About 2H Company

Russian abstract hip-hop project. 2H Company is Ilya Baramiya, Aleksandr Zaytsev (members of Ёлочные Игрушки group) and Mikhail Fenichev. Group was created in 1999, when the former members of the group "Province" Mikhail Il'in and Mikhail Fenichev were introduced to Ilya Barami and Aleksandr Zaytsev, known as Ёлочные Игрушки, and they decided to write several songs together. Because "Province" was a rap group and the interests of new project revolved around hip-hop and its derivatives, Zaytsev proposed the name "2H Company" as the derivative of the English expression "hip-hop," which was preserved as the name of group. Thus, the name "2H Company" can be understood as the association of people, whose joint creation is based one way or another on different aspects of hip-hop of culture. The first song, "Prov", contains echoes of the pasts of two members of 2H Company, which can be understood and as reduction from the Russian word "checking" (test), was recorded and published in '99. St. Petersburg label ChebuRec included it in the compilation of Russian electronics' "Output In City Two". Apparently, this was the first case in the domestic practice, when musical tracking for rap, read in Russian, was not backed by all-hip-hop rhythms but experimental electronics as well. Later, up to 2002, the group barely let itself be known. Mikhail Fenichev wrote new lyrics and Ilya Baramiya and Aleksandr Zaytsev were occupied with their project Ёлочные Игрушки. In the summer of 2002 2H Company were again assembled in the studio and wrote two new compositions, Чушь (Nonsense) and Космос (Cosmos), which became part of the group's debut album. These were the last two compositions which still partially utilize the traditional hip-hop sound. Work on new material began in the summer of 2003, when vocal tracks of the larger part of the new songs were laid down, the core of the album Психохирурги (Psycho-Surgeons). When Ёлочные Игрушки remained unsatisfied with the first "traditional" versions of the arrangements they began to work on a change in their sound. People that attended the "Plug'n'Play" festival in the fall of 2003 were the first to witness the coming-together of Ёлочные Игрушки and 2H Company and heard everything in the completely new style; the place of drum-machine occupied now by a sampler, sounding even more electronic and funky. The active work on the album Психохирурги (Psycho-Surgeons) began in the winter of 2003-2004. The experience of concert appearances were taken into account and made into completely new arrangements of the compositions Семь жизней Part 1 (Seven Lives) and Майор паранойя (Major Paranoia), along with three new, very uncommon and strong tracks, Меланхолия (Melancholy), Адаптация (Adaptation) and Огурец мозга (Cucumber of the Brain).