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This is Olga Arefieva's official site www.ark.ru.
Arefieva. DetailsInterview to Konstantin Yelgeshin. March 2000Not so long ago there was released a new album of Olga Arefieva and her fellow ARK-men "Reggae of the Left Legg". It became a felicitous sequel of the still popular reggae program "Batakakumba" of five year's prescription. Due to reggae Arefieva's name became well known. Last year Arefieva released three excellent discs: a double-disc live concert "Direction From", and a 1997 concert in CHA released in the series "The Zoo of Russian Rock" called "Scherzo-Girl", but they are not as conceptual as the studio albums and are just a fixation of that state that possessed THE ARK at the moment of the recording. These discs are different, but they are united by one thing: even the latest one contains the songs, which were written many years ago. Arefieva was pathologically unsuccessful with recordings. The story with the "Batakakumba" album for long killed her desire to deal with elite firms like "Rise-LISS". Finished programs accumulated, were performed and were recorded only in the memory of the artists. Arefieva's enthusiastic admirers had no choice but go to her concerts that were few in number but always very memorable.ARK's break-through in album releasing is connected with Olga's associate who helped her to pull out the accumulated baggage. The devotee of the Russian rock music Oleg Kovriga who goes unnoticed by the Moscow "Bohemia" circles up to now manages to release albums of underground performers like Umka or Swin, at times being a real savior for dying recordings and dying musicians. Thanks to Kovriga, after "Batakakumba" THE ARK has already released five CDs. Arefieva if unique: strong beautiful voice, melodic, easy to remember songs, lyrics that leave no doubt that their author loves and understands real poetry. Her reggae is the example of the most balanced compliance of the form and content. Against a listless background of other writers, everything that Arefieva does is always stylish, beautiful, and professional. And how she combines reggae with Russian tunes (take for example "The Magic of Numbers") is just an aerobatics. Unfortunately, Arefieva's talent is still unvalued. To correct this, we would advise that, for instance, "Nashe Radio" station compare their "star" Zemfira with Arefieva: by all constituents - level, creativity, and energy - Olga doesn't yield to her. It's the same folk origins, the same Urals manner. Arefieva has several hundreds of songs, many of which are still waiting for their proper moment. And several projects that will be interesting to fans. About the music of the individual navigation, about the people who help her to make sail, Olga tells to Konstantin Yelgeshin who boarded THE ARK. - I was at the last concert and listened to the last album. It seemed to me that many songs - "The Angel of Death", for example - are more apt for "Batakakumba" and not for the today's "Reggae of the Left Legg". You are observant. It was recorded four years ago, virtually immediately after "Batakakumba". It is actually a sequel. The songs of the same period, with the same team, at the same recording studio, with a similar state of mind. But we succeeded in finishing "Batakakumba", as for the second album - the work stopped. The band had played live in the studio and I'd sung. As a rule, the only things left after such preliminary recording are voice and drums, the rest has to be recorded again. It was completed just recently. - And still "Reggae of the Left Legg" has some songs that are directly referring to "Batakakumba". You took as an example "The Angel of Death" - and it is the most transparent in terms of arrangement, very typical for "Batakakumba". There's nothing unnecessary there: voice, bass, drums, and rhythm guitar. And our feature - those "batakakumbas", back vocal by Seva (Vsevolod Korolyuk) and Misha (Mikhail Trofimenko). It has a lot of space, air, just as I like it. And in the "Reggae of the Left Legg" we added sounds - guitars, piano. We don't have a pianist, but everybody plays a little bit of different instruments. - On "Batakakumba" was it Stalker who played the guitar? He was very shortly and never became a member of the team. On "Batakakumba" he played solo on the stopless bass in one song. - So it turns out that only Misha is your permanent guitarist. It's an awful trouble with guitarists in THE ARK. (Laughs) For a long time already we have a regular team, but guitarists have never stayed long and very often caused us a joyous life. We took someone, taught him, produced a program - and all was in vain. And Misha was there from the very founding of the REGGAE-ARK. He first appeared as a bass player, but then mastered guitar, mandolin, flute, piano, he likes national string instruments. When we got completely tired from the replacement of guitarists, everybody was struck by an idea, maybe crazy, maybe genial. We decided to trade instruments: percussion player Boris Markov became a drummer. Drummer Seva became a bass player: he is a very talented musician and can do lots of things. Began this affair with buying bass, with a very long period of mastering the instrument, the program - it was very time and effort consuming. And Misha became a guitarist. As a result, we managed to gripe the band to the minimum. Besides, we started to make a parallel acoustic program - with Misha playing the mandolin - the group was shaken with fever for about two years. Only now we are able to more or less breathe with relief - the major bulk of songs is already sorted out. We continued to perform, and familiarization occurred at the same time. Our audience is strict, but at the same time forgiving. Not everything went smooth, but we tried to make up for our slips with something else - novelty, drive. - As far as I know, right now you have four full-fledged programs... Yes. But it's