Despite its geographically suggestive handle,
The Russian Apartments is neither a Stalingrad based film nor a Goldeneye map. It's singer/songwriter Michael Caulfield, as he explores his preoccupations with 1980s music and "psych/ghost" (his words, but there is no better way to describe it). Including a rotating cast of musician all based in his hometown of Keen, NH, The Russian Apartments is a continually inventive collection of singles and EPs.
First, check out the new epic seven minute synth-drenched single "Gods":
"I'm interested in how to tap into these rich historical genres of rock" Mike told us last week, "whether it's psych-pop or early Factory Records electro -- without becoming a nostalgia act. That's the hard part, I think. It's overly geeky and maybe a little insane, but I try to conceptualize songs as coming out of bizarre alternate histories, places where Roger Waters is a member of Depeche Mode, where World War II is being waged at the same time Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak are building the first Apple computer.
I mean if you listen to commercial radio, and even a lot of indie music, we seem to be at the end of history. There's no future left, so we're all stuck colonizing the past. And I think what you see people from Neon Indian to Blank Dogs to Gary War saying is if that's going to be the case let's muck with things a little, let's create the histories that never existed. Let's go and haunt the past and mess with it, the way it messes with us."
The latest Russian Apartments EP,
Double Phantasm, is scheduled for release by Gnar Tapes in early 2011. Caufield's 2009 EP
The Power of Post-Positive Thinking, at The Russian Apartment's
Bandcamp.
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The Russian Apartments on Bandcamp