Phase: electronic music community from Pinsk

From underground city parties to a showcase in the best club in Poland.

07.10.2024

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Чытаць па-беларуску

Thelenny is a producer and DJ from Pinsk, a member of the local community Phase, which actively organizes events even beyond their hometown. We reached her online and discussed the community-building in a small town, starting a vinyl label, putting out your own music and everything in between.

<h2> The core of Phase</h2>

– How did Phase begin?

– The history of Phase begins in 2021, when we held our first party. I met these cool guys and we were all into music, but had nowhere to play it. At first, we just gathered in Andrei Lebed's garage and played for our own fun on his old CDJs. We were all into music and decided to start putting on our own parties. We were inspired by the examples of the Miensk events Mechta and Der Schein, that were showing us how it should be done. So, we decided it was time to create a scene in our own city and put it on the map of electronic Belarus. The first party on May 8, 2021, at Studio 23 was small – about 50 people – but it was a success. We had a great time and realized that we definitely needed to keep going. That's how the Phase community got started in a nutshell.

истоки команды phase (Lebed, Lwptch, Uglywhat, Antoni B, Straytees Thelenny2.jpeg

– Let's talk about your crew. Who is part of Phase?

– Andrei ‘Lebed’ is the champion of old-school sound, who holds the beauty of the music above all else. Andrei is all about old synthesizers and the 90's sound. He was always impressed with our dedication and how inspired each member of the crew was. It was truly his goal that we should all be making music. That's what got us to start our own label and put out compilations. All this wouldn't have happened, if it weren't for him.

Anton 'Antoni B', besides making music, is responsible for the artworks. He is a professional designer by trade. We see how he creatively develops within our community and regard his works as true art objects. Last year, we even held an exhibition of his posters at Modul. He currently lives in Gdańsk and he has been to our party in Pinsk only once.

Maksim ‘Lwptch’, Anton’s long-time friend, with a pseudonym based on one of his favorite production techniques – slowing down a track to give it a deeper sound.

One of the new members of Phase is Valia 'Valuta', who took it upon herself to revitalize our Soundcloud, when she noticed that we've sort of abandoned it. She’s a girl with a ton of enthusiasm, and she immediately had ideas for our podcast series. She arranged a mix from a great Columbian producer Leinad, that actually premiered right here on Radio Plato. The most recent podcast episode is by Adam Dado from Bali, and continuation of this series is coming up next. Follow us on Soundcloud so you don't miss it.

Arciom 'Uglevod' is another member of our crew. An electrician by day, he is in charge of the video projections at our parties.

As for me, before meeting the guys, I was involved in music too, but in a more commercial way, DJing pop tunes in bars. I was learning to mix on CDJs, but I had to travel to Miensk for that. At some point, I thought I would be better off finding someone in Pinsk to teach me, and that turned out to be Andrei. We started rehearsing in his garage on his old CDJs, and he opened my eyes and ears to a lot of new things. The type of music that I only heard at parties before, for example when I would travel to St.Petersburg and go to Blank club. I had no idea what was playing there but totally loved it.

– Why make and play music? Who is it for? What is your opinion on that?

– In Pinsk, people generally do not understand what underground music is, what an alternative sound could be. There simply are no places for young people with our kind of tastes to hang out at. We just wanted to do our own thing, to make something happen, promote the underground dance sound. Plus, we always felt that towns smaller than Miensk, Horadnia and Homiel are underrepresented on the scene.

– It's really cool to see the development of underground scenes in smaller towns, indeed. Although, Pinsk is not that small, is it?

– It's not, actually. Population is about 100,000 and it's close to both Bieraście and Miensk. Although, there isn't much happenning in Bieraście nowadays. Mahiloŭ just started organizing some raves. We've been following what's going on around the country. There was the first rave party in Baranavičy about a year ago, and I even got to play there. So, although Baranavičy is a bigger town than Pinsk, you can't say that about their local scene.

