I'm a PhD student at the University of Manchester, investigating dissident and avant-garde art in late-Soviet Siberia. I've also studied in Russia, and completed my MA in Leiden, NL.
Outside of academic pretensions, I'm a musician, artist, aspiring linguist (by English standards, anyway), avid reader, and watcher of films. Happy to talk about pretty much anything. Even happier to jam, if you've got any spare instruments knocking about.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I love travelling but, frankly, I'm a poor student so it's not always a viable way of spending free time.

Interests

• traveling
• music
• history
• languages
• rum
• nerd culture

Music, Movies, and Books

My main passion in life is music, particularly discovering new artists and sounds. I play guitar, saxophones, keys and drums to varying degrees.
My taste in music is very varied; I can find something to like about almost anything. To list a few artists I've been listening to recently: Melvins, Pile, Interpol, MF Doom, Flying Lotus/Captain Murphy, Nate Smith, Queens of the Stone Age, Daughter, Snarky Puppy, Mac Demarco, Regina Spektor, Marika Hackman, Future of the Left, Bonobo, BadBadNotGood, Oxbow, Girls in Airports, ADHD, Charlie Parker, Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Lounge Lizards, King Krule, and Christian Scott. My current musical god is Colin Stetson.

I love reading, particularly dystopian novels (I'm a big Huxley fan), Lovecraftian horror, and Philip K Dick-style science fiction. I'm reading a lot of Sartre and Haruki Murakami at the minute, and I love surrealist humour (Pratchett, Gaiman, Douglas Adams). I'm also a big fan of graphic novels, particularly Sandman and standards like (anything by) Alan Moore, BPRD, Constantine

I mainly like films that make me think. Surreal and psychological films ('Naked Lunch', 'Donnie Darko', 'The Double') are always welcome, but I also like the utterly ridiculous (Wiseau's 'The Room', 'Nazis at the Centre of the Earth' etc.), and the mundane ('Cashback', 'Adventureland'). I always have a place in my heart for a good drug film or an American Psycho/Fear and Loathing-esque sojourn into the human mind.

Countries I’ve Visited

Croatia, Estonia, France, Malta, Netherlands, Russian Federation, South Africa

Countries I’ve Lived In

Netherlands, Russian Federation, South Africa, United Kingdom