RedazioneClass, musical taste and great quality: this is how we can summarize “Upper Stream“, the latest work by the American producer AUTiSM.
“It’s a very relaxed downtempo track, the most “friendly” on the album – the producer AUTiSM told us about his latest work -. It is a cross between trip-hop and IDM, lo-fi, and something else. On it’s own it sounds a bit more like a simple single instrumental, but it opens up more in the album, where the whole sonic palette of the neighbouring tracks suggest that a lot of sounds aren’t necessarily what they seem at first”.
AUTiSM, as a musical project, originates in the mid-nineties, in an era when electronic music, as a global phenomenon, was just emerging – at least in Eastern Europe, where AUTiSM operated at that time.
Their first releases were cassettes with inkjet-printed inlays, sold at local record kiosks, far from any famous electronic strongholds. Taking all the best that the electronic scene of London, Berlin and some American cities provided, AUTiSM was able to create its own unique sound that might seem global in the general context, but still always stayed a thing-in-itself — music that remained very emotional on any stylistic background, be it IDM, acid jazz or daring minimalistic experiments.
Several DIY releases later, after moving across countries and continents, the band still do not bother to do any promotion at all. The founding member and the driving force behind the project, Vadim Militsin, is focused solely on music: “I dig electronic sound. I just love doing it. It’s more exiting than playing the most modern video games, even in VR.”
Eventually, in the 2000‘s, Vadim settled in New York. He played several gigs, got frustrated of the outcome and decided to write and record music at home — for his own pleasure. New albums were available online, but never attracted public attention due to lack of publicity.
Vadim says about himself that he is more a DJ of loops and samples than a musician.
“An architect builds a house of bricks. He does not have to create his own authentic bricks to build a beautiful house. I create an album from various sound sources that match the mood of the album. Some of them were not created by me, I discovered them. They just suddenly fell right into place.”
AUTiSM was never an attempt to prove anything, to make a breakthrough, to gain fame and, eventually, to earn some money. This is an ongoing endeavor to catch the right mood, explore the surrounding atmosphere, immerse in it and capture this moment in the form of sound waves. The result is rich, picturesque music, full of big and small revelations, with unexpected turns, sudden changes in mood and speed.
Those who know the project love their work and eagerly wait for any new material. Those who do not know — now, it’s their time.
