Kedr Livanskiy - Your Need (2019)

Kedr Livanskiy’s second album, Your Need, is a celebration of life and rebirth. It’s about a fighter’s spirit, and if you will, a little audacity and courage. DJ’ing and early forms of dance music inspired a furious burst of creative energy after months of melancholy, sadness and reflection to record the album in only a matter of weeks.

After her first album, Ariadna, Kedr felt lost with her identity and was searching for the direction of her next chapter. For a while she felt trapped by her own image and needed quite some time to resolve this internal dissonance – to grow, to evolve.

DJ’ing was the main catalyst to pull her out of this rut. The art form shifted her inspiration to mainly old school styles of dance music: ghetto, house, breakbeat and UK garage. For the prior year and a half she was listening to ambient, kraut-rock and more experimental genres – one can hear the brighter, more energetic influence of early electronic music in the songs on Your Need versus Ariadna.

One day she was talking with her friend Flaty (Zhenya), a very talented artist from St. Petersburg who’s signed to the GOST ZVUK label, and they decided to do a single together. He came to visit her in Moscow, but they ended up spending 10 whole days writing music together, from dawn to dusk.

They vibed off each other’s musical ideas perfectly and understood each other even without speaking. Zhenya is a beatmaster and pays attention to even the smallest details of a track. He brought incredible richness to the composition and Kedr considers him her teacher in this area. Kedr was in charge of the melodies and vibe of the tracks, and the vocal elements.

Your Need is like a chapter of life. It’s a story that illustrates different scenarios and moods that our mythical hero experiences, living in an urban jungle. From lost love to a bad trip on the dancefloor, from euphoria to deep introspection. Our hero sometimes feels bold, lost or devastated, but also tender and full, like all of us at some point in life. The ending is joyful and bright. The last song gives hope and faith that a new day will come and wash away the old. You can feel like new every day.

Your Need reflects an array of genres and a mix of cultures -- a harmonious combination of differences. Everything Kedr loves about ghetto music, in the traditions of house, dub, breakbeat, 90s electronic music and modern sounds – she’s embraced and expressed it all throughout. Your Need is Kedr’s ode to music from different eras and changing periods.