Song 15 // Molchat Doma - "Судно (Борис Рижий)"
Enameled vessel
Window, bedside table, bed
Life is hard and uncomfortable
But it's comfortable to die
The internet is a widely connected set of nodes that can lead a user through so many tunnels that one isn’t sure how they ended up where they are. Every moment, more nodes are created, destroyed, archived, recreated. This unparalleled and vast set of connections has the potential to present itself for discovery. This is how Molchat Doma’s “Судно (Борис Рижий)” or “Sudno (Boris Ryzhy)” appears on this newsletter.
The song spread rapidly throughout TikTok and helped the band achieve popularity on YouTube and streaming platforms. But the viral backdrop of the song in frivolous TikTok videos of rapid clothes swapping and armpit hair dying undermines the lyrical content of the song. Fortunately, for fans of gothic cold wave music, the viral success did not change Molchat Doma’s music on subsequent releases.
Molchat Doma, hailing from Belarus, sounds like they’ve been thawed from the darkest, gothic depths of the ‘80s — a mixture of heavy doses of Joy Division and New Order topped off with The Cure.
“Sudno” starts off with a minimalist drum beat before Egor Shkutko’s voice arrives in a steely direct tone accompanied by low-end bass and a looping guitar riff. The solemn lyrics of the song are from a poem by Boris Ryzhy, who committed suicide at the age of 26. However, Ryzhy’s poetry and his legacy continues to live on in Russia and through “Sudno.”
I want to look her in the eye
Look into the eyes and burst into tears
And never die, never die
Never die, never die, never die
Almost halfway through the song, the synths kick in to break the ice toward a more post-punk, new wave sound. To match the synths, Shkutko’s singing gains a new sense of immediacy and tension. The band’s dark sound says as much about the genre as it does of their Eastern European roots. In a recent interview with the New York Times, the band commented on staying out of politics due to the political turmoil in Belarus and the consequences of speaking out against the government. But that’s not to say the band isn’t concerned with current affairs.
Instead, the atmosphere of their country seeps through in their music. A merging of existentialism, gloom, and optimism wrapped together in a sound to be listened to and consumed now.
Enameled vessel
Window, bedside table, bed
Life is hard and uncomfortable
But it's comfortable to die
// press play
View past songs here. Share this song with your Brutalist admiring goth friends.
this album is too good!