Fantastic Swimmers
The Belarusian jazz project Fantastic swimmers (Fantastyčnyja Płyŭcy) exists since the mid 00's. The main driving force behind it is Viktar Siamaška, who started and maintains the project, band, studio sessions and performances. Musicians that played in different sessions/albums/performances include Aleś Siamaška, Eryk Arłoŭ-Šymkus, Ihar Adasik, Liavon Paulenak (from Nagual), Vital Kuleusky (ili-ili), Vital Epau (Rational Diet), Fryd Samotny (Kusudama), Eric Arlou-Shimkus (Vuraj), Vasil Pankratau, Raman Jarash and others.
Fantastic swimmers are actually rare performes. As a basic condition for the potential place – the presence of live piano. Another reason for infrequent appearances is quite a radical musical direction. This was confirmed by a recent concert at the Vankovich House-Museum in Minsk: the result of event is a quick dismissal of a young employee who organized the concert.
Viktar Siamaška is a Belarusian poet, broadcaster and musician seeking a synthesis of free jazz, folklore, academic and electronic music. He specializes in a wide range of wind instruments often played with sound effects. His main artistic credo is spontaneous improvisation. For many years Viktar has played in music and poetic group “Kuzniec and Siamania”, intuitive improv band “Knyaz Myshkin” and also has collaborated with a psycho-folk band “Nagual”. Since 2012 he’s dedicated to solo projects. During his artistic carreer Viktar has performed in many European countries and released a number of solo albums including “g.m” (published by a Russian label Clinical Archives), a collaborative album with French improviser Christophe Meulien, “Biotope” album etc. In 2013 Viktar became the winner of Formanta – an electroacoustic music contest organized by the Belarusian “Radio Culture”. Viktar Siamaška has also published in several collections of Belarusian poetry and created radio programs about Belarusian music culture – “Terra Nova” and “Krakatuk”.