It doesn’t get more physically isolated than Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Located in Central Asia, landlocked between a conglomerate of ‘Stans, the capital city sits nestled within a pocket of snow-capped mountains. Wide Soviet-era streets cross the town, lined with old-growth oak and maple trees, their trunks painted in a ubiquitous white paint to prevent sun scald during the cold winters. Old neighborhoods, houses made of mud-brick and straw, stand shoulder to shoulder with modern office buildings and high-end condominiums. Babushkas in their long mumus walk slowly down the street, hands clasped behind their backs. Old men wearing doppis greet each other with enthusiastic hand-shakes and affectionate hugs. A sea of white Chevrolets careen down the streets, hopping from place to place, signs in Cyrillic and Uzbek jockeying for the attention of the three million who call the capital home. And within this there is a calm patience to the city- no other city on Earth may feel less city-like than Tashkent, and this is a testament to the warmth of the people who call it home.
But warmth doesn’t always entail that things are always cool, no pun intended. It might be a cover for the heat simmering underneath, ready to burst. Like most of the ex-Soviet countries, Uzbekistan has struggled to find its identity and this is where the culturally infused post-rock of Tashkent band Flyin’ Up has taken its musical cues. The band’s origins started humbly enough: a group of young kids coming of age after independence, a burned CD brought in from the States of ’80s metal bands, and an explosion of grunge bands on the other side of the world influenced four Uzbek friends to pick up instruments and start writing songs. Their early work was sung in English, and very much wore the musical influences of the West on their sleeves. The band talked of Uzbekistan back in the early ’90s with much relish: it was a time when doors were opening, and the possibilities for the newly liberated youth seemed limitless. But, like much young democracies, corruption ran supreme and slowly those opportunities seemed to close in. This, coupled with a renewed interest in the Islamic faith that was so much part of the land for thousands of years, began to see an increase in conservatism and a decrease in chances to let the music be heard. Flyin’ Up‘s trajectory is a response to these changes, a mirror to the shift in the cultural mores of Uzbekistan, and a deeper focus on the rich, long history of the region.
Well before the pandemic shut the world down, and made the isolated even more isolated, the band retreated to Moscow in their attempt to get their music heard. As the cultural capital of the former Soviet Union, the urban flex of the city called to the band like New York City or Los Angeles does to disgruntled kids from Midwest America. Singer Jasur Khudayberdiyev says the trip served as an artistic reckoning for the group. As a front man for the group, Jasur seems to channel energy from a metaphysical funnel that runs through the Silk Road. He’s a reluctant shaman, the front man for a group that acts as a collective more than five separate musical entities. Rather than entreat the audience to join them, Jasur and the band- guitarists Rinat Bayburin and Sanjar Ismatov, bassist Vladislav Dostavolov and drummer Artem Shcherbakov- seem to wrap their sonic arms around their audience and draw them in. It’s a communal experience, and in a quest to strengthen this experience, they took off for Moscow. Flyin’ Up were able to increase their productivity, living and working together in a shared apartment in the city, but Moscow wasn’t necessarily the promised land for the group.
‘Since we’d been living in the same apartment, and shared most of our free time together, we had a chance to practice our craft on an everyday basis,‘ says Khudayberdiyev. “Literally, everyday after work we were sitting in our living room jamming. And out of these jams we created the majority of our songs. Never before had we had this experience of such frequent writing sessions. This was awesome and very productive.”
Much of what would shape their brilliant 2023 release Jimlik had its roots in that Moscow apartment as the band’s sound began to coalesce. But being Uzbek in Russia wasn’t always easy. Over cold beers in a corner Tahskent cafe, Khudayberdiyev referred to Uzbeks as ‘the Mexicans of the Soviet Union‘.
