Buttechno plays it close at Public Records

Pavel Milyakov leads a four-act Thursday bill in the 200-capacity Sound Room on Nov. 12.

Two hundred people, a Thursday, and a bill four names deep: that is the shape of Buttechno's night at Sound Room at Public Records on Thursday, Nov. 12. Music starts at 7 p.m., and with a room that small, tickets through DICE are the thing to sort out first.

Buttechno is Pavel Milyakov, a producer from Moscow's suburbs, as his label page at Minimal Wave puts it. In our records he plays Brooklyn more than any other market, which makes this a hometown-adjacent night rather than a visit, and he has an artist page at the Brooklyn station The Lot Radio. Whatever the passport says, Brooklyn has been seeing a lot of him.

His catalogue is a useful map of how wide his range is. His debut album, *SPORT*, came out on Johns' Kingdom and was made for Gosha Rubchinskiy's AW15 runway show, according to CTM Festival. *Cherskogo Drive*, a six-track LP, came out on Cititrax (Minimal Wave; Crack Magazine review). *badtrip* followed on Trip, the label run by Nina Kraviz (Resident Advisor review). Under his own name, Pavel Milyakov, he released the ambient record *La Maison De La Mort*. Runway soundtrack, club techno, leftfield full-lengths and ambient work: it is not a narrow lane.

That breadth is the best way to read the rest of the bill. Klein, Matana Roberts and Significant Other join him, and given how far Milyakov's own records range, a four-act bill in a 200-capacity room reads as a night built for curiosity. If you have only ever heard Buttechno through a big club system, this is a chance to hear him up close, with no headliner-sized gap between the stage and the floor.

The room matters too. Sound Room at Public Records holds 200, which is about as close as you can get to a producer without standing behind the decks. Small rooms change how electronic music lands: you hear the detail, the low end hits your chest rather than the back wall, and the crowd tends to be people who came on purpose.

The practical notes are short. It is a Thursday with a 7 p.m. start, which is early for this kind of bill, so this is one to go to straight from work rather than after dinner. With four acts on the bill, an early arrival also means you see the whole arc of the night instead of walking in on the last act. Small capacity plus a local draw usually means the room fills, so buy ahead rather than counting on the door.

This is also the rare show that rewards a little homework. Put on *Cherskogo Drive* on the way over, then *La Maison De La Mort*, and you will have a decent sense of the two poles Milyakov can swing between on any given night.

It is a Thursday in Brooklyn with a neighbor on the decks and three other artists keeping him company. Get there early, stand close to the front and let the night go wherever it wants to.

Sources: Minimal Wave — Buttechno (minimal-wave.org); The Lot Radio — pavel milyakov / buttechno (thelotradio.com); CTM Festival — Buttechno (archive2013-2020.ctm-festival.de); Minimal Wave — Cherskogo Drive (minimal-wave.org); Crack Magazine — Buttechno: Cherskogo Drive review (crackmagazine.net); Resident Advisor — Buttechno: badtrip review (ra.co); DICE tickets (link.dice.fm)