Cxemcast 093 – Anthony Junkoid
Interviewed by Amina Ahmed.
12.12.2022

Cxemcast 093 – Anthony Junkoid
Interviewed by Amina Ahmed.
12.12.2022



Gossiwor — Oceana, Pt. 1

Orcœur — Salle De Jeux

Ausschuss — Peaks

Fantasias Animadas — Camp Fire (La Escana)

Sunun — Korona Blues feat. Guest (Vocal Edit)

Employee — Wutai Tape Mix (Neewt's Psychic South Mix)

NOT399093 — Blind Bright Codex Building

Plead Slyngshot Neewt — Studio Relief

Visio — Youth Grows Forever

1995 Epilepsy — Liberties

Marcelline & Sunatirene — A Spell, A Rare Sound

E.A.R.L. — Rosa Del Inca

 


Where are you now? Have you gone out anywhere since the beginning of the full-scale invasion?

 

I am in Boiarka now, a small town near Kyiv. I have been here almost since the beginning of the full-scale war. That’s my home; my parents live here.

I didn't go anywhere; we stayed here all the time. We all stuck together even though, just in March 2022, brutal battles were taking place nearby; planes exploded in the sky, rockets flew, and our house was shaking from the sounds of gunshots. We supported each other, read the news, and joked. My father and I worked in the garden. Sometimes we walked around the district near the lakes. Many people left; it was deserted and unusual but somehow calm.

 

How has your life actually changed after February 24?

 

My girlfriend has moved abroad, and I can't see many close friends like I used to. I began to read more during power outages, by candlelight, or from the phone.

 

What exactly are you reading?

 

The most interesting of the latter is the biography of the Dutch visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, written from the perspective of psychiatry at the beginning of the 20th century. I also read one of the issues of the Outsider music magazine, which was published in Kyiv in the 2000s and wrote about experimental music.

 

Has your attitude towards music changed? Maybe your preferences have changed?

 

No, it hasn't changed. I'm interested in music as much as before. In the first days of the war, of course, it wasn’t of primary importance; any sound could cause fear. But pretty soon, everything returned to its place, and the music in my room started to play again: at first, less dancing, and then dancing music, too.


I’d like to note the releases of the Tax-Free Records and Termina labels. It’s a cool leftfield electronica with a jazz vibe that hangs somewhere between a delicate mutant-dub, strange groove-house, and ambient funk. There’s a very calming effect in the transparent minimal folk and avant-wave from the Swedish label Discreet Music. I recommend this good music to everyone as an audio therapy. Among our artists, I can highlight the excellent album of the all options project by members of the Pep Gaffe community, as well as the super-powerful performance of the grindcore band Subscum that happened at the beginning of autumn at the Otel’ club.


In the summer and early autumn, you regularly performed at various parties. How do you think it’s ethical to hold such events now?

 

At summer events, where I had to go and speak, it was very nice to see many lively people: new beautiful faces, hundreds of smiles, kisses, and hugs.

 

What do you think is the role of music and other arts during the war?

 

In my opinion, the role of music (and art in general) during the war is to inform, to communicate to people that regardless of anything, life exists and that no one can kill it.

 

How do you think in which way the full-scale invasion will affect or has already affected Ukrainian culture and its representation? What changes have you already noticed?

 

Perhaps, the war will speed up self-identification, reject everything excessive and add neuroticism and worries. At first, I saw a big creative splash. Now, there’s a kind of quietness. Let's see what happens next.

  

You are a cofounder of OKO online media. And, as I know, did you leave the project?

 

Yes, I almost don’t do OKO now; my friend and partner Tymosha Chernychko does it now in the format of an Instagram page.


At OKO, on the one hand, I was involved in a kind of cultural enlightenment, and on the other, it was a study of the cultural field of the modern Internet community. Publishing a wide variety of content that illustrates the amazing absurdity of modern times, I tried to draw the attention of subscribers to the non-obvious, unusual, and often not quite attractive peculiarities of our lives, to show their importance and inextricable connection with our consciousness.


I didn't leave OKO. It’s just that the public page has changed. The former activity in Vkontakte makes no sense, and the other OKO platforms are less interesting to me (due to censorship). And Tymosha deals with them to the best of his ability.

