Eli!

Elina Bolshenkova (aka Eli!) is an activist, artist and musician from Russia who currently resides in Georgia. Her previous long player ‘Flood Management’ was released by the indefatigable Infant Tree label. It is a dangerous time to be an outspoken artist in Russia, so Elina is happy to keep to the shadows for now. The title for the album is taken from a novel of the same name by Soviet-Russian science fiction writer/brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky who were renowned for their fictional futuristic worlds.

Initially, Elina and visual artist Katya Kukol collaborated to deliver work for a ‘future themed’ exhibition in 2022. Their idea was to exhibit musical and visual pieces together within the gallery space without context or description; the listener/viewer compelled to immerse themselves in an unknown experience. ‘Waves’ is very much a reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to what lies ahead; an imagined future....

In Elina’s words “Katya drew pictures, A5 format, and I created soundscapes for them. The process was not linear, we exchanged drafts and edited them according to our emotional response to each other's work. It is basically a series of land-sound-scapes; some sort of artefacts of the imaginable future fallen to the earth. They suggest an immersive experience via both the images and the soundscapes. The seven sounding objects were placed all over the gallery without any conceptual texts explaining what it is about.”

With ‘Waves extinguish the wind. archive’ we have brought the audio and visual aspects together for a limited release. Where the two artists exchanged drafts, each responding to the next instalment of sight and sound. The sound is caustic and fragile; chaotic and composed; angry, hopeful, healing and distorted. With each of the seven audio pieces there is an accompanying artwork by Katya.