From Uzbek disco to Tajik folktronica, we explore the sounds of 1980s Soviet Central Asia

0:13Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. For today's show, I speak with Vic Sohoni, founder of Ostinato Records, about their latest release, Synthesizing the Silk Roads, Uzbek disco, Tajik, Folktronica, Uyghur rock, and Crimean Tatar jazz from 1980s Soviet Central Asia. It is an impressive anthology. Let's hear it from Vic.

0:56so the label is now entering it's just past its eighth year we started in 2016 of course there was a few years before that we had to do some groundwork but the label was largely about me being a former journalist and a lover of storytelling a lover of the global south because that's where I'm from I was born in India I grew up in Southeast Asia most of my life I live here again. So I had a huge affinity for the developing world, the emerging world, the global South, whatever you want to call it these days. And I noticed that the stories that were being told about the global South didn't really capture the full essence, the panorama, the depth of these societies.

1:28And I thought, as a journalist, I felt very limited in what I could tell, because I needed solid concrete proof to kind of show the vibrance and richness and the histories of these societies. and I knew just reporting as a journalist do on the current events or on the politics don't really give you that but if you focus on the music which I've been a long fan of music I've been collecting records all my life I've DJed since I was a teenager if you focus on the music you have what I always like to say is an indisputable evidence in the court of history to say if you listen to the music from Haiti or from Sudan deeply misunderstood parts of the world but also parts of the world that are huge historical crossroads, which was what gives their music such richness and depth, you can then present a whole argument to people to say, I can challenge your entire perception of the country or the region, because I'm showing you music that you did not know was made in this part of the world, let alone existed, let alone did you know that it was of such a caliber, right?

2:25And, you know, I'm very proud to say we've largely been vindicated by our award nominations, our Grammy nominations, and the kind of accolades we've gotten to say, hey listen there is more to the musical world than the anglo-american sphere which has largely dominated you know the world's ears for so long and much of the music we release yes we focus on very misunderstood countries countries like somalia sudan haiti that you know largely in my opinion get a very bad rep in the world press so the idea was to use music to tell these stories of these places and these cultures and to really globalize our musical our cultural imagination but doing so So plan to see, open a door to say, if you're not curious about this place, because now you have a different perspective about it, perhaps you can learn more about it.

3:08Perhaps we have piqued your curiosity for you to immerse yourself deeper in these places. So the label was, you know, it's a record label. It's focused on music. That's our bread and butter. But the philosophy was about saying, we're entering a new era. We're entering a post-Western era, as many people know. We're entering a post-American, a post-Atlantic era. And in that sense, we need to be focusing not only politically or economically on other parts of the world, but we need to be focusing culturally on other parts of the world. And we do that first as a record label by first introducing you to the past to say, what have we missed?

3:41with things that have happened, whether it's civil wars or bad coverage or instability or whatever you want to call it. What have we missed? So once we offer you a panorama of that historical panorama of the society, then we can then zoom in and say, okay, we've given you 15 different styles of music, 15 different tracks in this country as a compilation. Now we're going to zoom in and focus on one band or focus on the newer music, produce a new band. But the first chapter in the story we want to tell is always going to be the history. You have to have those foundations. and then we will go to the same region and find a new band.

4:14And this has been largely our MO for the last eight years. So that's really how the record label operates. That's fantastic. And listen, talking about countries, you mentioned Haiti, Sudan. I want to talk a little bit about Uzbekistan because for me it's been a recent discovery. I mean, because I was looking at their new music, amazing. And then come your album and I was like, wow, what fantastic music they had. Uzbek disco. And apparently Tashkent was quite kind of a music grounded era. Tell us a bit more. I thought it was so fascinating. Yeah, so, you know, we love focusing on crossroads that people don't know are crossroads.

4:53So the Horn of Africa, the Caribbean, but also Central Asia. You know, as an Asian myself, I know all about this continent, but I don't know anything about Central Asia. So I was always fascinated with this part of the world. But also because, as I mentioned, we are entering this post-Western era. and one of the regions that thrived before the West was Central Asia. It was the crux, the hub of the ancient Silk Roads. It was the bridge between East and West. It was the bridge between China and the Mediterranean. And this part of the world, I mean, the amount of different, let's say, entities that have come through there, whether it's the Soviet Union or it's the old Khanates or the old dynasties that ruled this era.