‘It wasn’t something in particular- rather a feeling that was accumulated through time- our observations towards our countrymen, who have a very hard time in Russia doing all the hard labour. We also saw how they were treated – cold, unempathetic, sometimes aggressive and with annoyance. While we were mostly treated as equals (since we speak fluent Russian, educated, and we don’t really look like typical Uzbeks), we still had this ‘third world’ experience: it was very hard to find an apartment to rent (the moment you say that you are from Uzbekistan people hung up without any questions), quite hard to find a decent job (since our Uzbek working background was considered ‘not really relevant and important‘), but the most unpleasant was the process of getting permission to work in Russia. There’s a huge governmental institution in the rural area near Podolsk in which all of the other immigrants from all over the world (mostly ex-Soviet countries) were going through a series of tests, medical examinations, unending queues and questions, questions, questions. I understand that the staff of this institution are also living people and, to be honest, their job is super hard, but the level of impoliteness and aggression towards people that did not really choose to be there is very high. Every time I had to go there I felt like a cattle.’
It’s from this sense of disenfranchisement- of being isolated from a country that they may have never really been a part of- that served as the impetus for their 2017 single “O’zbegim.” The song juxtaposes the traditional melody and lyrics from a patriotic song originally penned by Sherali Jo’rayev, and popularly sung at weddings and other cultural events in the country, against the reality of the Uzbek migrants’ experience. The song celebrates Uzbekistan’s rich history, the victories of Amir Timur over the Mongolian hordes and the defeat of Genghis Khan; the illustrious writing of Alisher Navoiy and his compatriots; and the archaeological heritage built within the ground of the ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara. And, yet, the Uzbek lineage of power and pride was subjugated underneath the iron fist of Russia.
‘The feeling was very clear and sharp, we just had to find a form to express it. So we decided to shoot a video capturing our countrymen in their habitat. Just a series of portraits. And their eyes said it all. The video was directed by Stanislav Magay – our friend and an exceptional photographer, who has this ability to capture souls with his camera. And we arranged everything else. To be honest the hardest part was to find Uzbeks in Moscow who were not afraid to be in a video. People were very reluctant and afraid that we’d be someone who just brings more problems to their uneasy life. In terms of music form we knew it should be something melancholic, almost depressive, something that is cold (it is also very hard to live in Moscow for Uzbeks because we are the people of the Sun, and there you barely see it, and also it is very cold (up to -30 degrees) there).’
Their next single “Dunyalor” (“Worlds”) is an acknowledgement that the place in which our feet are grounded- the terra firma from which we arise- may seem like worlds apart from other places on this very same Earth. If the band’s time in Moscow was short-lived and eye-opening, their return to Uzbekistan only strengthened their resolve. Flyin’ Up made a conscious decision to integrate more traditional instrumentation in their compositions, and their lyrics morphed from English to Uzbek. Interestingly enough, the lyrics were initially written in English and only translated to Uzbek once the band returned to Tashkent. Superficially the reasons for the Uzbek translations were simple: the band was from Tashkent, so it made sense to sing songs with lyrics their fans could understand. But the positive feedback they received for doing this went way beyond just understanding: it became a force for representation, and thus began Flyin’ Up‘s transition from just another rock band to something that was organically connected to the land and people from which it arose.
“Dunyolar” showcases the band’s metaphysical sensibilities, a perception of the spirituality that seems to emanate from the ground of Central Asia. A cautious fascination with the metaphysical and the gentle ballet between humans and their natural world infuse the psychedelic, dynamically emotional music the band produces. Arpeggio picked guitars, a tastefully locked in rhythm section, and ardent vocals lay a groundwork that the band would masterfully apply later on Jimlik. While comparisons to Tool wouldn’t be too far off the mark, the band is too nuanced and meticulous in their craftsmanship to simply be a bunch of fanboys worshipping at the temple of Maynard James Keenan and team. “Dunyolar” sees Flyin’ Up examining a crescendo of human emotions in their attempt to make sense of the world.
