THESE THINGS CANNOT BE REPEATED

“You can’t have a road trip without music,” says Christopher Herwig. “When you’re driving for ten hours every day, for two weeks straight, you better have some good mixtapes.”

There are few who know the importance of this more than Herwig. For over twenty years he has been painstakingly and obsessively traversing the 15 countries which were once part of the Soviet Union on the hunt for one thing: bus stops. From Ukraine to Uzbekistan, Armenia to far eastern Siberia and everywhere in between, Herwig has been photographing unique, strangely beautiful – and increasingly disappearing – bus stops from the Soviet era.

It has resulted in two books along the way and now a new documentary, seven years in the making. Soviet Bus Stops finds Herwig tirelessly tracking down leads, driving endlessly down perilously icy roads, shovelling snow out from submerged tires with his hands and attempting to communicate with confused locals in primitive Russian.

“Since no one has really done such an extensive collection before, there really isn’t a good archive or a database out there to base your searches on,” he says. “So, a lot of the bus stops you just kind of stumble upon.” But even stumbling upon them can take a huge amount of effort. “One of the keys is always just to get off the main roads,” he says. “Because typically on the main roads they would have been redone and all the old bus stops would have been torn down. It’s more the smaller communities in the country roads and out of the way places where sometimes there will be thousands of kilometres of literally nothing. Then it hits you, like, oh my God, how do I get out of here?”

However, after travelling over 50,000 km through this vast territory, Herwig finds that there’s always a pay-off with enough perseverance. “You may come to a section, just a mile or two, and every 200 metres there will be something new,” he says. “And it’s like, wow – it’s like an art gallery out here. There are no towns or anything, just these bus stops lined up every 200 metres. You think: how and why is this possible?”

For two decades, Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig has been documenting the idiosyncratic bus stop architecture of the former Soviet Union, capturing examples of unique and geographically-specific creativity emerging from right beneath the gaze of authoritarian power. A new documentary charts his extraordinary mission – accompanied by an equally extraordinary soundtrack that could not have been produced under any other circumstances, by Daniel Dylan Wray. Photography by Herwig/Fuel Publishing

When he does land on a particularly special one, it’s elating. “It’s more rewarding because you really feel like you’ve discovered something,” he says. “There are people who want to be an adventurer or an explorer but then everybody is like, ‘Oh, you know, Everest has been climbed – everything’s been done.’ Well, there’s a lot of things you can do on a smaller scale that can still give you that sense of being an explorer, that you are discovering something. I can’t really think of a project that could beat one to death quite like this but still has the same level of personal enjoyment all these years on.”

The stereotype of Soviet architecture (which contains some truth, for civilians at least) is that it was often uniform and utilitarian rather than grand, colourful and unique. Like many things in the USSR, architecture and urban planning were strictly supervised by central government, but as Herwig says, “Sometimes the benign bus stops were overlooked.” As a result, hundreds of these distinctive bus stops are now to be found all across the former Soviet Republics. “Built by individuals who decided to follow their own artistic urges,” says Herwig, “they found a way of expressing local and artistic ideas, in this small form. Their bus stops were built as quiet acts of creativity against overwhelming state control.”

However, the sheer difficulty of finding these oftenremote bus stops was not the only hurdle in Herwig’s neverending quest; local people sometimes objected too. In the documentary he can be seen being ushered away impatiently, almost angrily, by one market trader whose stall sits in front of the bus stop Herwig is hoping to shoot. “I kind of understand where they’re coming from,” he says. “I mean, the bus stops are run down or often someone has used it as a bathroom, they look kind of rough, they’re not in their best shape. Also, people don’t see it as part of a bigger collection, it’s always just been that one bus stop. So, for them, it’s like: this is definitely not special, this is just the bus stop.”

