Sketch by Thelma Cudlipp for Emily Burbank's Woman as Decoration, 1920
Between 2000 and 2005, Toronto songwriter Matthew Adam Hart recorded three amazing album of electronic bedroom pop under the name the Russian Futurists. Then he stopped releasing albums - I'm not sure what the deal is with that. He posted a blog entry almost two years ago saying that his next record was finished and called The Weight's on the Wheels, but no details have been forthcoming. I listened to an interview with him from a month ago, and he didn't mention any upcoming releases. I wonder if he ended up in some kind of legal trouble - it wouldn't be totally shocking, considering how some of his best songs are built on a very conspicuous samples.
"2 Dots on a Map", the last song on the last Russian Futurists album, is one such song. It starts with a loop of what sounds like a '70s ballad with an orchestral backing and a female singer repeating an only-partially-intelligible phrase. The best moment in the song is when Hart adds a heavy drum line on top of this loop, immediately transforming an ethereal wisp of melody into something much more substantial. The verses feature Hart's thin but not off-putting voice singing a few simple lines about lost love, including the nice lyric, "We're wasting our lives and the space between us sings." On the song's outro, the elements of the arrangement drop away until that looped sample is all that's left. I just hope it's not the last Russian Futurists song we ever get to hear.
"2 Dots on a Map" by the Russian Futurists
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