If there’s one positive thing amidst all of this crazy business going on right now, it’s the fact that if you’ve been lucky enough to stay healthy and somewhat sane, you’ve perhaps been able to pretty much bathe in music when isolating within the confines of your home. I know I have, as I’ve spent the majority of this time revisiting older favourites, looking for new things, and actually discovering a thumping amount of what the kids would dub as ‘good shit’. Today’s featured artist is most definitely of that kind, and peculiar one as such to be honest. How does Parisian-Soviet-instrumental-post-metal sound to you?
DRAGUNOV is perhaps the most Russian French duo there is, however strange that might sound. The band and I will elaborate on that particularly integral, but slightly amusing subject later, as it’s better to stick to the basics at first. So, the duo are from Paris, France, and have been shaping their own kind of cinematic and immersive tone over the course of seven years and three releases. To stylistically place them in a rather open and nonrestrictive box, instrumental post-metal would be the closest fit. Still, there’s a whole array’s worth of influences and nuances translated from elsewhere apparent in their music, and soon you’ll realize that those good ol’ genre tags expire inevitably once again.
Explaining their origins more closely, their drummer Tristan Monein, whom I had the pleasure to interview for this feature, said the following:
‘We had been friends for many years, before creating the band. Seb (our guitar player) also plays drums in another instrumental French metal band called Abysse, and we became friends over some drummer stuff, in 2009 or so. Then Seb started to play the guitar and we really wanted to play music together, and it all happened when we both moved to Paris in 2013.‘
It’s worth noting that, albeit just a two-piece, DRAGUNOV manages to create a monolithic wall of sound, pulverizing everything falling on its way. And while the critical mass of the atmosphere on their records reaches overwhelming levels at times, there’s still a fair amount of more quiet and softer, serene moments, however fleeting they might be. Layering and varying samples and other SFX play a huge part in the band’s narrative and sonic repertoire, providing details and a certain kind of delicacy to this otherwise pummeling and unforgiving aural journey.
The overarching themes, textures, and inner evolution within their songs is without a doubt a characterising feat, and something that makes DRAGUNOV highly enjoyable and interesting. If you place any track or their individual parts under scrutiny, you’ll discover how meticulously and precisely everything’s weaved together, whether looking at separate riffs or different instruments. Tempo and time signature shifts act as momentous hooks, and the mountain-like songs could change their direction completely in a blink of an eye, in what sounds like, but most certainly isn’t, an effortless and free transformation.
‘Seb composes the guitar riffs, then brings them to rehearsals, and we work on them. We make them evolve and change, we create new ones from the basic idea etc. We usually work song by song. The process is pretty long, as we like to take our time to come back to ideas after some time to modify them. ARKHIPOV was written between July 2017 and April 2019, taking almost two years to compose. And that’s just for the instrument parts. As mentioned, there is then all the processes with the samples, but that comes afterwards. Usually I come up with a concept for the album and work around it with loads of samples I find on the internet or in databases. A long process too.‘
Take the opening track “Horizontal” from ARKHIPOV, or “Kosmonavt” from Korolev for instance; both are branching and developing pieces going through multiple metamorphoses along the way, both being prime examples of what DRAGUNOV are capable of. On top of all this, the band crafts a cold and severely haunting mood, in a very fresh and original way. They established this kind of collision of sounds already on their debut EP 637 from five years back (where all tracks run for exactly 6 minutes and 37 seconds, by the way). Over the years, the band has been able to deepen this musical stance and acquire a multitude of new angles to their output, while still staying true to their original sound.
This January, the band’s second full-length ARKHIPOV saw the light of day. And on it, they’re simply thriving. It feels like a culmination of their sound – while they’re simultaneously breaking new ground and exploring seminal nooks and crannies, they sound more adept and comfortable in their tonal skin than ever. The striking artwork’s depicting a surfacing submarine, washed in a certain hue of red, tying firmly to the overall theme. Whereas the debut album Korolev had charm in its organic production and live feel, the newcomer tightens the screws and is a considerably more striking, pervasive experience.