‘Dunyo qulaydi (The world is comfortable)
Ongimiz ochilsa (If our mind opens)
Ostimda, ichimda. (Under me, inside me)
Kengsiz bu osmon (The sky is vast)
ko’rinmas faqat ko’zga (Invisible only to the eye)
Nechun keraaaaak aldov, aldov (Why cheat, cheat again)
Hayotni o’zi sinov, sinov (Life itself is a test, a test)’
The vast countryside of Uzbekistan lends itself to this kind of self-actualization. As one leaves the capital of Tashkent, the land opens up, vast vistas of rolling hills and flat land that seem to expand forever to the east and the mountains of Chimgan rising to fifteen thousand feet to the west, their snow-capped peaks visible from the hazy sky of the capital. The villages become sparse- donkey carts carrying goods from one neighborhood to the other, a river swollen with snowmelt cascading down Earth’s gentle slope. The art of Uzbekistan is infused with this reflective imagery. The band filmed the video for “Dunyolar” at the Ilkhom Theater, one of the first private performing arts centers to ever open under the communist regime of the USSR.
‘While there’s a lot of traditional art in Uzbekistan,’ mentioned singer Khaladminyov when asked about the collaboration, ‘there aren’t a whole lot of people doing modern art, so it was natural for us to work together and support each other.’ In 2007, the art center’s director was murdered by extreme Islamists in retaliation for a controversial portrayal of Muhammad, and yet the theater still continued. Flyin’ Up and the Ilkhom Theater endure, despite the roiling political and cultural waves that threaten to drown them, because both have shown that art can transcend all of this, a way of focusing on identity in a climate that seems blurred at the edges.
The careful attention to how art doesn’t just communicate feelings, but a deep sense of space as well, reaches its apex on the gorgeous ten-minute opus “Valhalla.” Laden with traditional instrumentation, sparkling guitars, Central Asian throat singing, and an outro that features beautiful harmonies between Feride Girgin and Khaladminyov, the band connects their own lived experiences in Uzbekistan to that of the mythological hall of fallen warriors. Bayburin and Ismatov’s guitars swirl around each other as Dostavolov’s bass and Shcherbakov’s slick, loose-limbed drumming lay a bedrock of granite beneath the melody. It’s an audacious post-rock exploration, one that acknowledges Uzbekistan’s long history of conquest, despite the day to day struggles the twenty-first century has made such a reality.
But it’s their June 2023 release Jimlik that successfully captures the lifelong journey Flyin’ Up has taken, and all of this is elevated with the recent release of the album’s video companion piece, a trippy, neon-soaked psychedelic journey through time and space. The video took over two months to plan and create, a forward-thinking, wildly creative exploration largely created using AI. In conjunction with film producer and musician Andrey Kornienko, the band crafted a transformative piece of media. It’s a video that doesn’t jump from song to song, each existing in its own narrow set of parameters. Instead, it’s a visual narrative that deforms and reforms, continually twisting and contorting from one image to the other through the course of an hour. Like an acid trip, shapes, colors, and stories seem to transmute before your eyes, making one question what’s actually being seen. It’s the essence of the album, really: a record steeped in the mysticism and ancient glories of the land, constantly questioning the tenuous connections between one moment to the next.
Guitarist Ismatov’s creative elements of ambient wash and shimmering delay seem to coalesce with the ever-changing imagery. Along with the counterpoint of Bayburin’s sustained chords that linger in the air like a morning mist, the album opens with “Umid” (“Hope”). Sparse, glass-like and shimmery, the song opens with Khudayberdiyev singing of a preparation for war. The imagery is drenched in greys, blacks, and purples, pulsating and glittering in their darkness. With an extended mournful shout of ‘Yo’limda! (Oh, muses!)’ the band hits the pedals and the music explodes into what Flyin’ Up does best: a wild, heavy explosion of bass, drums and guitars, before returning to the opening motif.
Throughout the hour of music, the band is on a conquest to search out and honor their muses. Those muses, according to guitarist Ismatov, include Alice In Chains and Pink Floyd as well as the aforementioned Tool. These influences however, while immediately recognizable in their sound, are hardly indicative of the sonic wall of drama that Jimlik conjures. The deeper influences go well beyond the traditional rock star milieu. ‘I guess we found common inspiration in eastern spiritual practices like Zen Buddhism,‘ Ismatov goes on to say, ‘as well as local religious ideas such as Zoroastrianism and Tengrism, and at the same time we love to explore different kinds of world music and traditions.’
