Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.For an illustration of TikTok’s capricious powers of patronage, look no further than the viral success of “Sudno” by Molchat Doma — a song about a poet contemplating suicide sung in Russian by a post-punk band from Minsk, enthusiastically adopted by TikTokers in 2020 to soundtrack videos showing armpits being dyed blue and dogs wearing sunglasses.International exposure was the silver lining to the indignity of having their gloomy music used so frivolously. TikTok success has helped the trio — singer Egor Shkutko, bassist and keyboardist Pavel Kozlov, main songwriter and producer Raman Kamahortsau — to establish an audience outside Belarus. They are signed to New York label Sacred Bones and have relocated to Los Angeles. Next month they will play London’s Roundhouse during a European tour. No dates are scheduled for their homeland, Belarus — known as Europe’s last dictatorship, a staunch Russian ally.Molchat Doma (which means “silent houses”) are among a large number of Belarusian artists to have left the country in recent years. Their new album Belaya Polosa means “white stripe”, which could be taken as a coded reference to the pattern of the resistance flag used by Belarus’s harshly repressed protest movement. But the band refuse to comment on politics. The drawn-out mood of dread in their songs has its own history.Shkutko’s deep reverb-treated voice discloses one branch of that tradition. He continues to sing in Russian following his move to the US, but he very much resembles an English vocalist, namely Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan. The music is gothic synth-rock with darkly jangling guitar and a drum machine. Its familiarity mitigates the remoteness of the lyrics for non-Russian speakers. The style has Russian antecedents too, such as the 1980s Leningrad band Kino.The album has a tendency to get locked into a monotonous groove, as in “Ya Tak Ustal” (which means “I’m so tired”). But the best tracks, such as “Ty Zhe Ne Znaesh Kto Ya” (“You don’t know who I am”), are imposing and dynamic, while the switch to a more psychedelic register in “Chernye Cvety” (“black flowers”) points to new pastures.★★★☆☆‘Belaya Polosa’ is released by Sacred Bones