There’s often a worry that the photos are intended to mock or caricature the often desperately poor communities – the ‘poverty porn’ argument. “There’s always this fear from people,” says Herwig, “that when you’re photographing stuff that is old and broken down, you’re going to take the picture back to your own country and you’re going to show how poor and sad looking their country is. I have had that explained to me in those words. Even though I try to say I’m genuinely interested in the architecture and I think this is really beautiful, people often wouldn’t get it and I do find that quite sad and frustrating.” In some areas, the bus stops are actively disliked and frequently torn down.

There are of course other reasons why some may not have much love for the bus stops. While many are the work of individual artists and architects, some of whom Herwig tracks down in the documentary, some were seen as material expressions of Soviet propaganda. “When it comes to places in the Ukraine or Georgia, I can totally understand that people would want to tear them down,” he says. “When they see it, they actually just see the Soviet Union and think of the Russian Empire and occupation. So in that respect, I find the whole thing, all of this, really quite heartbreaking.”

YOU MAY BE reaching this point and thinking, “Yes, this is all well and good, but why is it in a music magazine?” Well, the Soviet Bus Stops documentary also includes a uniquely musical element that is also rooted in discovering forgotten treasures of the USSR – in this instance the Latvian space disco outfit Zodiac.

Herwig found their 1980 debut album Disco Alliance in an old Moscow shop. From the hypnotic, chugging groove of opening track ‘Zodiac’ – think Kraftwerk meets Patrick Cowley and Cluster – he became besotted. “I felt a connection in that discovery process as I did with the bus stops,” he says. “The concrete nature of a lot of the bus stops, along with the utopian, futuristic, almost space themes that get repeated in the music – I just felt that this music fitted very well.”

Zodiac were formed by Jānis Lūsēns in 1979, who was then studying composition at the Latvian State Conservatory in Riga and called upon his student friends to flesh out the project into a band. Herwig tracked him down and asked if the music could soundtrack the film, and now a standalone soundtrack album has been put together. It includes 13 remastered versions of Zodiac’s Soviet-era works alongside new compositions written especially for the documentary.

While Zodiac may have been a golden crate-digging find for Herwig, having been previously unknown to him, in their own unique way this band were huge. While the name may not be widely recognised in the EU and US, during the Soviet Union they were monstrously big, with their debut album selling 20 million copies. For context, that’s roughly the same number as Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here or Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and only just behind Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?.

“We broke the old Soviet music traditions,” says Lūsēns, who worked in collaboration with his son Jānis Lūsēns Junior (who also translates for us) on the new project. “After that a lot of bands sprung up, looking for their own musical style.”

Making or listening to music could be a challenge during these times – especially if that music could be deemed ‘Western’ in any way. However, Lūsēns was inspired by the records that were slipping through the cracks. “The Soviet Union was behind the Iron Curtain at that time but records were imported here,” he says. “Sailors did it, and diplomats did. The discs thus found their way to record duplicators who made illegal copies and traded them illegally. It was all piracy.” There were three acts that really stuck out for Lūsēns. “I liked the melodism of Space, the atmosphere of Tangerine Dream and the image of Kraftwerk,” he says.

Yet going into the studio and making electronic music was not straightforward in those days. “As we were living in a closed-off country, no foreign consumer electronics were available legally to us,” says Lūsēns. “Foreign synthesisers were imported by diplomats who sold them here for extremely high prices, which of course for us was not an option.” The answer? To build something themselves “from available electronic parts from the Soviet army.”

A Latvian electronics enthusiast called Feliks Stagnevics created the first synth prototype for the group in this way. “If in the United States this is done by numerous researchers and scientists with a lot of resources available, then here it was done by one person,” recalls Lūsēns. The result is a device that sounds like no other – because there literally is no other like it. “These sounds cannot be repeated,” says Lūsēns. “This instrument is unique.”

With this distinctive sound, the band soon hit a nerve and began to blow up, releasing their debut album Disco Alliance in 1980. Their record sales were remarkable and they performed on television; their success was a minor miracle given the circumstances. “We need to understand that the Soviet Union was a closed-off territory with KGB agents and people who could snitch you out from every gathering,” says Lūsēns. “However, those who did not openly express any antiSoviet slogans or did not openly go against the regime were relatively left alone and just observed. Also, it was lyrics that were subject to censorship. As we had no lyrics, this really did not affect us.”

