Mandarin by Kokokei

The release's author of "Mandarin," Kostya Kokokei, is a co-founder of the label "Mestnost" — a unique publishing house. "Mestnost" filters musicians and their works through the sieve of local culture in which they grew up. For him, context is as much a part of the conception of any musical work as the author's perspective, the selection of samples, and the synthesizers used in recording.

"Mandarin" continues the southern trilogy of releases recorded in a natural environment. In "Mimosa" — the first part of the trilogy — the author only begins introspection and explores reality through a still rhythmic, "urban" bpm. This time, the journey inward slows down and takes on a more thoughtful and meditative pace.

"The tracks were recorded in September 2021, during the second trip to the mountain village. This time, I was interested in exploring the theme of the struggle between good and evil, the collision of light and darkness. In 'Mandarin,' I again recorded many ambient sounds on a recorder and used them in the tracks," says Kostya.

The final vision of the album was achieved in the Soundartist studio in the autumn of 2022. Kostya worked on the mixing and mastering together with Fedor Vetkalov — a popularizer of modular synthesizers, a teacher, and a musician who assembled setups for Zurkas Tepla, Mujuice, Electric Dog, and other artists and also collaborated as a consultant with Martin Gore and Trent Reznor.

The release will be available in limited edition. Each cassette will contain a mandarin leaf — a message from the past and a physical imprint of that very mountain village.

mestnostrecords.com