 

How did you divide the work on the page?

 

We never had any agreements. We collaborated in complete trust in each other's tastes; our intuition never let us down. It was really wonderful and joyful. The only thing we kept an eye on was to avoid repetitions in the publications. Besides, Tymosha, as the most sensitive editor in the world, maintained the necessary aesthetic balance by correcting my unrestrained publications.

 

Will you continue to run the Bluzhdaiushchaia Audiozapis (Wandering Audio—ed.) public page?

 

I left it in far 2015, although I briefly returned to it in 2017. After that, I was writing music reviews for OKO, and then I stopped doing it at all. There I published reviews and critiques of releases that were interesting to me, of music that excited and touched me. Besides me, several other authors wrote there, each in their own melomaniac style. My texts, what and how I wrote, became popular among readers after some time. It was an unexpected and very inspiring experience that combined my love for music and literature, an opportunity to share my inner world, and capture and open the veil of mystery. It was fun. The work I started there led me eventually to 20ft Radio, where I continue to broadcast common musical discoveries in my show. I also have a Telegram channel UNAUSSPRECHLICHEN KULTEN, dedicated to this project. In addition, since the spring of 2022, I have been involved in the creation of Grains of Peace, a series of mixes from the international music community with anti-stress, calming content. I participated in the creation of the concept of the project and the selection of artists.

 

I also saw your ULTIMO MONDO OBSCURA channel. Tell us more about it. Are you working on other projects?

 

It is a gallery of obscure enchantment where I collect examples of visual aesthetics which is close to me. The Telegram channel appeared with the beginning of COVID restrictions in the spring of 2020. I was sitting at home and decided to organise my visual preferences in the form of a Telegram channel.


Even earlier, I created the ONI (They—ed.) channel about people's encounters with ultra-beings. It is about the phenomenon of ‘aliens’. I don't know what kind of creatures they are. I don't think they are creatures at all. It’s an incomprehensible phenomenon that humanity has faced at all times of existence. Knowing that these facts are treated with irony, at best, I am deeply convinced, this is one of the main unsolved mysteries of our world. In the channel I collect the most amazing and absurd facts about such encounters. Maybe later, there will be some analytics.


And finally, I will add that I, and my like-minded people, hold literary readings in the Boiarka forest. They were started by my friend, Boiarka’s writer and artist, Andrii Strakhov. Besides the two of us, there are several regular participants from among our close, like-minded people. A few times a year, we gather in the forest and share our works. They are listened to by friends, friends of friends, and sometimes by passers-by. Anyone who will come can read what regards to be necessary. Over the past couple of years, there were several interesting meetings that became a base for the almanac Pamorok including the works of the participants. Fifty copies of the publication were sold out in advance. Now we are preparing for a new meeting and plan to publish one more collection.


Where do you find material for your public pages?

 

Since I have been engaged in this kind of research for quite a long time, I’m subscribed to many blogs. I am a member of various forums and communities and continue to find new similar formations both in social networks and the unknown depths of the Internet. This almost daily trip takes from several to ten hours. Sometimes I take a break, an internet detox.

 

Why do you like to do it?

 

For me, it’s an important part of my life, a kind of scientific research, an endless trip to study imagination and human cognition. And I really like both the opportunity to share my findings and the opportunity to continue an infinite search inside and outside of life.

 

Finally, please, tell us about the mix. Maybe somebody of the artists is specifically interesting to you?

 

I was thinking a lot about what this mix should be like. Maybe, it should be ambient, maybe more or less experimental. As a result, the tracks that I had accumulated during one of the web surfing sessions took the form, literally in an hour, of a coherent story. Back then, I often talked with friends who had difficulties in relationships. We shared our stories, reflected, got upset, and tried not to be sad. So, probably, my mix is about it. It's about relationships between close people against the background of social upheavals.


Among the artists whose tracks were included in the mix, I would highlight two: Fantasias Animadas, an experimental minimal house from Argentina in the 90s, and 1995 Epilepsy, a disturbing, cinematic D&B, released by Dean Blunt's label in 2020.

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