An-2 on his own

In the run-up to the concert of the St. Petersburg electronic project An-2 at the club Ikra, Andrey Zakharov, its sole member, talked about his life and his music.

Everything that happened to me in the early 2000s can be called feeling out the surrounding world blindly — first steps. Even then I didn't really understand myself what I wanted from life, and when I started to understand, it became clear that doing it in Russia is impossible, and impossible because we live in an amazing country with amazing people who don't yet understand what they want from life. To say that I've completely reoriented toward abroad and the single label WasNotWas wouldn't be quite right. It's hard to say what I orient toward at all. Probably just toward making my music accessible to as many people in the world as possible, and that's purely technically easier to do from over there. At WordAndSound I met people to whom nothing needed to be explained. It was as if they'd been sitting and waiting for me to come to them myself, so the relationship clicked into place at the first kick. This episode of my life will soon end with a final scene (and this already concerns the next part of your question) — soon my new album will come out on WasNotWas, which will include the most successful tracks from the singles that have come out over the last 3 years on WasNotWas and Theomatic. The latter is my own label, which I'm currently getting on its feet and to which I plan to devote most of my time in the future.

At the moment I don't perform very often. The thing is, over the last few years I've changed my place of residence twice and turned my life 180 degrees, and in between I was busy exclusively with studio work — there was a great deal to be done. I had to blow off clubs and club life a bit, since I simply had no strength left for it physically. Now that life has become more stable (it would be more correct to say that I've simply adapted to its constant instability), the situation with this will change. I'm amazed at how well-informed you are and I suspect who the informant is :) Yes, at the moment I live outside St. Petersburg. I don't play the grand piano yet, though it's high time to start — I feel that I've begun to run up against my lack of serious technique on live instruments. My day-job is my music; I used to work mostly at night, but now I've felt clearly that it flows better by day.

Friends and acquaintances informed me of these facts at the time. At first I got somewhat tense, but then I realized that those who need to won't mix me up with anyone.

What influences me and how is probably easier for the listener to determine; I myself can hardly track it, since I don't consciously try to imitate anyone. I don't count myself as part of any scene, but you can hardly say I'm in a vacuum. On the contrary — that state where you wall yourself off and confine yourself within certain stylistic frames (and revel in yourself and your highbrow obscurity) is more like a vacuum.

My reference points lie far beyond the bounds of dance music and, probably, of music in general. It's just that for now, with my coarse perception, I receive the signal from these reference points precisely at the level of dance music (music that's listened to at levels approaching a hundred decibels and to which you dance with your body), but everything is changing… Matthew Herbert is a man who doesn't stand still and didn't stop at dance music; he stepped over it and withdrew into more serious projects. Not a bad reference point either :)

As a DJ I play music that gives you no hangover. Mature, well-aged — it's hard to explain more precisely. Abroad I haven't played all that much yet, mostly in Germany. Vincenzo and I had lunch together once, and we haven't met since. In general, in dance music it's rarely the case that everyone is bosom buddies. If only purely on the surface. Chatting is interesting, of course, but by and large everyone is busy with his own thing.

Club Ikra, March 17, from 1:00 to 7:00 "Electroshik": AN-2