Lwptch & Mikava.jpeg

After we did three parties in Pinsk, we thought it's time to venture out and show ourselves to the world out there. So we contacted the guys from the Homiel venue Toast and organized our fourth event there. The party was dope and we received a very warm welcome from the local crew.

We established a good connection with the Homiel crew, they really influenced our team. Unfortunately, many of them have moved out of Belarus since. Homiel is close to the Ukrainian border, so many locals would famously take weaned party trips to Kyiv instead of Miensk. Overall, our Homiel venture was a real success, that got us props from the local community. As far as I know, it was their recommendation that landed us a gig in Modul in Miensk – our first showcase there. Modul promoters Gleb Gurami and Igor Shep liked us too and started supporting us, which really helped us to keep moving, when it felt like we hit the ceiling in Pinsk. Having established this Modul connection, we made four more parties there and then turned our sights to Horadnia. There, we did a showcase in the great local club Son. Later on we also got booked there separately as well. At a certain point, we would start going on mini-tours around the country: Homiel, Miensk, Horadnia. At the same time, we realized we need to keep doing parties in Pinsk, and not just representing it all over Belarus.

When the war in Ukraine broke out, part of our team fled the country and we decided to lay low for a while. But after a few months, as the summer came, we slowly began looking for new party ideas and opportunities in Pinsk. I rekindled my hookup at the Pripyat' hotel – a very cool scenic location with amazing views and great atmosphere. It was about this time we started pooling our resources together to get a soundsystem of our own. Some chipped in a bit of cash, others – equipment they could donate. Overall, we've been operating on a non-profit basis since the very beginning. If we break even after the party – great! If we're in the red – no big deal, we'll split the costs. But if we made a bit of money – amazing, that means we could invest in equipment or the next guest to invite. So, within last year we brought over about ten guest DJs from out of town. Now the expectation is there for us to keep bringing over guest DJs. What's nice is, we started getting feedback and overhearing the heated discussions among party-goers about who their favorite guest DJ was, who played what, etc. I think that's very cool.

Every year we do a secret location invite-only party in Pinsk in a very cool place. We DM you a road map with a short list of rules after you buy the ticket. That’s a guarantee of a great intimate time out and a filter from random party crashers.

серия вечеринок ДВИЖЕНИЕ (теплоход).jpeg

– Are there any particular organizational issues you run into when doing a secret location party?

– There are unforeseen issues to be dealt with in any location, to be honest. For example, with that party in the old hotel, a week before the event we find out that the building has no electricity. It's basically standing there semi-abandoned. Okay, now what do we do? Haul generators to the ninth floor? And this power outlet surprise keeps chasing us across various locations. The weather is, of course, a factor at outdoor events. Our first ever open-air party we organized in just four days, and it was October, so the nights were getting cold already. In spite of that, we really loved the place so we got to organizing the party with all of our enthusiasm. Plus, it was the day of the city festival with all of the officials coming to town. A bit of a bold decision on our part, but everything turned out great.

<h2>Beyond the Phase</h2>

– Is it fair to say that you have built a local following that pays close attention to what you are doing?

– Yes, we're happy to see both new and familiar faces ranging from 18-19 year-old kids to a more mature 30+ audience at our events. Another cool thing is that we see a lot of people coming from out of town for our Pinsk parties. Our last event was around 40 percent out-of-towners. Some come for the party and stay for the hang in the city for the whole weekend. More than once it was the audience that spurred us into action in moments of crisis or internal disagreements. Nothing gets you going like meeting random people on the street asking when is the next party saying 'It's high time for it, let's go!' It's a great motivator. Because organizing events is always stressful, with relief coming around midnight, the day of the event, when you see the turnout with your own eyes. This is, perhaps, a Pinsk thing – coming to the party early and staying until about 3 AM. Which kind of reminds me of Bali. I went to Bali together with Vala 'Valuta' and Maksim ‘Lwptch’, where we met and played with Adam Dado, who, by the way, recorded a mix for the third installment of our podcast series. He runs a record shop called Ricecooker and a label down in Bali.