5:33I mean, what a fascinating part of the world that really doesn't get much coverage. There was a little bit when, you know, Afghanistan was in the news, people started talking about Uzbekistan and then colloquially they're known as the Central Asian stands and all that. But this part of the world has been such an immense crossroads for so long. And the beautiful thing is now it's, you know, really past its post-Soviet era and it's coming into its own. And so now the region is largely open. Before it was quite difficult to travel. There was hard to get a visa. Flight routes were not very frequent or they were expensive.

6:01But now it was Beckerstein in particular, which is really modeling itself as the model of the region and saying, if you want to see Central Asia, come here. It's easy to come here. We're a welcoming culture. We have a lot to offer. And, you know, for me, this was on my radar for a very long time when I started the record label. And slowly, bit by bit, I would find one 45, one LP from this part of the world. I thought, this is really interesting music. But we were so focused on Africa and the Caribbean that I said, let's put this on the shelf for now. and then you know as luck would have it we had a wonderful our collaborator his name is Anbar he runs a record label in Uzbekistan but is also a prolific record collector and you know really a someone who documents the history of the music there and he contacted us one day just seeing our interest in the region and I immediately said let's do something there because I've been so fascinated with this part of the world and because this part of the world is coming back and I keep bringing this this post-western era we have to understand other regions of the world and we do that again through the history, understanding the Silk Roads, understanding the music.

7:01And I think, you know, this region is extremely ripe for an introduction to its music, its culture, its hospitality, its indelible mark that it is left on world history. I mean, people don't really know how much of world history has emanated from this part of the world. And so Central Asia, Uzbekistan in particular was a very important part of the world to shift our gears to continue our philosophy of exposing people to different cultures and kind of bringing the world culturally into a post-Western era but Tashkent in particular this city is phenomenal I mean this is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to it was you know it's a cities of lavish gardens wide boulevards so many conservatories universities of music I mean people have this impression the Soviet Union was repressive.

7:50And yes, it was, but there was a huge emphasis on culture in the Soviet Union. And the legacy of that, you can see very clearly when you walk around Tashkent, because the amount of music academies and conservatories and schools, it's just, you know, the city is peppered with it. So, you know, as soon as we arrived, we knew we were somewhere special. And there's this wonderful blend of architecture between the Soviet brutalist architecture and the ancient Central Asian indigenous architecture, those beautiful palettes and colors that you see and patterns that you see on the windows. So I was like, I'm in a fascinating part of the world here.

8:22And when you walk into a restaurant or a bar in Tashkent, it is so diverse. You have people who are ethnically from East Asia. You have people who are ethnically Persian, Indian, Arab, Russian, European. I mean, it's just what a wonderfully diverse place. And the amount of people that have crossed through this region for centuries, whether if you're trading between East Asia and the Mediterranean, you know, those ancient Silk Roads, the amount of traders and people that came and went and left things. So the music is a wonderful, wonderful blend of Europe and Asia, you know, of Turkey, of Iran, of India, of China, of Russia, of so many parts of the world.

9:04And they all meet here. And I think, I hope this album, you know, the idea was to introduce people to the music, which is phenomenal, but also to say, you might want to check this part of the world out because it's coming back in a big big world

9:30i want to check it out and let's talk about music we what type of music genres do you focus on on this particular compilation as well because even the name i think says it all from uzbek disco to tajic folktronica i mean that already caught my eye yeah so you know when we were sifting through all the music i realized there's so much here you know there is one thing i should mention about tashkent it was also kind of a central hub for all the musicians in the asian portion of the soviet union so tashkent was where you went to find a sanctuary a safe haven because for centuries, it has been a very welcoming hub for everyone.