The result was a record rooted in distinctly Western sensibilities, playing in the homes of millions. “The phenomenon of this was the fact that the people were tired of the content of the Soviet popular music,” says Lūsēns. “We created a feeling that finally in Soviet music shops there is a Western album available.”

However, all the things you may associate with an album blowing up and selling 20 million copies – fame, wealth, glamour, worldwide tours – did not materialise. “There were offers from USSR concert organisers,” recalls Lūsēns, “but we were not allowed to leave our studies, because then we would have had to serve in the Soviet army – nobody wanted that. And all of the income from the record remained in the common treasury of the USSR.” The band continued to release music up until 1992 but never quite matched the success of Disco Alliance and its futuristic grooves.

For Herwig, he draws a parallel between the maverick designers behind his beloved bus stops and the woozy space disco that has come to soundtrack it. “Looking back you realise how really experimental Zodiac was,” he says. “Building a synthesiser from scratch because they couldn’t get a real one –that spirit of creativity, I thought was just a perfect fit.”

The Rates: Protomartyr

Each month we ask an artist or group to share three musicians they think have gone underappreciated and three new names who they hope will avoid a similar fate. Joe Casey and Greg Ahee from Detroit band Protomartyr discuss their selections with Theo Gorst

Ahead of the release of Detroit art-rock group Protomartyr’s sixth full-length record, the excellent Formal Growth in the Desert, I’m sitting down with vocalist Joe Casey and guitarist Greg Ahee to chat about six underrated artists both old and new. The eclectic choices they offer helpfully lay markers as to how the band have arrived at their distinct and densely layered sound.

From starting out on the Detroit house show scene, the band have evolved into a polished touring machine. Whilst his movements are clipped and deliberate there’s a remarkable and seething intensity to Casey’s performance style, while Ahee (along with bassist Scott Davidson and drummer Alex Leonard) is responsible for a sound that deals equally in dread and violence. In person, Casey and Ahee are remarkably approachable, conversational and engaging, and before getting on to their artist choices we touch upon their concerns surrounding the band’s viability. “We got jaded with the grind pre-Covid,” says Casey, “and then sorely missed the grind when everything closed. Now things have opened again, we have to be careful not to get burnt out.” my voice on tour… maybe that’s all the smoking and drinking.

In spite of this caution, the duo seem adamant that creating their latest offering was the only way to channel the difficulties presented by the last few years. The following selections from them go some way towards showing how they arrived at such a richly textured sound. We start with their three new artists.

Pascal was playing a show in LA and she posted that it was with Immortal Nightbody; I listened and thought, “Oh, this is interesting and weird”, and then saw that he’d released a ton of albums over the past two or three years. I fell down the rabbit hole really quickly and was listening to this a lot right around when we were finishing writing this new album. He’s awesome.

I love his type of outsider art where he can put out anything he’s feeling and change his direction constantly. He started off as just some weird rap, post-punk thing, but the last two releases have been intense industrial goth. We asked him to open up for us on our last US tour and he was great. Theo Gorst: Speaking of rap, ‘Fun In Hi Skool’ (off of Formal Growth in the Desert) made me think of Billy Woods. The first two thirds of that song could be the backing track to a sparse and sinister rap track. GA: That was intentional. I remember when we were finishing writing the album I drove to upstate New York to see a movie, and the hugeness of a couple of the trailers I saw beforehand – which had hip hop songs in – resonated. I thought, “I’m going to try and capture that bass, that heaviness, to see if it works with one of our songs”. That’s how we got ‘Fun In Hi Skool’.

TG: Joe, I was reading that when you started the band your delivery was closer to rapping than singing. On ‘Polacrilex Kid’ (also on Formal Growth in the Desert) you seem to really lean into that. Joe Casey: Yeah, but I was worried! When we were first working on that song I didn’t want to come across like [in now-clichéd golden-age hip-hop style] “Yo, my name is Joe!”. I’m glad it has the essence of [hip-hop] without aping or trying to copy anything. It has its own thing. There’s often nothing worse than a white guy trying to rap.