not that simple. Every new man or every new situation applies to all programs: for at the same time we perform many songs. It takes time for a person to master all the songs... You know how it is in a church choir? A newcomer will sing for the whole year, and only then you can say that he knows all the parts - there are a lot of holidays there, different services. Until you go through everything, you are not ready. We have very different programs. We try not to repeat ourselves, leave out long periods of time. And for every concert we have to prepare from the very beginning. - Let's list your programs. So, there is pure acoustics... It is acoustics with the band where Misha plays the mandolin. And the second one - the duet with Mila Kikina. Sometimes Mila and I just sang accompanying ourselves with the guitar. Then we attached THE ARK to it. Now Mila knows the parts, but still has to master the violin parts. It moves on slowly, but it is necessary for us to do it. In February I'm going to St.Pete to arrange a duet with Petya Akimov. There are also electric and reggae programs. - So you actually separate them. I personally don't see the difference. In fact, I mix them during the concerts, but in my head they lay separately. And there is also a program of other people's songs; Umka's, Yanka's, Silya's, Oldy's, Lyonya Fyoforov's, Mitya Kantor's, Nastya's, Inna Zhelannaya's, Lena Frolova's. Sometimes I sing folk songs - you could almost make up a program of those only. - I would say that "The Lady Bug" for THE ARK is an experiment of the first water. The only experiment there is in the sound. In the skilful, purely professional sound. But the stage performance is not that avant-garde. I had little to do with the sound - it was made at the stage of reduction. I wanted this album to be unusual in phonation. What you plan in the beginning very often doesn't resemble the result. It's the whole team working, and those who compile it also have their own view. Large part here belongs to the facilities, professional equipment. But it turned out how it turned out. In the "Bug" not the finest part played the reduction on the computer. As it turned out, it possesses the ability to kill the drive. Now I don't trust computers and will try not to work with them in the future. It's worth noting that the tendency in the world is returning from the digital recording to the analogous one, from the multichannel to the live. Valve amplifiers and all that stuff are valued again. And the most huge, worth-while recordings are made, strange as it may sound, in the old-fashioned mode: a band sits in the studio and plays live in the air - and all this is recorded on just one microphone! Here you have to understand the difference between the amateurism and the highest professionalism. The place where to put this single microphone is calculated by the most advanced experts on the acoustics, on the formation of sound. The cello, for example, has to be recorded on two microphones: the sound has an undulatory nature, and wave has its cyclic recurrence. The expert has to calculate and know where to put the near microphone, which will take the bow's charge on the string, and the second one, distant, which will take the sound of the cello itself. Let alone the orchestra - this is the work of the cosmic complexity. You can record pop digitally, not music. - Let's get back to the programs. Do you have anything else? We made a program of the English Renaissance of the XVI-XVII centuries with the guitarist Sergey Kalugin. There is a variety program with the concertmaster Tatyana Smolskaya - because of my nostalgia. These two dozens of songs I sang a long time ago, being a student in the Sverdlovsk musical college. It was a special period, very important; I wasn't writing my own songs at those times. I sang then very complex and very interesting compositions: "They Don't Disavow When In Love" from Pugachyova's early repertory, "Commotion" based on Akhmatova's poetry - some may remember David Tukhmanov's record "On the Wavelength of My Memory". These are still masterpieces in their genre. - How ready is it? The finished program was performed a couple of times, but it all stopped at this point. My work with THE ARK takes a lot of time. I still want to continue this line, but don't have this opportunity right now. I'd like to sing some classics... Just for the sake of pleasure, for the soul. The audience took the variety program differently. Some gave it a warm welcome, others were shocked: how in the world Arefieva, their fetish, a piece on the shelf, whom they perceive in one way, all of a sudden presumed to be something else. - The audience, however, takes it all right when you sing "Summertime"... I sing this piece in two absolutely different interpretations: in the rock one, and how Gershwin wrote it - strictly from the music, without improvising, in a classic opera voice. There is soprano, high tessitura; you sing it heavenly, clearly, dolefully. The classical incarnation of this genial composition is more interesting to me today. It doesn't mean that I'm sated with the variant performed by Janis Joplin and in the rock tradition as a whole, no, I love it too and perform it. But the classical variant gives me some impulse, some novelty. - Tell about THE ARK'S musicians. I watched for a long time how they adjusted to each other, and now I see that this gigantic work wasn't in vain: it is real pleasure to watch how harmonious you are at the concerts. Misha Trofimenko is my favorite musician. I just like it how he plays - doesn't matter what instrument. I've had a hard time with guitarists. All to a man have one and the same disease: they play solo, want to be framed. But the task of the instruments in a band is to support voice. One of the guitar players used to say: "Why the hell are we playing these little songs? Let's play energetic instrumental music." But the band was put together to play these