Nikolay Vasiliyevich Shevchuk (b. 3 July 1980, Ulyanovsk, then USSR) is a Uralican trance artist, specialising in dark trance. He has only released one album to date, but is working on his second.
History
Nikolay Shevchuk was born in Ulyanovsk, USSR, and before he even started going to grade school, the Soviet power structure shifted twice, bringing Mikhail Gorbachev into power. Growing up was a very harrowing experience for Shevchuk, as his factory-worker father was laid off with the collapse of communism at the end of 1991, requiring the family to move to places with work, which would end Shevchuk up in a burgeoning oil town, Surgut, where he would live until he finished high school in 1998. In spite of his father's pleas that he stay in the area, he wanted more from life than to just be an oil worker living for money.
He moved to Yekaterinburg, where he began attending the Ural Mussorgsky State Conservatoire, since his musical abilities were always evident during his days in high school, where he played the alto saxophone. When there, he began experimenting with various forms of electronic music in between his composition and performance studies. In particular he seemed to gravitate towards dark trance and acid jazz, two completely different forms of music yet both appealing to him.
He graduated from UMSC in 2003 with a BMus, so he moved back home to Ulyanovsk and began to teach music and play in jazz bands and orchestras (where he would play both alto sax and bass clarinet), while making computer music in his free time. In the closing stages of 2005, though, the Cataclysm had him running for his life, as Ulyanovsk was all but destroyed in the fires of war. He would end up in the rather obscure industrial city of Ukhta.
Out of the ashes of the Cataclysm was born the Robertian Era, and he relished the relative calm of Ukhta for around a year. But then, during Great War III, something happened that made him sick to his stomach (according to a recent interview done with him getting his views on Robertian history) - the Uralic Purges. His best friend from school before his departure from Ulyanovsk was part of the city's Mordvinic minority, and had even taught Nik a few words in Moksha, his native tongue. This friend and his family were forced from their homes, and had no place to go, so Nikolay opened up his modest home to as many of the friend's family as he could legally hold.
This modest music teacher would soon become an associate member of a growing Uralicist Movement, due to the fact that he lacked the funds to make the trip back and forth to Syktyvkar every week. However, he would later become a founder of the Movement's first branch outside of that city along with six other people, among them the fathers of two Pelastus members, Erno Sinisalo and Anu Kangur. Even though he was never particularly outspoken, he helped out behind the scenes with administration and clerical items.
It was during this time - running from Fall 2007 through to January of 2008, that he began working on the songs that would, in March 2008, be released as Nik's Tricks, Shevchuk's first full album. Because most of the Russians who, like him, decried the Uralic Purges, were Eastern Orthodox Christians, Shevchuk converted to Christianity during this time as well.
Shevchuk still lives in Ukhta, and is actually a member of the Ukhta Radio Symphony Orchestra, in which he alternates between alto saxophone, bass clarinet, and electronic instruments. When not performing, he works as a band teacher at a high school in Sosnogorsk. More recently, he has branched into politics as well, serving his first term on the Uralican Tribal Council in February 2010.
Discography
Full Albums
- March 2008 - Nik's Tricks
- March 2010 - Shevvy's Back
Singles
- April 2008 - War On The Floor (from Nik's Tricks)
- July 2008 - Refined (from Nik's Tricks)
- September 2008 - Alarum (from Nik's Tricks)
- February 2009 - Alarum (Karl Miller Remix) (from the soundtrack to Through Ice, Snow And Arctic Winds)
- April 2009 - Pit of Vipers (from the soundtrack to The Fear Factory: The Untold Story)
- July 2009 - Lest We Forget (from the soundtrack to Roll The Hard Six)
- October 2009 - Paranoid (from Nik's Tricks)
- December 2009 - Shut Up And Dance (from Nik's Tricks)
Trivia
- Nik is now fluent in Finnish, English, Komi-Zyrian, and Moksha as well as his native Russian.
- Nik loves to compose for film soundtracks. Three of his singles are actually from soundtracks, including that of award-winning Uralican film Through Ice, Snow, And Arctic Winds.
- Nik is working on a second undergraduate degree by correspondence - he wants to teach history.