10:12And even if you visit today, you'll see that. I mean, what a warm welcome you'll get, no matter where you're from in the world. And so musicians found a very welcoming and fruitful sanctuary there. So you had musicians from neighboring countries like Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, even from China. We talk about the Uyghurs from Western China, who we see it brought up in the news a lot these days. Uyghur musicians found a sanctuary in Tashkent. We talk about Tatar musicians from Crimea. People don't know about the indigenous Tatars of Crimea. You know, they've been fighting for their independence, but under the Soviet Union, they faced a lot of repression.

10:43So they went to Tashkent to make their music. So Tashkent was this brimming place with all of these musicians from the Asian portion of the Soviet Union. It's very important that I emphasize that because there was a European side of the Soviet Union, which is currently Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Ukraine, which had its own scene going on. But if you were of the Asian portion of the Soviet Union, you know, this was this vast Eurasian country, you went to Tashkent to make music. It had the studios, it had the manufacturing facilities. So you can imagine the amount of genres. It's almost genre defying.

11:12I mean, you have disco, what we would classify as disco. You have, you know, traditional folk music played on a synthesizer and made with drum machines to make it a little more electronic for the 1980s. So you have that kind of genre. You have rock and jazz and funk music. The Uyghur track to me was still today when I listened to that, it's one of the most addictive tunes. You listen to the very last track on the album by Ismail Jalilov, a beautiful acoustic that breaks out into this jazz. You listen to all my favorite tracks on the album, which means what's this, which is like a heavy Soviet dance track.

11:44I love this tune by your original, the band, right? Yes. Yes. It is such a heavy dance track. I mean, so, you know, we can sit here and say, this is disco, this is jazz, this is funk. You ask the musicians, they're like, I don't know. I I mean, this is just the music we were making. It doesn't even have a name. We unfortunately have to give names to things that are nameless, that are ethereal, that are just, we can't even classify it. I wrote it down in my notes, space disco. That's how I felt, but could be. It's definitely, I mean, and you think about how they were making music, where they were making music, the philosophy, the driving force behind their music.

12:20And you realize that this was something very special happening at a very special time by the youth of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Just prior to its fall, there was something happening amongst the youth that made them produce this very, I wouldn't even say it was the whole 80s. It was a very specific, you know, the late 80s era where there was a call actually because so many disco clubs existed in the Soviet Union. They were sprouting up all over the Soviet Union, you know, and the propaganda and ideology departments had a little bit of a fray with them to say, OK, you can do this. But, you know, you have to be like this and we want to control a little bit.

12:58We can't control everything. But these disco clubs took a life of their own. You know, they became places where youth went. They drank. They danced. They had parties. It was it was, you know, it was phenomenal to even read about or to interview musicians about.

13:28But I think what was really interesting to me was when these disco clubs sprouted, they were largely playing music from, again, Britain and America, right? They were playing disco music from Britain and America, dance music. And eventually Soviet DJs, particularly one DJ from Latvia, said, enough is enough. We cannot only be dancing to Anglo-American music. We have to make our own music. And we have all the tools, all the musicians, all the instruments, everything we need in this industrial superpower that we live in to make our own music. And they did. And when that call went out, these musicians just, you know, the leash was off and they just went completely into another realm, another galaxy with the sounds that you're hearing, you know.

14:06But what you did with this album, and perhaps other from your label as well, you work a little bit as a historian as well, because sometimes this music, especially from someone, let's say I'm here in the UK right now, that's a bit hard to find, right? Definitely. So, I mean, the idea is when we work with music from the past is about finding a source, an archive of some sort. You usually work with archives, whether public or private. In this case, it was really fascinating because, you know, Anwar, our co-compiler, had done a great deal of research beforehand. So we had a little bit of a roadmap.

14:43Sourcing the music came largely, and this is really interesting. So just to tell a little story here. So during World War II, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, when they blitzkrieged the Soviet Union, they blitzkrieged from the Eastern Front, right? So from the European portion. And they were advancing on Soviet cities. And the Soviet leadership in Moscow at the time said, we have to get our people to safety, which means we have to get them to Soviet Asia, far as away from the European front as possible. And they put 16 million people on trains and sent them where? To Central Asia. Mainly where?