very little songs, and you can play the energetic guitar music in some other place. Put together a group, make it famous... Because of the success he's got a leak in the upper story: it seemed to him that the moment he starts he'll get sell-outs at his concerts. But it turned out that people would rather listen to little songs than energetic instrumental music. Guitarists as a rule are obsessed with their own playing, with their so-called gashes. Very often they don't know how to cooperate with their neighbors on the stage - each musician in the band has his own function. You have to know how together to create a fabric. And usually the simpler is the music, the better it sounds. But only geniuses manage to find this simplicity. Of course, it shouldn't be something primitive made up of three chords; you won't surprise anybody with that. Misha very often cites as an example the band THE POLICE (British new wave with Sting as a leader. - Ed.): just three people played in such a sophisticated way, they created such a style that became classicists in their genre. Many now use those things THE POLICE brought about. The smaller is the structure, the more noticeable is everybody's part. Misha can play concisely, appropriately, knows how to play with his partners, how to react to the things they are doing - rare guitarist can do that. And because Misha has a bass player background (plus his playing the mandolin) he has an authentic view of the band. - It's a common knowledge that the backbone of any group are the drummer and the bass player. (laughing) You can't do without guitarists either. - And what about you? I'm not able to do that. When I sing, I hit the strings almost mechanically, all my energy goes into voice. I haven't learned to sing and to play at the same time. A person must have the talent to two things at the same time here: to singing and to playing. - Which Phil Collins has, for instance. Yes. Singing has so much in it! It's attention to a thousand of things. And to play at that, you have to have two heads. In our country that was achieved by Mulyavin from the group PESNYARY. He was one of those unique people who could play (and how well!) and at the same time sing the most complex parts in polyphony. PESNYARY is a unique company; they did things unprecedented for our country. They are the example of how one should play sophisticated music and sing in polyphony, doing it in such a way that one could listen to it with ease and pleasure. You can pile up symphonies, but do it so that your audience wouldn't fall asleep! - As for Seva, you told about him five years ago. Has your mind changed since then? We got acquainted in 1994. He was a drummer in THE CRUISE at that time, and that he came to the unknown ARK was a deed on his part. At first the age difference was noticeable, but the longer we know each other, the less we feel it. "Before everybody around was old, and now it's all youth," (laughs). Seva is a man of the unique and versatile endowments. I liked him best as a drummer. He is a huge, driving, energetic drummer, he keeps the rhythm marvelously, produces enough adrenalin for the whole band. For the last two years I've been adjusting to him as a bass player, but every once in a while it slips my tongue: "This is Seva, our drummer." He is a Taurus, very stubborn, always tries to have his own way. - But the final word is yours anyway? The word is mine, but the work belongs to the people who do it. I can forgive Seva virtually anything just for the way he sings. When I hear him, my knees are shaking. But he doesn't aspire to stop a moment, there are almost no adequate recordings left after his numerous experiments. Something was improvised somewhere: here we enjoyed ourselves, here is a genial piece, but as a whole it's not a recording. It's been my earnest desire for a long time for him to record something of his own. But to do that there has some routine work to be done. He can improvise on the move, sing a melody. Nobody can do it the way he does it - Seva seriously practiced Indian music. He has an uncommon thinking, such moves that would never occur to me. But to record it he has to sing it at least several times. To remember it, to write some lyrics, to make an arrangement. And Seva sings each time differently. He is a vocal improvisator in THE ARK: there are several places in the course of the concert where he sings. This is always a very bright moment, but he never repeats it. Sometimes I fight with him: "Seva, you are supposed to sing here!" And he replies: "If I sang there once, does it mean now that I have to sing there always? Now you will bug me with this all the time?" I always keep in mind at the rehearsal - here we had a good moment... I always try to lock in something practical. And when I tell Seva that "you played here this way, come on, recall it, try again", he says back "no way, now I want to play it differently." All his life is improvising. - Are you inclined to think that improvising is harmful to professionalism? What if it is done at a very high standard? I'm not against good improvising when it is in place. But when all we do at the rehearsal is not memorized, then everything slips through our fingers. Seva sang and that's it. Our Lord has heard it and the three of us - and the end. But for people to hear him, he has to work. There is a notion of the creative discipline. Seva can work and does his best - he is a Taurus, you see: say, he is a highly skilled sound engineer in the studio, there he concentrates. But when it comes down to creative work, nobody can lay down a law for him. - What is the reason for the long (seven years) break in your work with Mila? The only reason is she herself. In 1990 we played with her only shortly. And Mila began to move away from me. It's all understandable - THE ARK was just coming into being at those times: no concerts, no money, no base. Mila was standing before a choice: whether to be