VA - GOST ZVUK 10 YEARS (2025)

Ten years of anything in the music world is an achievement, especially with the surfeit of choice and fatiguing overload of our digital attention spans. Blink and you’ll miss it announcements swallowed up by the algorithm, incessant PR mail-outs and Bandcamp/Soundcloud feed uploads all struggling to compete. Labels like GOST ZVUK show the merit in quietly doing your thing. For the last decade they have been working with an ever-expanding group of core producers and, importantly, friends to showcase a modern world of collaborators informed by the roots of styles as diverse as hip-hop, ambient, nostalgic library sounds and classic dance music.

What they present in celebration of this landmark is a 4xLP compilation which unfolds across a thrillingly disorientating, attentive and sonically psychedelic 120 minutes. The variety of the collection draws from far and wide, from the decaying choral vocals and cinematic string timbres of Batsqueak’s ‘fm2shelter’ to the kosmiche droning synthesisers of Moscow duo S A D or Hoavi’s frantic, scattered poly-rhythms. Refined, complex sound design awash with field recordings and the storytelling of Sasha Hilko on Ilya Vlasenko’s impressive ‘untitled’ contrasts with playful rhythm-box R&B loops courtesy of DX20V. Lengthy jazz-funk stylings from Piramyds of Ural flow into phaser-heavy cosmic space rock from Atal, loose, sun-kissed dub experiments brush shoulders with Mills-esque ambient techno loops. Label regulars such as Oleg Buyanov (OL), Nocow and Lapti appear amongst a vast array of newcomers from the Russian underground, all finding their place in the compilation.

The sequencing work of label owners Ildar Zaynetdinov and Flaty threads a narrative for each vinyl side, carefully chosen with the medium in mind. Transitions between the likes of Stas Karpenkov’s ‘WORLD’ and ‘Material Fatigue’ by Gamayun or the timbre and mood shared on Ясень’s ‘Уходишь Ты’ and Kedr Livanskiy’s ‘Trees in the Shadow’, the latter a spectral pop ballad drowned in reverb, show the attention to detail and care put into the project. You could land at any point in the collection and draw parallels, though, regardless of order.

There is an overarching identity now running through the label's evolution, from the house and techno beginnings to the more abstract forms of later LP releases and now all tied together with this celebration of a decade in the game. In a way, genre and form are disregarded for a sense of collective feeling.