USOM. In Search of Like-Minded People

Thank you for the congratulations. Naturally, we wanted to achieve something big, but that it would happen so fast, in just a year, we did not expect. The project started in May 2007. We (the DJ duo Abelle & Beekeeper – ed.), with our underground component, met with two other people. One of them is Sergey Maximov, who was involved in promoting various parties. He was always a bit afraid to go into the underground, because he believed that only commerce could flourish in Moscow. But at the same time he already had experience in promotion, he had people who followed him, a kind of starting promoter's capital. The second was Serge Que, who brought the first connections with Western booking agencies and also partly helped us get started. Everything came together – the right people met, and they managed to throw the first party. After that we realised we wanted to keep going in the same vein, announced the creation of the project and started working.

We occupied a vacant niche.

Yes, for Moscow we positioned it as underground non-commercial music. But here's the paradox – what we here in Moscow call underground is, all over the world, mainstream and very much commercial music.

Nowadays there are no pure styles left, so it's very hard to pin a label on it. Some call it progressive (for example, Steve Lawler), some – techno... There's no clearly established definition now. All contemporary music absorbs the best of various styles and exists at the junction of techno, house, progressive, minimal. It's become slower, it's become deeper. All over the world it's mainstream, that is, music played by the very top DJs, such as Sasha, Steve Lawler, Digweed – DJs who draw huge crowds and receive huge fees. This is commercial music, these are discs that sell in huge print runs. But in Moscow, for some reason, there's a shortage of precisely this kind of music. Techno culture in its pure form was quite strongly developed; if we talk about underground – minimal. Vocal house of the Hed Kandi format was well represented. But this kind of music just wasn't there.

This label is closest to us in spirit, and it's precisely this sound that we love most. Many clubbers have no opportunity to break out of Russian reality and visit the best clubs in the world. We were lucky – thanks to work that wasn't connected with electronic music, we travelled a lot. And since we loved electronic music, wherever we ended up we would always go to a club and see what was going on there. This broadened our club horizons, and at some point we realised that something was catastrophically missing in Moscow. If you want to go to a club, you don't know where to go. This music that we love was missing. We had no conscious decision that now we'd go and bring this to the masses. We started with small parties for friends in little cafés for 30 people, where we simply played the music we like. And gradually we realised that not only we liked it, and that more and more people wanted to take part in it.

We're already successfully working with three international brands. Somewhere on our own, somewhere in cooperation with a few other Russian promo groups – Cocoon we do jointly with Now&Wow, Renaissance is done only by USOM. And there's also one Spanish brand, Matinee. True, it's not exactly underground music, it's fun parties that take place during the day on Sundays at Space, in Barcelona, in London and so on. We liked them for their atmosphere. We signed a long-term contract with them too. We'll be doing four parties this year. There are lots of plans. We want to bring more Western culture into the country.

Maybe the stars do come, but simply bringing a top star is not enough for Moscow people to understand how truly cool it can be! A party is an art. To bring an artist over doesn't take much brains. But to make the party a complete picture from beginning to end – that's quite hard. You need to think everything through down to the smallest details – from the first sounds of the party to its very end, the atmosphere, the decor, the lighting and so on, so that everything in the club helps you understand the music, feel good. The success of a party depends on a thousand conditions, and only meeting all these conditions can produce that state of absolute happiness that we try to give the people who come to our clubs. Everything matters here: how you met the artist, where you put him up, where you took him for lunch, in what mood he'll enter the DJ booth, what music he'll hear before his set. If it's not his kind of music at all, he might start playing completely differently, out of his element, and won't be able to show himself as a DJ, to give the music he really wants to play. It matters what audience you gather, how you announce yourselves, how you convey what to expect at the party. The entrance to the club matters, and the work of the bartenders, security and staff. Unfortunately, very many promoters in Russia pay no attention to such things, which decide a great deal. At present numerous debates are going on among our public about the top DJs performing for us. The thing is, many people heard these DJs for the first time as they really are, when they don't need to adapt to our Moscow reality. They play what they play all over the world, and for many this comes as a surprise. And we're now trying very hard to develop our public, so that it's ready for the new sound, because you can get much more pleasure from it. But this is a long road, one you can't travel even in a year. We've heard these words more than once: 'Guys, in one year you're trying to cover what others cover in 15 years.' I won't say it comes easy to us. There's still a lot of work ahead.

There are too many of them now, but to the best of our ability we pay attention to those young DJs who get in touch with us. We hold experienced Russian DJs in great respect, but we want to gather young blood around us, form a fresh outlook and find common interests. We're very glad when we find talented guys. Recently our list of residents was joined by the project Organola.

Hard to say... Probably at some point you realise that this is becoming your life, and everything else recedes into the background. People quit their main job, start doing music round the clock.

We try to have nothing to do with that. A DJ must be true to himself, to his feelings, his taste, to what's in his head. Only then will he become a good DJ. If he follows the public's lead, nothing good will come of it. The public often wants simpler, more hit-laden music. But if you don't develop the public and lead it along, there's a chance of stagnating together with it. If an artist is true to himself and leads people along, he develops himself and can grow into something great. There's no other way. That's why we try to work with people who share our views on music, party organisation and so on. We don't need to break anyone or force them to fit us. Naturally, with the young guys we start working with, we have a talk to get to know their opinion on key questions better, and also tell them about the fundamental points of our work. These are certain general rules of club culture that we try to cultivate here, in Russia, in Moscow. For example, at our club there's a rule that the first 3 tracks must be beatless, just beautiful electronica. After all, someone comes to the party first, and in the still-empty room they shouldn't be deafened by the pounding of the kick; atmospheric music is needed.

There was nothing here – just bare walls, a concrete floor and a pillar in the middle. When we found this venue, we fell in love with it at first sight. It's as if it was created precisely for a club. We got to work immediately: in a month the initial renovation was done, which will gradually continue until September. We're now operating as a club and finishing the building at the same time.

We really like the concept of London's The End; in spirit it's one of the closest clubs. We also really like Space Miami, Womb in Tokyo and Warung Beach in Brazil. These are, probably, the four main clubs we look up to and perceive as kindred spirits. Moreover, we'd like to do some joint programmes with these clubs. To carry out some kind of club exchange – to put on their 'away' parties in Moscow.

The public, of course, changes, grows together with us, and that's gratifying. There's a certain core that's been with us from the first days, and they too have come a long way. Their perception has changed. It's nice that the audience expands with every day. This allowed us to open such a large venue, which we can fill without difficulty with our like-minded people.

It's hard to make predictions, especially in Moscow, but our plans stretch further than a year. We want to bring this venue to some logical completion.

In terms of atmosphere we liked the USOM Birthday most – an amazing friendly atmosphere, everyone on the same wavelength, in a single impulse, there was wonderful music. We managed to build the line-up very well. Marcus James opened, then 16 Bit Lolitas played, and after that Jim Rivers. From the first to the last sound, musically, everything was perfect. Probably that party gave us the most pleasure. On the other hand, the loudest party was with Sven Väth – at the very limit of the club's capacity. There were around 2200–2300 people. At two in the morning we had to close both entrances because of that many people. But the purest impressions are still from the last party. Probably that's how it should be – each new party better than the last.

Not yet, unfortunately.

We need time and a greater number of like-minded people. There are pockets of culture here, but we need more, so that we move together in one direction, rooting out bad taste and cheap music.