Fatherland

"If you write about him, - my friend instructed me, - you should do it in particular way: 'Anton Batagov has released a new album, Anton Batagov has released a new album, Anton Batagov has released a new album, Anton Batagov has released a new album'. That's the only way to correspond with his music".

That's the only way to correspond with his music. Still it's almost impossible to correspond with it, its meaning can not be reduced to simple repetitions. When you hear it for the first time you will probably think: "wow!" What will it mean - "wow, it sucks" or "wow, it's great" - depends on your taste, your sanity and your musical education.

In "fatherland" (yes, with small 'f') you will hear Batagov's music for television. But it's easier to believe that those musical pieces illustrate some philosophical ideas - actually, any philosophical ideas. Read the booklet: "All phenomena in the world are nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind and have no reality of their own". So 'fatherland' is just an illusory manifestation of the mind. Anton Batagov's mind. He's playing his own games with cultural context. A huge puzzle: "the hero's death" with obvious fragments of Nyman's "Memorial", TV-music, "postcards" from Odessa or New-York, the fundamentals of geopolitics - and all these things are just small fragments of cultural context. And all these things are just small pieces of our fatherland, my friend. Of our fatherland, my friend. Of our fatherland, my friend. Of our fatherland, my friend.

1999-10-12, Xenya ROZHDESTVENSKAYA (ALLMUSIC.RU)