Grey skies and darkness settle in. The cold clings to the pavements and walls along the street. Like clockwork, Mart Avi emerges into the late autumn. This time, however, the Estonian pop maverick is not alone. By his side is another stalwart of the Eastern European underground, the label-bossing, deep house-producing Ajukaja.
Having previously teamed up on the 2021 EP Nolk, the duo return to present their first full-length effort, Death of Music. Thirteen years in the making, it’s an album that promises absurdity and invention, while delivering, surprisingly, an enormity of fun.
Describing music of this nature – abstract, synthesised – is difficult without employing obtuse metaphors; a Casio keyboard possessed by the spirit of a 1960s racing driver; rave memories spreading flames over a blackening brain. Besides a few sound indicators, these don’t offer much insight, but they do give an idea of just how evocative Ajukaja and Mart Avi’s music is. Each of the 16 tracks is an invitation to a new sonic space, mapless, littered with emotions and pontifications.
Using a vast library of familiar sounds including breakbeats, house organs, sawtooth synths and more, Ajukaja’s production wields nostalgia like an additional instrument. The memories associated with these sounds will differ from person to person, with each listener bringing their own experience to the record, and potentially using their own metaphor to describe it.
As the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once said, “It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to.” Here, though, he’s only half right. This vintage dance veneer serves as a comfort on songs like “Safe”. It entices. This is important as beneath the surface, and frequently above it, Death of Music embraces chaos.
“Billions Alone” and “Headless Global Minotaur” are the most obvious examples of this, the former based around an 808 drum beat drowned out by warping radio sound effects, the latter peppering jungle beats abruptly over soft synths, leaving regular rug-cutters high and dry.
“Somewhere in Time” more than makes up for this, with Avi contorting around Ajukaja’s nostalgic sound palette to create something fresh. His voice soars over hi-hats and clicks that glitter into view, wavering on the horizon. The title invites one to place the track in a period and place, and with haunting animal calls and slick beats on display, one might guess its true setting is some primordial Avi-garde rave.
Saxophones swagger into the party on another highlight, the swampish “I.D.O.L.”. Its infectious groove is only interrupted by Avi’s artificially sweetened vocals, skewering early-noughties pop tropes. Across the record, he is allowed plenty of space to showcase his vocal control. He stabs “Lucky Strike” with snarls of “don’t fuck it up”, before invoking daybreak with a delicate croon on the bittersweet “In So Many Ways”.
At 16 songs, this is a long album, and there are certain indulgent moments on Death of Music. Conversely, there are instances where both artist reach the peak of their powers. As Ajukaja’s bassline wanders through Avi’s expansive synths on “Smashed”, the duo’s synergy becomes apparent. These songs had to be made together, with both members pushing the other into new territory.
Death is often a chance to reevaluate something as a whole with the benefit of hindsight. Ajukaja and Mart Avi have raided the history of music, grabbing hold of the parts they like and releasing everything else into the wind. Death of Music is danceable, esoteric, crowd-pleasing and cryptic.
