THE IDEA of a soundtrack to an imaginary film is something we here at Backseat Mafia love straight off the bat, right back to when we fell for Barry Adamson’s rather wonderful Moss Side Story all those years ago.
Injazero Records, the imprint overseen by London and Istanbul-based producer and journalist Siné Buyuka, which we’ve encountered in recent months when we took at the delicious Snowdrops album, is poised to release just such a hypothetical music on Friday week from the Ukrainian-born composer Mike Lazarev; a pocket soundtrack, a mini-album, Out Of Time, perfectly formed; from which today he’s releasing the curtain closer, “Finale”, as a single.
It’s culled from Mike’s first recordings for the label and you suspect fully, not the last; it’s a beautiful and economical essay in what’s possible with not-quite the full album form, each track absolutely affecting and of sonic integrity, opening the door on chronologically concerned short-form worlds, entirely complete in their own right.
Mike says of this film that we’re invited to screen behind our eyelids: “The protagonists are constantly fighting against the fleeting moments on this plane. But it is less about death than it is about living. And most of all, it is all about time.”
And isn’t that very subject, time, one of which we all have a weird appreciation right now? Frustrated in our viral purdah we have so much of it, but also feel keenly the bite of its passing in our confines.
As you’d imagine, “Finale” draws down the curtain, and plays close to A Winged Victory For The Sullen territory, particularly the deep, glacial burn of the drone figure which flows through, the mere mortal actions of horns and piano on its surface. If you’re a fan of the drone, this will thrill you.
Mike’s a man out of step with chronos maybe, but not with the muse. Watch out for our review of Out Of Time next Wednesday.
Mike Lazarev’s Out of Time will be released by Injazero Records digitally and on CD on February 26th; it’s available for pre-order over at the label’s Bandcamp page now.
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