The latter- the exploration of ancient spiritual practices- defines the propulsive energy of the album. While deeply introspective, the music continues to move this metaphysical journey forward. On third song “Yetilib” (“Ripening”), the band literally and figuratively get in touch with their incorporeal selves. The guitars seem to sprout from the ground of Uzbekistan itself, a country that moves to the rhythm of the sun, seasons measured by the supply of cherries and strawberries and melons that fill the stalls of the ancient bazaars and line the streets of the city and countryside. The freshly picked fruit of the mid-section bridge, a proggy exploration of off-meter beats and doubled vocals, portends the end of the season. Guitars slide down to their lowest tones and drummer Shcherbakov rides the toms as if he’s filling a basket full of nature’s rewards, the repeated mantra of ‘Ego betsin (Ego must die.)/Iltimos o’ting bu yodan (Please proceed to the exit)’ bringing the song to a shattering crescendo, a blood-curdling scream buried within the outro. It’s the yin and yang of life: a constant circle of planting, growing, ripening, and rotting. Flyin’ Up knows they are part of a lineage that goes back thousands of years, a continual transfiguration of how we are connected to the world beneath our feet, the fruit of the Central Asian plateau.
“Dunyo” is an interesting re-working of their 2020 single “Dunyolar”, one of the most visually effecting songs on the video-album. From ‘worlds’ to ‘world’, the song is a sobering look at the vicious cycle the band visited on “Yetilib”, except humans, in this case, are the rotten fruit. A journey through our violent, never-ending past, the band presents a sobering, depressing case for the failure of humankind. By the time we finally reach our human pinnacle, we will hardly be human at all. Suppressed by an ever enveloping artificial intelligence, the only time humans will ever be at peace is when we are no longer sentient, but just the ‘borgs of science fiction, tapped into a mainframe that’s filtered out all the anger.
Title song “Jimlik” exerts powerful Pink Floyd energy, a segue to the album’s second half, buffered by its ambient experimentation and Alan Watts‘ lecture on self on the next song “The False Idea”. The video has a flickering, lagging animation of Watts’ famous ideas of identity:
‘Now if you get with yourself,
And you find out that you are all of yourself
A very strange thing happens:
You find that your body knows
That you are one with the universe.’
In other words, unless you are truly aware of the parts of self we take for granted- our breathing, the beating of our hearts, the actions of our digestive systems and nervous systems- then we can never hope to know ourselves. And if we don’t know ourselves, then how can hope to express empathy for others? And this knowledge of self works geographically as well: Uzbekistan’s journey is punctuated by a deep understanding of where she stands in the grand scheme of this world, acknowledging a past in which Tashkent was the glowing jewel of the Silk Road, yet still searching for a place in a post-Soviet, technologically drenched global society.
“Answer” leads off the second half of the album, and is arguably the record’s strongest track. It’s a meaty, confident slab of System Of A Down influenced post-rock, opening with a relentlessly aggressive introduction that tracks the downward track of global society. ‘You think YOU have the answer?’ growls Khudayberdiyev ad infinitum, as the song screeches to its inevitable collapse. The answer, of course is that none of us have the answer, but that’s okay. Our truths are solitary belongings, as much a part of us as the beating of our hearts that Watts talks about in “The False Idea”.
The brilliance in Jimlik is in its ability to juxtapose the darkness and dissonance of the music against this feeling of hope. The isolation of Uzbekistan gives the country a unique perspective through which to view the planet: while the rest of the world is caught up in the centrifugal pull of geopolitics and the false borders drawn by men drunk with power, Tashkent sits as a center of surveillance, much like Mirzo Ulugh Beg’s 15th century observatory in nearby Samarkand. Flyin’ Up, with their commitment to carrying on the legacy- deliberate or not- outlined in the lyrics of “O’zbegim” are just as much a part of the fabric of their land as any of the great leaders and poets celebrated throughout the busts and monuments that punctuate this magical city. After all, while isolation may mean we stand apart, separated by a world of uncertainty and doubt, it doesn’t necessarily mean we are alone. And, luckily, Flyin’ Up– in all their glorious psychedelic post-rock glory- are here to try and bring all of us just a little closer to understanding ourselves, and each other.
