Photo by Olya Runyova
“Long ago, when I was about 19 years old, I was pondering about pseudonym for myself. I had thought about something that could make people ‘stumble’ and accidentally remembered the phrase from Pyotr Yershov’s fairytale ‘The Little Humpbacked Horse’ (‘Konyok-Gorbunok’) about ‘Marvel Fish-Whale’. As we were told in school at biology lessons, a whale is a mammal but not fish — so he can’t have any type of scale by definition. I decided to leave my whale with the scale because exactly such a kind of pseudonym can make people ‘stumbling’ and saying: ‘Nothing of the sort! A whale can’t have scale because he’s not a fish!’. And I would answer to this: ‘But my whale can have it!’.
MS-DOS tracker which I used for making music at the very beginning wasn’t able to support Cyrillic symbols — so I translated my pseudonym into English and was astonished: it looks and sounds like a wave: ‘scaly whale’, ‘~~’.”
Pavel’s desire to be oriented on live performances has come into being when he bought used synthesizer ‘Polyvox’ via a free-private-advertisement newspaper and became stronger with a buying of a groove box. Sound control without intermediation of keyboard and computer mouse turned to be fantastic experience which have shaped destiny of Scaly Whale as a music project.
“Live actions allow me to get feedback immediately and to see right away: yes, my music has the influence, it makes people more joyful and happy. The best of possible conditions is when you — in a sweat, just have done your best on a stage — come out on a dancefloor and be saluted by those who enjoy your tunes, appreciates your work and thanks you for a great concert. I suppose, that is my reason to continue playing music.”
Listen to some music by Scaly Whale:
Listen more: albums
Dún Laoghaire Grooves
Abstract rhythms and melancholic melodies which are subjectively connected to a certain real-world place.
Ghettornado
A story about how losing a fight can help find missing inspiration. Written, told and scored by Scaly Whale.
One Man Show
Sharp music, inspired by 20th century raves, urban outlying areas, board games and hydraulic systems.
Igra
A collection of situations and states that offer us to remember some feelings from our childhood, when playing was the main type of activity.
Listen even more: recorded live
Live at MTA Novgorod
Joyful music performed and recorded one warm spring at a homelike cultural center in a pleasant town.
There are also collaborations and compilations
An Exercise in Dissection
A thought experiment resulted in the conceptual unity of two tracks which activate different neural connections.
Reverse Yellowheadding
The joy of bending originals into something new and different — captured as music recordings of various dispositions and attitudes.
Indifferent Listening
A conceptual collective album which reflects on contemporary habits of music perceiving and winks at its own predecessors.
Ideas for Pop Producers to Steal
Our favorite type of music is the thought-provoking one. We are not saying this is relevant here, but… Oh, wait. It looks like we are.
Halfway Bitter
A collective effort in rethinking the music by Zimmer-G resulting in engaging selection of music tracks.
Music for Eukaryotes
A compilation that both you and your cat are able to enjoy. Along with a dog. And also a cactus. Perceive it from your very core!
The Discreet Charm of Consumerism
The result of using an inspirational source that is seemingly uninspiring — a supermarket and related things.
Marginal Stuff for Genuine Dorks
A selection of tunes released under the title of an imaginary world, in which 56 Stuff uses common business marketing tools.
Foldout
A compound music composition made by 18 artists via the method Cadavre exquis de la musique.
Uncategorized
A variegated compilation made with utter contempt for all the kinds of categorization. The style is whatever, the music is good.
Not So Easy. Less Quiet.
A compilation-antonym to our previously released “Easy. Slow. Quiet”. The title says it all: this time the music is definetely not so calming.
Easy. Slow. Quiet.
An asymmetrical response to the bustle and noise of everyday life, lousy weather and bad moods.
7×8. 56 Stuff Remixes Itself
A convenient opportunity to compare a number of original tracks with their remixed versions which some artists made for each other.
And there is also something to watch:
Playing Live in Sarafan
We have that filmed: Scaly Whale playing live in a ridiculously awesome outfit!