Russian producer Art Crime opens up about his new techno record

Russian producer Art Crime is one of the most prominent voices of the Russian new electronic music scene. His immersive techno tracks are frequently played on the dance floors of Berlin, New York and Moscow – yet they are more introspective than it seems. Art Crime’s new EP Still Life out at Rotterdam-based label Pinkman reflects the troubled year in the artist’s life.

Art Crime told The Calvert Journal about what lies beneath the sophisticated and sleek techno tracks.

“I probably could divide the past year into two parts. The first was the period of crisis. At that moment it seemed to me that I’m more or less familiar with the environment around me and hardly anything radically new would happen. It ended up with depression and isolation, the desire to distance myself from the people around me. In that moment I came up with the title for the record: it was both about a quiet distant life and about that feeling of being slightly dead inside, indifferent and apathetic, “but it’s still a life”. The same feeling you get while looking at old still lifes with dead flowers or animals. At that point I wrote Distant which was about the impossibility of real connection between people and Hectic which was based on my recurring chaotic dreams. The second half of the year was connected to a new woman in my life and our complicated relationship: love, passion, lies, fears and probably the whole spectrum of positive and negative intense emotions I could possibly feel. I dedicated the mixtape I did for The Calvert Journal to her. That’s when I wrote Still Life, which I don’t even remember how I composed but pretty sure I put into it everything I was feeling. Dead Carnation was inspired by her perfume “Red Carnation” I found in my flat after we broke up.”