a singer and a violinist or an actress. She decided to become an actress. Entered GITIS, graduated from it, besides, she had her violin stolen. It's a pity, of course, that she wasn't able to realize herself to the fullest as an actress, even though she is very stylish, beautiful, and vivid. She decided, however, that the actor's path was not for her. There you have to wait for a good part for years, constantly remind about yourself, be able to obey the director's despotism - it's just in THE ARK you can be your own master. Actors' fate is very difficult, being a musician is easier, I think. Not having a talent, though, you'd better not to butt into any of those. Kikina has two talents: musical and dramatic. All these years I bothered her, tried to put her in somewhere, to invite her - and only now it's beginning to develop into something. We have an interesting contact with her, union of the voice timbres. To make two voices to sound as one, you have to sing in, to memorize the slightest nuances. Mila knows how to do that. To work reliably, firmly, and to never let you down on the stage. All these years I was looking for someone who could replace Mila, but nobody came close to her. - Coming back to your reggae program: I have a feeling that compared to "Batakakumba" - where you had two drummers on the stage, Ksyusha on the back vocal, and an additional guitarist - this one seems a little bit empty, it obviously lacks something. Maybe, Kika? We tried to bring her in this program, but there are no places where she could join to a song. And Kika herself doesn't care for the reggae very much. As of now, the guys have to carry the can, do the entire back vocal. But how much talk it required to persuade them to sing! They want to do only one thing at a time, singing for them is an additional obligation; they have to bisect their minds. And for me such obligation is the guitar. (laughs). I can understand them - the performer communicates with the audience to a larger extent when he sings, he becomes a showman. Not everybody can do that. An example on a real showman is Petya Akimov: he is the person who can communicate with the audience! - And what does Petya do in St.Pete? He plays the cello in a chamber orchestra and studies at the conservatory. Petya came to it pretty late, he's spent a lot of time in rock circles and played with many St.Pete's rock musicians. In his own words, he nearly played by beer stalls wiping his hands from fish. However, as he confessed to me not long ago, only ACOUSTIC ARK became some kind of a starting point for him. There for the first time he felt that he is not a small screw, but a creator, could feel the wings behind his back. - What I like best in your cooperation with Akimov is that he in no way resembles Gackel. Wherever you look, most of violinists and cellists from rock groups remind about the early AQUARIUM. Petya is a personality, a very gifted one for that matter. In the conservatory he had to readjust his hands, learn again almost from the very beginning. But he is a real musician and he could make it. All his feelings are musician's. Petya's penetration into music is so deep that one half of him is not on the ground. It's very important whom you are playing with. If you play with a non-rhythmic, non-energetic partner, you feel as if you are in chains. You can even kill music this way. Or it might be this: the person accompanies you, but you don't notice him - whether he is there or not doesn't make any difference. Petya raises music to a higher level; he gives such an impulse that a very common piece with his support acquires features of an uncommon one. - Do you rehearse, or is it all improvising? Petya remembers a lot. If he works and makes up some interesting solutions on the move, he memorizes everything. I appreciate it very much: we did something at the rehearsal and it stayed. Not like Seva who is searching where there are strings on the neck each time anew. But Sevka is very talented. And Petya with the same level of talent in addition can memorize things. And work in general. Rock circles didn't spoil him, only made him better. - Now there is Borya left. Borya is cool. He is very modest, very delicate - in a word, he is Pisces. A drummer must be more impassioned, but there's nothing that can be done about that. Take Seva, he is tougher, more hurricane. But I like Borya's gentleness just as much. He can't clash with people, and that is very important in a band. - It seemed to me that there is a strong Umka's influence on the lyrics of the new album. Five or six pieces - I even got surprised to find so many of them. We have already talked about the time when these songs were written. They were made before I met her. - Then, I guess, that was the time when everybody spoke similar language. Umka and me are like day and night: in terms or personality, language, temperament. All these comparisons stem from the fact that we are friends, performed together, sang each other's songs. THE ARK helped her at concerts when she didn't have a group. Borya and Misha play with Umka from time to time. In my "Nogin's Square" there are some citations from Umka, but there are also citations from Mike, BG, Kinchev, folk songs, chastooshkas. - As far as I know you didn't care much for Russian rock. I didn't have a tape recorder at those times. But then, of course, I heard it, and it laid an ineffaceable impression on me. I'm not a music lover, and don't go into deep details. But at times, to get an impression, to get to know the phenomenon to the fullest, you need only an instant, a flare. It's like an opening door. There was a revolution in the eighties: there appeared a whole new generation that was brought up on these new songs. I'm from it, too. Some "good old rockers", however, remind of the guerrillas with grenades who still sit in the dugout and don't know that the war is over. I prefer to live in freedom. Translated by O. Bezhina |