Atonal Electronic Chamber Music for Cats
Image Credit: Xenia Pestova Bennett / Oli Barrett
Limited Edition Signed Cassette / Download
Xenia is delighted to launch the exquisite deluxe edition of “Atonal Electronic Chamber Music for Cats”. Originally released as a digital EP on TakuRoku, the extended album-length edition includes three original bonus tracks and exclusive remixes by Rrose and The Transcendence Orchestra, available as digital download or limited-edition fire engine red cassette.
Xenia says: “The music on this record appeared during the first UK lockdown of 2020. As a classically trained pianist, I derive a lot of pleasure from tactile contact with the keyboard. I missed this terribly, as well as contact with the audience. I tried to keep playing the piano, but soon lost interest, as everything felt so one-sided. I wanted to continue exploring keyboard instruments that were new for me. The apocalyptic sense of emptiness and uncertainty of the time reminded me of a particularly restless period in my late teens and early twenties: the frustration of suburbia, longing to escape, searching for expression through whatever limited means were available – taking photographs, listening to music.
Looking back through photographic snapshots taken by my much younger self transported me to the sounds and feelings of the late 1990s and early 2000s. With the help of my partner and two friends, I managed to get my fingers onto three vintage synths dating from around the same time. I purposefully limited myself to only what I could play, timing things intuitively as I multitracked, as in live chamber music, without synching or quantising. The result has a fragile and somehow human unevenness and vulnerability, like a worn, wobbly cassette. A mad semi-feral fluffball of a cat that appeared in my life in 2000 and featured in my photographs and collective mythology of my friends ended up on the cover. Thus, “Atonal Electronic Chamber Music for Cats” was born, a bittersweet, nostalgic nightmare.”
This album is a Bandcamp Exclusive. Purchase your copy directly from https://pomeraniansnout.bandcamp.com/
Album Reviews
“Xenia Pestova Bennett ran with the invitation to try something new. Her playful pieces on Yamaha CS1X, Korg MonoSynth 2000, MicroKorg Synth Vocoder are intentionally nostalgic. She reaches for the escapism of vintage synth albums: a pinch of Edgar Froese, a splash of David Borden. Many of us sank back into past listening patterns during the pandemic, returning to albums from our teens and 20s in attempts to find a sense of safety, security and familiarity in sound. As such, I found this album a particularly thoughtful response to the situation: a way of finding pleasure in music while still acknowledging the present.”
“Since we’re imagining that home recordings are glimpses into a musician’s home life, then Xenia Pestova Bennett‘s Atonal Electronic Chamber Music For Cats seems to fit right in here. Perhaps her house really is littered with superannuated electronic detritus; in any case, she’s made a succinct collection of pieces using old keyboards that have just reached that awkward age of sufficient cheesiness. (She kindly specifies for synth nerds exactly what she’s working with: Yamaha CS1X, Korg MonoSynth 2000, MicroKorg Synth Vocoder.) It’s always a kick to hear an album that’s as good as the title. Each piece sounds like a groovy bit of background music from an episode of Tomorrow’s World that goes just a leetle too far. It’s ridiculous fun, precisely because each pastiche is so well made, with affectionate care. Expect to see a massively overpriced vinyl edition for a future Record Store Day.”