World-building comes naturally to Yana Kedrina. As Kedr Livanskiy, the Moscow singer-producer has released three albums of dark, evocative electro pop rooted in a diverse spread of electronic influences: techno, IDM, garage, ambient, and more. With her ever-changing sound, Kedrina has carved out a distinct lane for herself: an artist less beholden to explicit formalism or realism than, in her own words, the “transformation, deconstruction, and the escapism” of it all. It’s no surprise that Myrtus Myth, her fourth LP, once again represents a departure from her previous work. What is surprising, though, is the album’s general sense of restraint, even tameness, shelving Kedrina’s signature club thump for dream pop that’s both well done and well-worn.
This is Kedrina’s most extensive collaboration as a solo artist with Flaty; while the Gost Zvuk-affiliated producer has written and produced for her last two albums, this time around he co-wrote and produced Kedrina’s entire record. Myrtus Myth is operatic in tone and scope, exploring grief and hopelessness as Kedrina’s soaring vocals take us through epic scenes of beasts, angels, and the cosmos. The album embraces the idea of mythological narrative as a throughline of the human condition, exploring loss through references to stories like that of Orpheus and Eurydice and the Hindu concept of Kali Yuga (the dark age before the end of the world). Regarding the album’s subject matter, Kedrina has noted that “the last couple of years have been incredibly difficult for many people on earth”; if a more universal message is the goal, maybe it makes sense for Myrtus Myth to show us Kedrina at her most accessible.
Accessible can be a good thing, especially the way Kedrina flips it. While we’ve previously heard her craft some of her catchiest hooks over woozy house grooves, like on 2019’s “Sky Kisses,” Myrtus Myth gives us some good old-fashioned, hot-off-the-airwaves capital-P Pop. On her last solo album, Liminal Soul, Kedrina teased her straightforward pop chops on “Boy”; here, she leans more fully into ’70s- and ’80s-inspired songwriting, most notably on singles “Anna” and “Spades on Hearts.” “Agata Dreams” is tinged with a little Everything But the Girl until the beat really starts chattering. With a stronger emphasis on live instruments, these tracks come to life in a surprisingly commanding manner, suggesting a captivating stage presence rather than an infectious dancefloor buzz.
Where Myrtus Myth excels is when Kedrina accesses the softness of dream pop within her usual electronic experiments. On the subtly jungle-influenced “Night Trains,” what might be the world’s gentlest breakbeat skitters steadily under churchlike synths and a wispy vocal refrain: “Leave on familiar trains, leaving cities.” It feels both minimal and rich, capturing the skill and assuredness in the development of her craft and style. On the flipside, “Zver” embraces a more maximal sound than before; throughout a dirgelike take on a jangle-pop melody, misty strings, brass, and vocals echo, swell, and swirl into one another like smoke. Kedrina has previously mastered playing outside the bounds of genre convention, and to hear her experimenting within them brings a new and welcome dimension to her abilities as a songwriter and producer.
Still, there’s a nagging feeling that something’s being held back. Yes, Myrtus Myth is a softer record than Kedrina’s previous work; and yes, artists are allowed to branch out and experiment with their sound. But ironically, it sometimes seems like Kedrina hasn’t gone far enough in her flirtations with pop conventions. Throughout her discography, she’s proven herself to be a technical whiz and incredibly savvy genre-blender, particularly when it comes to melding clear, poppy vocals with harsher or more oblique textures. On Myrtus Myth, though, melodies that aren’t indebted to either traditional pop forms or Kedrina’s experimental approach tend to get lost in the haze. The subdued, reverbed vocals of “Purple Sadness” might have meshed better with more uptempo production (as on Ariadna’s “Za Oknom Vesna”), or maybe over more ambient-inflected instrumentals like those on her debut EP, January Sun, but here they’re forced to compete with synth lines that are equally dreamy and dynamic.
Mythology is meant to capture something greater than us, and Myrtus Myth does a good job of transporting us to a pretty wretched realm beyond our own, where it’s all ash and rubble where the club used to be: where characters, real or imagined, leave Elysium behind to ride aimlessly through deserted cities. But mythology is also symbolic, and the tropes that Myrtus Myth invokes can sometimes make the album feel impersonal or guarded. Considering the oppressive climate in which the album was written, one wonders if Kedrina felt that a retreat into myth was the only route left for someone frustrated by “difficult” conditions in a country where protest is outlawed. Ultimately, though, Kedrina’s intent in grasping for a more universal sound is emotionally resonant; “Anna,” a tribute to a lost friend, balances the album’s supernatural framing with a more personal story, and in the process suggests the reasons that Kedrina wanted to create a grander narrative. When someone comforts you, it feels better to believe.