– I heard that you have also expanded your DJing geography beyond Belarus not only on that occasion?

– Yes, this summer we also played at Crackhouse in Gdańsk, Poland as a Phase showcase featuring Thelenny, Valuta, Mikava and Okravan. Initially, we have been representing Pinsk, but right about that time we started thinking about expanding the roster and collaborating with talented new artists from other places. We decided to invite Mikava, who we knew from parties at Accidental Point in Miensk, just because we liked him and his music. So, imagine my surprise, when he told me he is from Pinsk and actually thought that that is why we invited him.

Crackhouse is a great world-class club located in a very scenic spot. I heard many consider it one of the best clubs in Poland. We played the outdoor patio dancefloor, and the main dancefloor had these banging 150 bpm techno DJs all night. It was a hot summer day, but we decided to go buy some warmer clothes, when we checked the weather and saw that the seaside temperatures dropped to 10°C at night. Not sure if it was the weather or the competition with the main dancefloor, but we weren't playing to a packed crowd that night. Nonetheless, it was really fun, and we were happy to see local party-goers from Horadnia who came to support us. As for playing abroad in general, I think that whole chapter is still in our future.

серия вечеринок МОСТ (dj Thelenny).jpeg

<h2>Vinyl affairs</h2>

– Tell us about the vinyl record you put out.

– Back in 2022 we set up a label we called Twigs and Water and released our first compilation EP with tracks by four artists: Void Cells, Danilenko, Lebed and Ukrainian techno powerhouse Stanislav Tolkachev. We combined our efforts to put out this 300-copy run, Anton did the cool graphic design, and I think we did a good job. We always thought that starting a vinyl label in Pinsk would be amazing. Anyway, it's probably up to the listeners to say how amazing it actually turned out.

We were thrilled when we received the test press. After finally checking it on a soundsystem at Modul and approving it, it was exciting to see the record available for pre-order in such a highly respected Berlin record store as Hardwax. So, we're waiting for our 70 copies to arrive, as agreed with the distributor, when all of a sudden the war breaks out. The release date was a week before February, 24. Some time passes and we receive customs clearance papers from the customs office. A turn we were not expecting; we stupidly did everything ourselves for the first time without consulting anyone. Dealing with that was the last thing on our minds back in those heavy days, so when we finally got to sorting it out, the customs responded they showed no record of such parcel in their storage. So it must have been sent back, right? We contact the distributor and get the same reply. Then we contacted UPS, who was handling this delivery to track the package, and found out they had ceased operations in our country due to the war. That's where the trace of our 70 records gets lost to this day. Moreover, our distributor also cut ties with Russia and Belarus, which killed our plans for the second release, and the money is stuck unreachable somewhere in the distributor's accounts. It's very sad that we couldn't even give the artists their copies. At least, we got the test press out of it. Had we started the whole process just a week later, we wouldn't have received and approved the test press in time, and the record would have never seen the light of day.

показ постеров Mybrotherdesigner, он же член команды Antony B (в Модуле) .jpeg

– How would you describe the current state of electronic music and the event scene in Belarus?

– The last three years that we have been active I would call a steady decline. If before we had big events like Mechta and Siyanie bringing in big international artists, nowadays it's not really clear if an event of that scale could work. Plus, of course, people are still leaving the country en masse and this trend, sadly, shows no signs of stopping. Thus, the audience changes and tastes seem to change too. It looks like everyone wants to go hard now – more distortion, higher BPMs. And people come to hang out more than to appreciate the music, it seems.

– What is your advice to young people who want to start organizing their own underground events in their small towns, instead of flocking to the capital?

– In my opinion, the most important thing is to actually start. Make those first steps. Once the event is in motion, you already begin to get the feedback, and that's a key thing.