​

​

If you get one thing from this website, I hope it’s that Toska, like the culture that spawned it, is not a simple thing that can be easily defined. Especially if you visit my “for the intellect page”, I hope that you’ll be able to come to understand a touch of the richness of this quintessentially Russian word. As best as I, a non-Russian, am able to, I’ve tried to capture the many shades of Toska in music. I’ve always found music much more expressive and moving than, say, visual art. So rather than just put a few pieces and claim them to capture Toska, I’ve compiled a playlist of 14 songs that, together, do the job effectively as I deem possible. I chose these songs not only for their lyrics, but for their sound: music is far more than merely poetry or waves passing through the air. I don’t know if this is something I can actually reason out because of the inherently emotional nature of it, but I will do my best to by feebly explaining my rational for a few of the song choices. 
Golden exudes the abandoned and helpless feeling inherent to Toska, for example while the Suburban War invokes a sense the intensity of the meaninglessness of the subject of the song. Too Bright to See, too Loud to Hear, brings forth that element of spiritual hopelessness. On the other hand, Keep on Bringing Me Down represents a completely different shade of Toska: it’s that ennui, that boredom. It contains yearning the face of complete worldly satisfaction. In contrast, the Ice is Getting Thinner represents a melancholy lovesickness.
Things that all of the songs have in common: they all contain a distress that is indefinite. Even if the distress has a crystallizing point, the desires are all insatiable…the longing presented in these songs will never cease because Toska exists in the holes that human beings can’t fill.

All these artifacts use sense perception (hearing) in order to communicate their message, and they also fall into Art (music) as an area of knowledge.