Ales Tsurko
Banker Festival (2019)
I started my music journey at 8 when a woman came into our class asking, “Who wants to play the accordion?” I jumped up from my seat full of enthusiasm, shouting, “Me!” without even knowing what an accordion was. Luckily, my mother always supported my interests, and my parents bought me the accordion. Then came the guitar, the drums, computer music, and more and more.
Nama by Luiz Zanatello (2012)
Poltishiny at Mental Force (2015)
Posłuszny Piksel (2012)
Belarus Modern Ensemble (2014)
My first experiments in computer music started on the Sony PlayStation using Music 2000 software. I didn’t have a PlayStation, but my friend Masud did. So when his older brothers allowed, instead of playing Resident Evil, we tried to arrange little boxes into music. I tried other software, such as Cakewalk, when I visited my friends who had a PC, but I couldn’t even make it play a sound.
Then my parents rented a PC for driving theory exam preparation, and I installed FruityLoops on it. As with other PC music software, I couldn’t even make it play a sound. Without knowing English and without the internet, it seemed like black magic to me. But then Masud just pressed the space key on the keyboard, and Reegz’s “That’s True” started to play. It changed my life forever.
Since I always lacked money, I experimented a lot with lo-fi and DIY recording techniques, using phones as microphones, DIY amplifiers, etc. I couldn’t stick to a single genre and was inspired by different elements of indie and alternative rock music, electronic music, and classical music. I tried to explore every corner of music, playing drums, guitar, and singing in different bands across very different genres, from hardcore to disco-funk. I even played in an orchestra. And then it always finished as my nightly eclectic compositions on PC.
I learned a lot and went deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole, eventually starting to learn serious topics like algorithmic composition and DSP. That’s how I became a programmer.
Long story short, today I’m somewhere between music and technology. Initially, I was guided by curiosity and the emotions music gives me. Then it became a very rational and logical approach. Today, it’s again about curiosity and emotions. I’m not looking for my own musical language or anything; I’m just having fun.