people's feelings into account, instead of chasing hedonistic, self-destructive goals… Suffering is, in fact, a good thing.

In the lyrics of “Happy Song” you say you'd never written a happy song before that moment. And yet, even in this particular track, the deeply melancholic atmospheres that run through the whole album still prevail, clashing with the “positivity” of the lyrics: in this specific case it almost feels like witnessing a remarkable embodiment of the theory of opposites, which inevitably attract. How much weight do contrasts carry in your music?

Actually, a lot of the songs I write carry that kind of contrast. I think “Happy Song” is just the most obvious example. I believe that to write a love song you first and foremost have to be honest – and that creates contrast and inconsistency.

Is there any artist who has particularly influenced you, both in terms of lyric writing and musical composition?

It's hard to pick just one. Some writers and musicians that come to mind right now are Galich, Oe, Mishima, Mann, Vysotsky, Cohen, some of Nick Cave, Dostoevsky. But there are many others: Fluxus artists (the neo-Dadaist movement of the '60s, ed.) like Joe Jones and Takehisa Kosugi, and of course some composers like La Monte Young, Morton Feldman, Webern… there would be too many to list.

On the cover of your latest album you're portrayed in a sorrowful pose, almost like a Christ on the cross. Was that an intentional suggestion? What were you trying to communicate?

Actually, I didn't think of it as a suffering pose. My friend Courtney took that photo. I think I chose it because it gives whoever looks at the cover the feeling of being very close to me – maybe close enough to make them uncomfortable. Ah, there you go! It fits the style of the songs and the lyrics.

In the beautiful booklet that comes with your latest work, the year of composition is listed alongside the lyrics. Is it pure coincidence that only the last two songs, by far the least despairing, were written in 2007? Could it perhaps reflect a less pessimistic outlook on life?

It's true that the last two years have been happier. First of all, I met a wonderful woman with whom I've spent these past two years. Secondly, a lot of my personal goals have come true. That said, I don't think I've ever been entirely pessimistic.

Have you done or are you planning a promotional tour for this record? Generally speaking, when you play live, how do you deal with reproducing the sound of your songs? What's your relationship with live performance like?

I'm planning a tour for this summer. I usually perform my songs the way I feel like doing it in that specific moment. Sometimes a high level of improvisation can lead to flaws in the performance, but I think that when it works, improvising is better than playing the same stuff every night. Honestly, I refuse to go on tour like a “proper” musician and play every song the same way each time: I think that's pretty horrendous.

Do you see yourself going back toward more experimental territory in the future, or will you keep putting out albums of “songs”?

I'm working on a second album of songs. It'll be more “flexible” and more improvised in some passages, but I hope to stick to the “song” format most of the time. I've also finished writing a book, and getting it published is one of my main priorities right now. The book contains poems, short stories, and a graphic story for children.

For our last question we picked a quote from the famous Russian theatre theorist Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski: “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.”

Yes, I agree. I couldn't have put it better myself.

(31/10/2008)

(photo by Marietta Davis)

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