Marc : Hello Dmitriy,

My name is Marc, I'm French and I live in Sweden. I would like to thank you for this interview. I listened and wrote a review of Collapse.Ignore and i really enjoyed it, that's why I wanted to know a little bit more about it.

Can you please, first, introduce yourself ?

Dmitriy : Hi Mark!
My name is Dmirtiy. I’m a musician. I live and work in Moscow. And first of all I would like to thank you for your interest to my work and to the Migration Period’s music, this is really important for me. Thank you!



Marc : Migration Period started as a personal project. How do you consider it now that the album is finished, still as a solo project or as a real band ?

Dmitriy : It is still a solo project in spite of guest musicians participation in the album recording process. When I planned this project I considered it as a One man band with possibility to invite guest musicians for record and gigs. The concept is the same today.

Marc : You did everything on Collapse.Ignore but you have some guest who play on it. Can you talk a bit more about them, how did you choose them ?

Dmitriy : I would like to give thanks to everyone who took part in this album. It is a great honour for me to work with such professional musicians. When I was writing Collapse.Ignore I didn’t want to do it only by myself. I composed, produced, played and recorded the most part of the music and vocals, but it was really important to me that the musicians whom I’d invited brought something personal to this music. They passed the music through themselves and changed it. I’m sure that was good both for the album and for our teamwork.
I got acquainted with some of the musicians while working at my other projects, with others - in the process of the Collapse.Ignore recording. Some of them I met after I’d listen their recordings accidentally. I understood that I really wanted to work with that guys. All of them are incredible professionals.
I planed to involve two drummers in the work with two parts of the album, so one started it and the other finished. I wanted to transfer the mood change through the sound of tracks. Hope the audience will decide if we succeeded in it or not.
Nowadays lots of Russian (and not only Russian) bands cooperate with such great masters with famous names in Prog as Gavin Harrison, Bruce Soord, Nick Beggs and invite them to take part in their albums. I chose a slightly different way, though Bruce heard my demo-tracks back in the 2014 and was interested in work at them. It seems to me that he didn’t work with anybody in Russia then.



Marc : Who is Yulia Fedorova who sing with you on ‘Take me Home’ ? what a beautiful voice !

Dmitriy : Yulia is my wife and at the same time the closest friend of mine. She plays piano and sings wonderfully. One day I was enjoying her playing and singing before dinner and thinking that it would be great to record a song with her for the album. So it happened. I wrote Take Me Home. There are two characters in that song: the man and his mother. And Yulia performed the mother’s part. This form of interaction with my closest person was unusual and very enjoyable for me. This was a new step of our relationships when we worked together at something beyond our family.

Marc : I've heard different influences on the album, Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson, Anathema, Paradise Lost and even Depeche Mode, but also different music style like jazz rock, progressive rock or electro, Am I wrong ? Can you tell us about your taste in music ?

Dmitriy : I can’t say that there wasn’t any influence and that my music is something completely different. Of course I was influenced by the bands you mentioned and not only by them. But I wouldn’t like to say that I tried to copy them, their sound, or their manner of song composing and mood. I prefer to think that we took parallel courses may be in one music ocean, may be in different.
At my point of view music often evolves cyclically. It moves from one stage to the next one, and in some time comes back to the starting point. For example it is well known that the great 60-70’s bands influenced Steven Wilson. But after the path from No-man and Porcupine Tree to his solo work he discovered something brand new at his last album To the Bone. We can hear something Prince-like and Abba-like, but it is not already Prince or Abba. It is something completely different and fresh!
As for me this way of music evolution is rather positive than negative, because I think that music should has succession: it’s difficult to imagine what we’ll be listening in our distant future without succession.
But of course I’m strongly against plagiary.

Marc : I found that the artwork works perfectly with the music, how did you come to work with Alina Hoile ?

Dmitriy : Alina is a marvellous artist. It was a great pleasure for me to work with her. In the review you mentioned that Alina’s art for the album has something in common with the art of Lasse Hoile. Lasse is a famous artist and a remarkable professional, but in my opinion she works in her own style and mood. I really appreciate Lasse’s work, but it was important for me that Alina’s art for the album wasn’t like in Lasse’s style. We were discussing that while looking for the right direction. Hope we found it.
I found Alina’s art in Facebook through Lasse. I remember that he made a post with some pieces of her art. I was completely amazed by the choice of colours and the mood. So I understood that Alina was the artist I had been looking for and I wanted to invite her to work at Collapse.Ignore. Internet is an amazing thing, isn’t it?



Marc : If Migration Period is a band, will the same musicians play on the next album, is there an album planned, or is it too soon to talk about a new album ?

Dmitriy : I am working at my second album now and considering options of collaborating with some new musicians for it. And may be some guys with whom I’ve already worked with will join us. I haven’t made any proposition yet.

Marc : What feedback have you yet receive about the album, in and/or out of Russia ?

Dmitriy : It is hard to tell.
Almost 85% of album sales are the sales to Europe and to the USA. Our label Floise often sends the CDs to London, LA, Warsaw and Dijon, but unfortunately have never sent anything to Yaroslavl or Kazan (these are Russian cities).
There is a difficult situation with Prog in Russia. I definitely know that people love and respect it, but I can’t see significant support of it now.
You maybe know some good Russian prog-bands that are rather popular in Europe, and there is usually full room and good audience at their concerts there. But we can’t say the same about Russia. I hope really much that this situation will change soon or may be it is in the process of changing already.

Marc : I would like to know if Russia is a rock/progressive rock land ?

Dmitriy : Russia is definitely a rock land.
What about Prog? As I said it before Russian people respect progressive rock. I hope that in the nearest future we will be a real progressive rock land.

Marc : Do we have a chance to see Migration Period live in europe, or will we have to travel to Moscow to see you ? Some live plan ?

Dmitriy : Migration Period is a studio project now. But I would really like to take it out of the studio and make some live! As you know it depends on so many things. First of all it depends on our work, but I have a plan to visit Europe with my second album live. And I’m going to make a Migration Period gigs in Russia.

Marc : To finish this interview, do you have something to say to our readers ?

Dmitriy : No matter where exactly you find and discover new music, the main thing is that you continue to find it. I would like to thank everybody who decides to read this interview. Thanks to everybody who writes reviews and buys CD’s and LP’s. Thank you very much, that is an incredible support. And Mark, thank you for your attention and support, I appreciate it so much.

Marc : Thanks again for your time and i hope to hear about Migration Period soon.

Dmitriy : Thanks! And goodbye!

Rédigé par Marc le 07/05/2019