TG: The track is about your quitting smoking – has your voice changed since you stopped?

GA: That’s a nice thought: “Maybe my worst habits are the ones that keep me going.”

Immortal Nightbody

Greg Ahee: Immortal Nightbody is this guy Sim (Jackson Jr.) and it’s entirely his project. I found him because my friend

JC: I think it’s gotten softer. For this next US tour I promised my fiancée that I’m going to try and do it without smoking, but maybe by the end that’ll be what ruins my voice. Maybe that was the secret sauce – [cigarettes getting] that rasp going. I’ve never had any problems with losing

Day Residue

JC: Day Residue are a Detroit band. What I like about them is that they are almost an inverse Protomartyr, in that the band members are mostly old fellows – or guys like Greg’s age – and the lead singer is a younger woman. The guys (in Day Residue) started playing shows with us, and still have that same energy. They’re bringing their chops of being in bands forever, and she’s bringing her youthful energy. Her I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude is refreshing; it’s good to see a band like that thriving in Detroit. They’re currently recording and anything I can do to draw attention to them I’m keen to do.

Anadol

GA: When I first heard about this feature I was like, “I think she’ll qualify!” I honestly know next to nothing about her, except that I love her music. I’ve been obsessed with it since I heard it. I’ve listened to her last two records on repeat. We were just in Berlin a few days ago [where Anadol lives, having moved from Turkey] and when talking to a label rep I was like, “Tell me everything you know about Anadol!” I can’t really find much info other than that the music is incredible, with these Arabesque layers mixed with this electronic sound. It’s beautiful and reminds me of the best techno to have come out of Detroit.

TG: ‘Eciflere Gel’ off Felicita [her second record] is an amazing track. I love the looped groaning that comes in on it.

GA: I know! I’ve no idea how she even created it, I thought it was all found sound and samples and synths and drum machines, but I saw there’s some session musicians playing, and then there’s obviously vocals too. It’s so rare I’ll hear a record and think, “What the fuck?” and be totally blown away by it.

JC: I gotta listen to this.

GA: The angle is to try and make something that has this effect on somebody, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. In the meantime, it’s so enjoyable to listen to this.

TG: Her songs sound like soundtracks, which is something you did before this record right, Greg?

GA: During the worst of the Covid depression – when I didn’t want to touch an instrument and didn’t want to think about music – I got asked to score a couple short films. I really only agreed to it as I needed money, but doing them was really exciting. Listening to music with that ear again and watching films to see how the score can elevate and move the story along was interesting. Then I made some score stuff that Joe can sing over that needn’t even be a Protomartyr album. I took that mental- ity and folded it into the band’s dynamic. I didn’t know if it changed the songs all that much but scoring soundtracks changed my approach, and made me excited to write again. Hearing a record like Anadol was exciting to me. was listening to Third Power and decided to look them up. I didn’t know they were from Birmingham, Michigan – which is just outside of Detroit – and then I saw the singer’s name was Jem Targal. I went back to Facebook and realised it was the same guy!

I don’t know if he added me by accident as I had never mentioned Third Power to press at that point. During Covid I was listening to Believe [their only album, from 1970] again and again, and was probably drinking a lot. So with liquid Covid courage I messaged him and when he wrote me back he was super nice and gracious. He sent me some unreleased stuff and we kept talking back and forth. It really meant a lot to me, but sadly he passed away a few months later. During Covid that was one of the only times I reached out to anyone, and I’m so happy I did.

Third Power

TG: They seem like the epitome of an under the radar older band. Released one album, then disappeared.

GA: Yeah! I remember hearing Third Power on [legendary New Jersey radio station] WFMU. It was the track ‘Lost in a Daydream’ and I thought, “Oh shoot, this song is amazing.” I didn’t know anything about them but got the record and was blown away.

