Russian-born Swedish-based laptop player Ivan "Coh" Pavlov, began his studies on
disco-music and techno with Mask of Birth (Raster-Noton, 2000 - Mego, 2002), originally recorded in 1997.
He turned to glitch music on the intimidating
Enter Tinnitus (Raster-Noton, 1999), but
returned to his post-modernist reflections on dance-music with the EP
Love Uncut (Eskaton, 2001), a collaboration with Coil that dissected
classics of the 1980s.
Iron (2000) was a detour into rock music.
He then abandoned that thread and delved into ambient glitch soundsculpting
with Seasons (Idea, 2003), four suites
that process instruments and noise to create otherworldly atmospheres.
The centerpiece is the metamorphosis of the solo guitar sonata
Springs Come Shooting - Make Love, Make War, in which a wavering
sequencer-like pattern mutates into a sort of hard-rock guitar solo and then
into a blazing ball of white noise.
The Colour Of Beauty - Summer Is Red for violin and computer
is a rare case of marriage of musique concrete and chamber music, a
psychological game of sustained and staccato tones.
As Ripe As Autumn's Tears is a piano and rain sonata in which the
sparsely plucked high piano notes interact with the bed of hushed field
recordings.
The introspective nightmare of Winter Brooding Underneath, a colossal,
slowly rotating electronic drone that interacts with a sphinx-like cello, the
two noises amplifying each other, resonating with each other.
Coh then focused the bleak concept album
Netmork (SouRce Research Recordings, 2002), mainly taken up by the
eponymous three-movement suite, on the theme of
telephony ("digitally encoded human emotions running through solid darkness of telephone wires").
0397Post-Pop (Mego, 2004) collects live performances and early rare
material from 1997.
Coh's rather uneventful Above Air (Eskaton, 2006) was a
tribute to Coil's John Balance.
Coh and
Peter Christopherson of Coil formed Soisong, debuting with the EP qXn948s (2008) and the album xAj3z (2009).
The 24-minute EP Patherns (Raster-Noton, 2006) works as a summary of
Coh's expansive electronic suites.
The double-disc Strings (Raster Norton, 2007) is a summation of Coh's
art via espressionistic manipulations of guitar, piano, oud lute and saz guitar.
The first contains the suites
Sidereal As If Not,
No Monsters No Rock,
Euphrates.
The second disc contains only one piece, the 17-minute SU-U, another
improvisatoin for oud and saz.
Iiron (Editions Mego, 2011) was the follow-up to Iron, and
recycled recordings from the 1980s influenced by
new wave, prog-rock and speed-metal.
Retro-2038 (Editions Mego, 2013) was a set of danceable pieces,
notably the ten-minute elusive Vainio.
To Beat (2014), unfortunately, doesn't even have that.
The 37-minute live performance of Mort Aux Vaches (2015) was a better
introduction to his work than the albums that preceded it.
Music Vol (2016) is a collection of subtle subliminal ambient pieces
such as 20000 Lieues, Vivid and
Night Over Peak 1079.
The 53-minute piece of COH DOMA (2018) was
dedicated to Mika Vainio (Pansonic).
