Hi! For the first post I’ve got something special.
I present to you a lost, untitled demo album by Applepicker from 2015.
A little background for the mood: I’m 20–21 years old, just dropped out of the agricultural university (for the second time), working as a merchandiser (stocking cheese and later cookies). My friends and I are renting a very vintage apartment right next to the Nemiga metro station (apartment no. 87). I’m playing in at least two bands (bak and Milky Icicle, maybe something else). Studio 42 was only preparing to open back then, and I didn’t know about it yet, so I was recording at home. My gear: a laptop with Ableton, acoustic and electric guitars, a resurrected Soviet bass, a MIDI keyboard, and a microphone. These songs became the very first attempt at recording live instruments in the Applepicker project—before that, everything was built on third-party samples.
I was literally embarrassed by these songs and thought they needed serious work… so I almost never showed them to anyone (which makes no sense from today’s perspective). Coming across them now, I finally admitted to myself that even in this form they fully deserve to see at least a ray of light.
The material is quite diverse: acoustic ballads with acid solos (1987, Celebration), first attempts at Afrobeat (Sleeprunning), post-punk/alternative/shoegaze vibes (Tomorrow Night), funky jazzy trip-hop blends (Glasshouse, It’s Like a Fight, Monday). Celebration is the only one that ever came out on the White Cave Album. Later there were attempts to re-record other tracks, but they never turned out better. Around the same period, outside the context of this album, an instrumental demo of Зажигалки из хита (under the working title A Different Kind Of Flower) was already being prepared. I’ve added it to the setlist along with another instrumental demo from that time, Look At The Sun.
Months later, in 2016, I started experimenting with a newly acquired looper and a Belarus cassette recorder, and through complete improvisation created material like Evening 4 and more. I uploaded it online without much thought and immediately got positive feedback. As a result, the older material was left to gather dust on the hard drive.
What do you think of this material—does it still feel relevant almost 10 years later? Share your impressions! Some ideas could even be reworked with new lyrics, maybe for another performer.