GULIAGAVA | VINYL RECORD (LP)

"Guliagava, by Natalie Beridze, TBA, Tusia Beridze is like her previous albums, it was recorded in Tbilisi, south-easternmost Europe. The Georgian metropolis is far from pop-cultural arteries, nevertheless it's youth observes precisely what is happening outside, and installs that otherness in their own world with a delicate hand. Yet they never run the risk of piddly writing a diary, on the contrary, they again make this now expanded own, this enriched own available for the outside world. Natalie Beridze's cooperation with Monika Enterprise began in 2005 - she was one of four artists on the compilation 4 Women No Cry Vol.1. Her album Forgetfulness followed in 2010. Over the last two years Beridze produced Guliagava. Three pieces - "Museum On Your Back", "Those Things", "Opening Night" - were created with Gacha Bakradze. "Opening Night" is also part of the soundtrack to the award-winning film When the Earth Seems to Be Light by Salome Machaidze, David Meskhi and Tamuna Karumidze. The song "Hello" Beridze wrote with Gio Koridze, a student at Tbilisi's media university CES, where she teaches composition. The words to "Fishermen 2015" come from the farewell letter of a Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean. Guliagava is a fantasy word that Natalie Beridze's little daughter Lea once seemed to hear in a Russian lullaby. She speaks the word Guliagava when she needs comfort, when she needs a hand to cling to. Natalie Beridze's music is of a rare, bewitching beauty - even when her beats are shredded or when she rocks with an abrasive four-to-the-floor. She moves within her own characteristic tonality of diminished chords that frequently extends into the minor harmony - a tonality within which an unsettling, questioning undertone often resonates alongside the sense of melancholic longing. In her older releases lines could be drawn to IDM and Broken Beats or Detroit Techno, and an admiration for musicians such as Autechre, Aphex Twin or the Cocteau Twins could be detected, here there is a suggestion of R&B over dubstep. But it's a kind R&B over Dubstep based on the bold assumption that both styles clearly trace their lineage to Kate Bush. Her vocals have never been so animated, her songwriting has never sounded so complete, and her arrangements, for all their complexity, have never been so round. Guliagava is Beridze's tenth album and it is nothing less than her masterpiece." - Andreas Reihse (2016)