Otryaskin, Andrey

In 1980 he graduated from high school, after which he entered the Herzen Pedagogical Institute , was interested in musical innovations.

In 1981, to implement his own musical ideas, he assembled a group in which he acted as a singer and guitarist. In addition to him, the group included Vladislav Shapiro (bass, keyboards) and Alexei Murashov (drums). By the beginning of 1982, the group received the name Jungle. In the future, she constantly underwent, underwent changes in composition and style, and Otryaskin remained her only permanent participant.

Even then, Otryaskin said that he was influenced by Peter Gabriel , Robert Fripp , King Crimson , Oregon , music of Penderetsky . According to his memoirs “Existing inside the rock, we wanted to make another, our own music. When you are young, you want to conquer the world and you don’t see any restrictions on creativity. It used to be that some people left our concerts, but people left any concerts. And there wasn’t such a thing for someone to shout: “Rock it!” The energy with which we presented our music was rather fatal: a lot of pressure. And people began to listen attentively ” ^[1] .

In 1984, the group successfully performed at the II festival of the Leningrad Rock Club with a program whose core was instrumental plays by Otryaskin and the poetry of Ilya Boyashov . Complex sizes, dissonant sounds of various metal structures, a stiff guitar and resilient bass were the grounds that the Jungle unconditionally became the laureates of the festival, their song Music was named among the best numbers, and Otryaskin was recognized (along with Alexander Lyapin) as the best guitarist.

During this period, high professionalism and independent musical thinking led to a high demand for the Jungle musicians as session musicians; Otryaskin himself played with Aquarium in the spring and summer of 1985, and in 1986 with Alice, in early 1987 in the Luna group ^[2] , and in the spring of 1987 he performed with the experimental group Hunting Their Romantic ^[3] .

Although in the spring of 1986 the Jungle became laureates of the 4th festival of the club, and at the next, 5th festival (1987) they received a special prize “For Music”, in the same autumn Otryaskin, feeling the danger that the group was pulled apart, decided to its cardinal reorganization.

In 1987, the band’s music became more and more chamber, impressionist, having experienced the influence of the “ECM style”, the company of West German sound engineer Manfred Eicher, who found his own formula for combining ethnic, jazz and popular music.

By 1991, the group’s activities had virtually ceased, and Otryaskin, captured by the ideas of musical self-education, set his sights on the West. In May 1991, he performed in Leningrad for the last time in a trio with Rubanov and the famous new-jazz double bass player Vladimir Volkov (the duet Gaivoronsky-Volkov), after which he went to the USA. He settled in Seattle , where he taught at school, making music as a hobby.

In a 2011 interview, he said: “Everything ends with the same thing - the question“ How to make a living? ”. In the modern world, this issue has become even more acute than before. Now it’s not the 60s, and no matter how you pretend to be a hippie, you live in harsh economic realities: rents are growing, clubs are closing, music is going to the Web. But still, something interesting appears, it just is not always heard. As for me, I have not been doing music for seven years. I am restoring old houses ” ^[1] .

• Andrei Otraskin on facebook
• Otryaskin Andrey (series of interviews)