15:12To Uzbekistan. And mainly where? To Tashkent. So on those trains were, of course, everyday people, but also engineers, doctors, chemists, poets, literary figures. I mean, they were saving everyone and their best and brightest. But also there was a team on there. There was a lot of engineers on there who were specialized in gramophone technology, vinyl manufacturing technology. And when they went to Tashkent, when the war ended, they set up the Tashkent Vinyl Plant. I can't pronounce the Russian name of it, but it was the Tashkent Vinyl Plant. And it was among one of a handful of plants around the Soviet Union that were pumping out hundreds of millions of records by the 1980s.

15:47So the Soviet Union had a formidable music industry, if you want to call it that. It was not a private industry, but they had an industry. And the dead stock from that plant, the plant is now shut. But if you have intrepid people like our co-compiler, Anwar, who has been spent years just frolicking around Uzbekistan trying to find things, he found that that dead stock had kind of been scattered around Uzbekistan. You know, good quality dead stock. Dead stock is basically stock that just never got sold. It was pressed by the plant and sitting there. So it kind of formed an archive in itself, this kind of dead stock from this really fascinating plant that existed that was a product of the Second World War and the evacuations that took place during the Second World War.

16:27so from that dead stock of that plant we managed to find a great deal of vinyl and from that we were able to boil down into a 15 track compilation what you're hearing on that compilation but we also also found some live tv recordings because some of them like bunanibu which is live and there's a couple other tracks on there that are live tv recordings we found a couple more from tv as well but the the foundation the backbone of the compilation is dead stock from the tashkent vinyl plant that was set up in 1945 after the war ended, after the evacuations from the Eastern Front by Moscow leadership to send everyone to Tashkent where they knew they would be safe.

17:01So again, you know, it's a fascinating source. And the way this music made it there is also just fascinating. Tashkent is just a fascinating place with a fascinating history. Well, before we go, just tell me another highlight, perhaps from the compilation. In my notes here, I liked Angelina Petrosova's song as well, which is Dancing Island, perhaps in a translated way that's an amazing track as well yeah i mean so i should mention that angeline actually passed away about two weeks ago so may she rest in peace yes we dealt with her family to license the rights for these songs but she passed away two weeks ago so may she rest in peace so it's a fascinating song and if you actually read the lyrics the lyrics are all about you know if i was on an island of like jamaica you know relaxing having a good time i mean it just kind of shows you what i like about the uh that song a lot is when you listen to lyrics You get an idea that, I mean, there's always the idea that the Soviet Union was this closed place.

17:54They didn't have access to the outside world. It's just not true, right? So the Soviets were as interconnected with the world, perhaps a different world, not the Western world, but what we consider today the global South, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And in fact, Tashkent was a consistent host of artists and writers and talent from these three continents, particularly in the post-colonial, post-independence era. So you had people like Angelina dreaming about going to Jamaica and singing about that. But I think it's important to note when people hear the synthesizers on this record, you might be wondering, well, where do they come from, right?

18:26Yes, the Soviet Union did produce its own synthesizers. They produced the Polyvox synthesizer and the Uno synthesizer. These are great synthesizers, but they were mainly used by musicians in Moscow and in the European adjacent part of the Soviet Union. In Tashkent, thanks to the Bukharan Jewish community, which was among the oldest Jewish communities in the world and among the oldest groups in Central Asia, a Jewish community that's not spoken of very much. Even I, when I read about it, I said, well, there's a Bukharan Jewish community. Bukharan is, of course, a city in Uzbekistan. They were the importers of technology from around the world.

18:56And because of their trade links to Japan, to the United States, to elsewhere, they were bringing in Moog and Korg keyboards. And so you had this kind of synthesizer revolution. And again, I think it's fascinating because so much of this record, so much of this record ties into so much that's still happening today. you know whether you talk about the Uyghurs whether you talk about the Bukharan Jewish community whether you talk about Central Asia I mean this record is music from 30 years ago yet more than 30 years ago 40 years ago yet it is so relevant today and that to me was another reason why I said we have to do this we have to put this out

19:49Thank you very much, Vixor Rony, and Synthesizing the Silk Roads by Ostinato Records is out now. The show was edited by Flynn Simons, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco.