Buttechno drops from трип after Nina’s “neutral” response

Written on 18.05.2022 by Andrijan Apostoloski

Buttechno or Pavel Milyakov is one of the prominent Russian artists in the experimental techno field, most known to ravers from his debut on трип with the wild ‘badtrip’ LP released back in 2018. Since the fresh drama with Nina’s “neutral” stance on the war, Buttechno has taken matter into his own hands and published the LP on his own Bandcamp with all funds directed to Ukrainian causes, while criticizing directly both the Russian regime and claiming the whole situation rightfully as ‘war’, and explaining why Nina’s neutrality equals to being compliant with the wrongdoings of Russia’s government.

Back on 12th this month, the owner of Clone Distribution Serge Verschuur explained in details his stance on stopping the collaboration with трип, Nina Kraviz’s label which followed with clarification from Nina Kraviz published on her Instagram account on on 17th May.

“Nina Kraviz is too big to fail. There are enough people who dont know or who don’t care. Or because they are priviliged enough to say “Its about the music” or who just see the money and status which comes with her fame. I’m not worried about her career, I’m worried about the toxic behaviour which rottens the scene and the culture which gave us the music which we celebrate everyday, I worry about the values of the house and techno culture.”
— writes Serge on his blog post

Many argued that Nina’s answer was generic, and purposely written with ‘big words’ that lack substance, probably a result of a highly paid PR team which did the actual work in question. She has continued to stay “neutral” and even scratched the surface of the Russian-Ukrainian war by belittling the situation by simply writing about the war as ‘the relationship my country has with Ukraine‘.

On 18th May, Pavel took manner into his own hands and uploaded his LP ‘badtrip’ on his own Bandcamp account with ‘pay what you want’ price, with profits generated going to Ukrainian causes, and while doing so he sharply criticized the Russian regime and Nina’s neutral stance on the issue.

“As an artist who was born and worked in Russia I think that Russian artists (especially the ones with a big audience) should publicly speak out against the war, show their solidarity with Ukraine and protest against Russian regime. Russian artists should accept their personal responsibility and also admit the imperialistic & colonizing approach of Russian culture and politics throughout Russian history. It is also really important to spread the ways of direct help and to donate money to Ukrainian volunteers, refugees and defense needs. And it is important to spread real images of war to fight Russian propaganda machine and let people see the truth about this vile war. Being silent or making neutral posts with just “PEACE” word — is the same support of Russian regime and hence support Russian invasion, support killings, rapes, genocide of Ukrainian people.
As an artist who openly oppose russian fascist regime and its vile war against Ukraine I fully support Clone Records’ decision to stop working with trip recordings. My album that was previously released there is now uploaded to my Bandcamp page with “name your price” pricing. 100% of the income from it and all other releases constantly go to Ukrainian volunteers, Ukraine defense needs and charities.”
— Pavel Milyakov on his Bandcamp page