‘I think we evolve with our music. We started the band back in 2013, when we both were 23, Seb was just starting to play guitar back then, and I didn’t have any touring nor studio experiences. Now, we both are 30 and we have been experiencing a lot of things (musically with the tours, the recording sessions, and the albums, but also personally) so it makes sense that the music evolved as well. I think with ARKHIPOV, we wanted something louder, something rougher… We were willing to sound huge for this album. I think the best example of this is “65-76”, which is also the only song we wrote without samples. It’s just raw energy. But maybe tomorrow, we will want to be more ‘post-something’, more this or that, so we will calm down and write ballads like “Kosmonavt” from Korolev. We really write stuff the way we want to sound while we play them.‘
And finally we arrive to the thematic checkpoint, that ties DRAGUNOV‘s essence together on every release and track. While instrumental, they have a very clear aesthetic and a running narrative, that seems to draw influence from the history and culture of Soviet Union/Russia. The band’s name is taken from a Soviet sniper rifle, and the track titles are names of Soviet scientists and other persons of interest, submarines, torpedo and fighter jet models, and so on. Korolev focused on space and aeronautics, ARKHIPOV floats in cold waters and deploys pressure only experienced in the bottom of the ocean. So the theme is most definitely there, colouring the music and providing narration to where there is none.
‘The Russian theme is obvious, isn’t it? It all came from the name we chose when we started it. We didn’t know where it would bring us, we just liked the name (and no other band had taken it!). Since then, we have realised that having a defined aesthetic is really important. Being totally instrumental actually pushed us in this direction. Usually, the singer gives a band its identity. For us, our identity is the Russian atmosphere we have created through the visual universe Sebastian has developed since our first EP 637. From there we take parts of the Soviet history/universe we want to explore to find a concept for each album. Korolev was the spatial exploration, ARKHIPOV is the marine exploration, and we already have a few ideas for the next one!‘
While on the subject, I also wanted to ask about the pair’s other influences and sources of inspiration, whether music, art, or whatnot. The answer was partly what you could’ve expected, and partly surprising, actually.
‘Sebastian is a huge fan of H.R. Giger, by extension we love Tom Fisher and Triptykon. Musically, we really like what Cult Of Luna, Rosetta, Russian Circles, or Neurosis are doing. We have also been huge fans of Mantar lately, especially because of their raw energy. We also enjoy bands like Primitive Man, Conan, and Dopethrone, because of the heaviness of their sound.‘
As you can see, the influences are plenty, even though DRAGUNOV isn’t a replica of any of the bands cited above, nor is it exactly a sum of them either. You can hear echoes of each here and there, but what’s flowing down your ear canals is something of its own kind. I’ve pondered this quite some time now, and came to the conclusion that the thematic facet is perhaps the main reason to why the band stands out to me so starkly.
Like I said in the first paragraph, and like countless people have said before me, the music world is in great distress at the moment. Musicians and bands do their best to cope through these days of anguish and continuous cancellations only reaching farther dates on every single day. What we can do as listeners, writers, and average Joes alike, is to support each and every single one of them to our best ability. If you haven’t listened to DRAGUNOV yet for some reason, amend that over on their Bandcamp, and throw them a follow on Facebook and Instagram. I’ll leave you off with a statement from the band, revising on some hardships, but ending on a positive note. And then actually going back to the bleak end of things after all. Oh well. Take care and look after one another.
‘We can’t wait to be back on the road, playing live shows to support ARKHIPOV. We missed around ten or so shows because of the current pandemic, so we are excited about the end of the year as we have a few shows confirmed already, and 2021 should be a good year too. We hope to play a lot of gigs. And now that ARKHIPOV is out, we think that we will have the urge to create new music pretty soon. We just hope that this shit would not damage the music industry too much, especially the DIY scene that was already struggling.‘
