Oh, how tempting for a musician a path of imitating the effect of the music that inspires him. However, the result of such activities is usually a dopey, flat, diffident epigone which stands for "I can also do that" rather than for "This is my music!" The others' fire can't burn you down, but simply keeps you warm.

To an inattentive ear the music of Matsutake might sound a bit like 70s prog- and kraut-rock, a bit like electronics from 90s with a touch of shoegaze... But something is wrong on all levels: while the details are quite bizzare (the textures are holey, the rhythms stumble upon themselves, and the dissonant stumps stick out from every second melodic passage), on a higher level this wild bush is actually very well groomed. Its seemingly unbridled, pert and uncontrolled character in fact hides a bunch of energy, which is highly confident in its development and never doubts about the direction where to make the next step.

And, well, that's the thing - it is not just "all is possible" approach, but is organic or - if you prefer - ecological imitation. In other words - it's not an imitation of some particular music, but taking its very essence, processing by (milled through?) author's aesthetic sensors and giving birth to a new independently functioning organism. Not a genetically modified product, but organically raised mutant claiming his own place under the sun.

This kind of imitation is not an acknowledgment of creative helplessness and not a surrender to the problem of self-expression - it's rather letting the music from the past intrude naturally into creative process. But nobody kneel down before it - instead it's being honestly and saucily exploited. It's highly recommended to feel sincere curiosity and optimism towards an ecological imitation.

written by Denis Kolokol