I still don’t know how this happened, but around that time I got a Facebook friend request from this random guy. I thought he had a funny name, which was Jem Targal. I didn’t really think about it and left it in my requests and then several months later I

Thin White Rope

JC: It shocked me that I didn’t know about Thin White Rope. They should be bigger and deserve a reappraisal. I found out about them when somebody posted a fanzine interview with Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices which had his top 50 best records ever. There was the first Thin White Rope album there [1985’s Exploring the Axis]. I’d never heard this band, so I wondered why they were on this list. I went and listened to it, and discovered the history of them, and realised it’s a weird pocket of music that doesn’t have that cache of other kinds of genres or periods of music.

Davis, California, where they’re from, is way different from what people think of as California. It’s up in the top of the central valley, kinda near Sacramento – it’s completely different from Southern California. [Thin White Rope] is desert music but not in that cliché style. I only found out about them after we had recorded the record, when we were trying to make a kind of a high desert sound. Listening to this I think Thin White Rope nailed it, they nailed that sound and feel. The frontman [Guy Kyser] has a gruff voice but is very melodic, it seems as time went on he got a little Tom Waits-esque, but I appreciate that melodicism for someone with such a low voice. It was exciting to discover a new band that I enjoyed so much.

Nash The Slash

JC: What really drew me to this guy is that I feel this kind of character or personality no longer has a place in the modern music industry. This eccentric fellow was in a prog band, wore bandages, didn’t play guitars but played mandolin or violin, made proto-dance music, and was able to tour with Gary Numan and with Iggy Pop. He had his moment in the sun before fading back into obscurity. He’s actually beloved in Toronto, there are murals of him there.

His covers of classic rock songs sound so modern and ahead of time; they use really interesting drum machines and the sound he gets from his violin and mandolin is really, really fresh. He made a dance song that was super popular in Poland, it was called ‘Dance After Curfew’, and at the time they had a curfew so it was tailor-made. I’ve watched a ton of YouTube interviews with him and it’s funny to hear such a rational voice coming out of such a strange-looking character.

It’s been said that I have no charisma on stage and I can definitely feel it. A lot of the time I feel like I’m doing the most extravagant gesture and I’ll see a video of it later and it’s the opposite. I get the feeling he had the same issue: “I’m not going to be doing much but if I look weird that’ll help.” He had practical reasons for being wrapped in bandages as he did a lot of soundtracks to silent films which he’d then project behind him. He didn’t want to get in the way of the film so [with the bandages] he became the screen.

Gary Numan saw him in Toronto and said; “Right, you’re going to be the opening act on my tour.” Not many outsider artists get that bite of the apple. When I heard about that I thought, “These are exactly the sort of opening acts we want!”

Exclusive to Loud And Quiet subscribers, this month’s limited edition flexi disc is ‘How He Lived After He Died [Live at Sugar Hill Supper Club]’ by Protomartyr

Joe Casey: This version of ‘How He Lived After He Died’ was recorded on a hot July night at the Sugarhill Supper Club in BedStuy, Brooklyn in 2014. We were at the end of a little tour opening for Parquet Courts and this was a “triumphant homecoming” for them about a week after their album Sunbathing Animal came out. It was sweltering, therefore it was one of the handful of shows where I removed my jacket. From the pictures of that evening, the jacket in question was my original tuxedo coat I purchased from a Goodwill for 10 dollars so I could work as a doorman at the Gem

Theatre. That’s where I met Greg and where we first drunkenly discussed starting Protomartyr.

As far as this song goes, I can’t believe we bummed the crowd, ostensibly there to celebrate, with such a morose song. In retrospect, it was (and some say is) one of the “early not terrible” songs we had, so I suppose it was chosen for this reason. As much as I love the song, it is about my dear old dad dying, so I don’t like playing it too much nowadays. I hope you enjoy the song. I am confident that it just might magically transport you back to 2014 Brooklyn in the waning days of the American music business.

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