Hi everyone! