Illyah Kuryakhin

Count No Count (The Arena Rock Recording Company)
by Joshua Brown

Two more gems that made this hunt worthwhile: Life After Life (Alternative Tentacles) and IIllyah Kuryakhin (the Arena Rock Recording Company). The band with the Russian-sounding name sings in English and the one with the English-language name sings in what sounds like Russian. Illyah Kurayhkin, NYC denizen Dean Wilson’s one man act, is on the roster of the aforementioned Arena Rock Recording Company, who had this to say about him in lo-fi lowercase letters. “we like to think of it as an andy warhol movie starring gbv’s bob pollard, who mysteriously put down his beer long enough to make some noise, with the dali (sic) lama,” My reply? Mighty hi-fi-lutin’ claims your label makes on your behalf, Robot Boy, a.k.a. Unleashed! the Large-Hearted Boy.

Granted, the music is at times more puzzling than your average Guided By Voices tune. GBV make arena rock Rubik’s Cubes among other games. You can get elated at making one side of the cube conform to one color, but that doesn’t mean you’ve gotten any closer to solving the puzzle. Illyah Kuryahkin lay down a meticulously involved jigsaw that intriguingly confuses the intellect. What I’m not so sure about is after having solved this jigsaw, will I be greeted by a cheesy, chintzy mountain scene taken by some National Geographic reject photographer or will I be left with a keener understanding of something important? Since the pieces are laid out erratically on my floor at present, I remain undecided.