MAX ANANYEV - Seasons

Discovering music from countries far removed from the bubble of Western music is a difficult but deeply rewarding endeavor. Looking for it in Russia, another world unto itself, is an even more complex task, but one that still allows us to uncover musicians who deserve far wider recognition. Such is the case of Max Ananyev, a guitarist from Saint Petersburg who, with "Seasons", a 2025 album, builds a personal ambient landscape through acoustic guitar.

Max Ananyev is probably one of the most interesting discoveries to be made within contemporary Russian music. His minimal acoustic guitar, his music built from a handful of essential elements, conjures intimate soundscapes “suited to minds capable of dreaming” (as he himself puts it in an interview). Much like John Fahey did in another time and another world.

Each track on "Seasons" evokes a different natural setting, divided across the four seasons. Ananyev has a gift for creating worlds where time seems to stand still, as if every piece placed us before a painting capturing a single unrepeatable, eternal moment. From the icy winter of "White Frost", which brings out the beauty of a landscape in stasis, poised to burst into life, to the rebirth of "The Water Awakening", through to the delicate melodies of "Photosynthesis" and the summer of "Golden Time", each track is a piece of a larger picture, narrating, season after season, the changes taking place in the Russian forests that have shaped Max Ananyev's entire career.

The circle closes with “Snow Magic”, a new winter that reopens the eternal cycle of existence.

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12/01/2026