FFM: A NON-PROFIT AGENCY FOR FREE VOICES IN RUSSIA
SYNC and LICENSING
EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES and BOOTCAMPS @ UCLA
BLOCKCHAIN PROTECTION OF IP / AUTOMATED RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
CURATORIAL WORK @ THE WENDE MUSEUM, LA
TRANSLATION and CONSULTANCY
THE ADVANTAGES OF FFM
TWENTY YEARS OF CURATING SUPERIOR CONTENT
THE MOST CONNECTIONS WITH LOCAL ARTISTS
GENUINE INNOVATION OVER ELEVEN TIME-ZONES
BESPOKE, NON-PROFIT SERVICES
BACKED BY ACADEMIC RESEARCH
BOOTCAMPS, CONFERENCES, AND FESTIVALS
MUSEUM AND AUDIO PRESERVATION WORK
A non-profit initiative overseen by David MacFadyen, Professor @ UCLA
Comparative Literature, Digital Humanities,. and Musicology
EDUCATION: FFM/PSV MUSIC BOOTCAMPS @ UCLA
Pacific Sound and Vision, a sister project to FFM, is a nonprofit, public benefit corporation with IRC § 501(c)(3) status and based in Los Angeles.
It is organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for charitable purposes
CAMP 1: SONGWRITING WORKSHOPS BETWEEN MOSCOW and LA
CAMP 2: MANAGEMENT and MARKETING in the MUSIC BUSINESS
CAMP 3: DESIGNING an ELECTRONIC PRESS KIT / MENTAL HEALTH for MUSICIANS
CAMP 4 (SPRING 2022): ARCHITECTURE of a HIT SONG
CAMP 5: WEB3 and the MUSIC INDUSTRY
Unbelievable chance to collaborate on a concrete task in English with native speakers. A priceless experience
A huge thank you for the remarkable effort—and for the care taken with us all
I was flabbergasted to meet these people!
I won’t be able to fall asleep. Thanks for the inspiration!
Thanks! I won’t get tired of saying that….
This is the coolest bootcamp!
Thanks for all the love and organization!
What colossal care and attention. I so rarely see this level of enthusiasm!
What a cool format. Why didn’t we think of this earlier?! Top-notch organization
CURATION: THE ARCHIVAL MISSION
CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE PSV MUSIC ARCHIVES AT THE WENDE MUSEUM IN LOS ANGELES
STATEMENT ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
In February 2022, an invasion of Ukraine was ordered by the Russian government. Tragically, because that invasion did not go to plan, the violence only escalated, leading to the displacement of millions of innocent citizens––and the death of thousands more. This destruction of a neighboring culture––by a government dismissing Ukraine’s “right to exist”––is an essentially fascist reenactment of the worst excesses in Soviet culture. That same invasion now defines the last generation of an erstwhile empire, driven more by grievance than any enduring principles, as it takes revenge on the peaceful contentment of others.
During the worst years of the USSR––the Stalinist “purges” of the late 1930s––popular music was a vital, often contrary force. For those who opposed the State, so-called “light entertainment” (èstrada) bore meanings that need not be written down. Stanzas and melodies were committed to memory and therefore much safer than heavy prose manuscripts, say. At the other end of the political spectrum, state-approved èstrada––with or without lyrics––could also approximate what we might call the “Soviet sublime.” It could also support the State. To take but one example: patriotism and/or jingoism must be equivalent to their object. Larger nations, indeed empires, demand particular grandeur. This meant in the 1930s that the oldest and loudest clichés of some “boundless” Slavic territory––i.e., constant imperial expansion––gave rise in Moscow to literary and musical gestures that could never be equivalent to that illimitability. After all, nothingness (being simultaneously everywhere and nowhere special) has no name. In the same way, “endless striving” will also escape description.
Hoping both to hide its ugly intention and further its cause, ideally at the same time, dogma turned instead to the affective powers of light music and popular song. They were underwritten by apolitical metaphors of “undying love” or “blissful happiness,” in order to hint at some inexpressible fidelity to the State. Even the most bellicose ideology, however, is always secondary to fervent apoliticism. Propaganda needs love stories and other narratives of endless commitment. The opposite is not true in 2022––nor was it under the Soviets. Popular music was able to be both political and not during the Soviet years, which is how it often survived.
Songwriting and music-making, especially when mawkish, express superior forms of social engagement. Akin to Freud’s so-called “oceanic feeling” of total, wordless membership in the world, they trade in expansive, affecting metaphors that no government can ever effect. And so, in that same spirit, this non-profit enterprise––FFMP––aims to showcase creativity from philosophically kindred musicians in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, just as it has done for over a decade. It highlights artists from three East Slavic cultures with neither the desire nor any intention to continue a war orchestrated to “pseudo-historical rants,” to quote the Kremlin’s most famous critic. Music is bigger, better, and more philosophically robust than policy; were that not the case, policy wouldn’t use it in the first place.
But how exactly can FFMP help Western supervisors and aficionados discover top-notch compositions––either for their work or own entertainment?