Formed: 1996 in Minsk, Belarus
Members: Nikita Chudjakov, Svetlana Shljachova
Style: Electronica, Ambient-dub
Aliases: Kosmozo, Alice In Kosmoland, Voehn
Present Location: Ghent, Belgium
ELEMENTS OF SCI-FI was formed in 1996 by two old friends Nikita Chudjakov and Dmitri Protasevitch. Using an old soviet computer and antique analog synthesizers, Elements Of Sci-Fi recorded their first demo album. The demo was presented in May 97 at the first Byelorussian electronic music festival "Future Sound Of Minsk", and could be described as ambient, musique concrete, dub and experimental electronica. It gained a lot of positive and enthusiastic responses from local media, promoters and fellow musicians.
At about the same time the work on the second ELEMENTS OF SCI-FI album had began. Named "Symphotrain", this CD was the third award-winner of the first Belorussian Electronic Music Awards 1997-98 (the chief of the jury, incidentally, was the famous electronic musician Christopher Franke of TANGERINE DREAM).
In January 1999, due to personal and creative changes Dmitri Protasevitch left the band to pursue his own solo career as JDPC. In 2000 Svetlana Shljachova joined ELEMENTS OF SCI-FI as the new member.
At the end of 2000, as a result of permanent political degradation and self-isolation of Belarus , the band members moved to Ghent (Belgium) where they now live.
In January-February 2002 ELEMENTS OF SCI-FI made their third album ' Stratum '. This album was premiered on 15th February 2002 at "m(Hertz" series of experimental electronic music evenings in Ghent (organized by the Institute Of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music of Ghent and Nieuwpoorttheater).
In the end of 2002 Elements Of Sci-Fi finished their new interactive work 'Cinemath' , which was presented in December at the audio/video festival Cinecirq (Belgium, Ghent). The core idea of this work is to experiment in live-performed environment, combining short pre-recorded self-made loops, rhythms and beats with the live-assembled video-collage from the old Soviet sci-fi movies.
In September 2003 the new program - 30 minute mini-album Moz-Art was presented live in concert hall Vooruit (Ghent, Belgium). The line-up also included DAS ERSTE WIENER GEMUESEORCHESTER and SENOR COCONUT. The mini-album consists of 5 tracks electronica remakes and free interpretations of works by genius-composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Moz-Art is currently released under the Creative Common license is available for free download here:
http://users.skynet.be/cbi.zone/elements/moz-art.htm
30 April 2004 followed participation in Belgian youth culture festival 'Het Beleg Van Schoten' (7 different locations with performances, theater, music and art) in the center of Schoten.
9 September 2004 the group played solo-concert in Tetrahedron Hall of the famous experimental electronic music center - Logos Foundation In 2005 the group members directed most of their efforts on development of the first own production for their side-project KOSMOZO and also played a couple of live-concerts in Ghent (cafe Video and Tijuana, june 2005) following by collaboration on Orchestra event "Robots go Techno" at Logos Foundation (march 2006, Ghent, Belgium) where all participants composed and performed techno/ambient music for the vast orchestra of musical robots called M&M Orchestra conceived, constructed and leaded by dr. Godfried-Willem Raes.In addition to live gigs music of ELEMENTS OF SCI-FI was (is) played by different (online) radio stations, released on Belgian "Panoptica Frequences Modulees" compilation and was (is) presented on such sites as www.streetforward.com , http://www.staticbeats.com and http://www.twistedhardware.com and many others.
In July 2007 after a long silence ELEMENTS OF SCI-FI have finally finished their new album called "Climate Control" – free form collection of ambient soundscapes, processed environmental sounds, relaxed grooves and beats with the occasional dramatic culminations and some speech snippets from the scientific lectures brought together by the controversial and alarming topic of climate change.
Album consists of 11 tacks mixed together and is released by a new Belgian indie label Greenhouse Records and distributed via mail-order by U-Cover.
30 September "Climate Control" will be premiered live at the third edition of Greenhouse Effect event – a series of dedicated Ambient/Electronica nights at Ghent’s lounge bar Limonada.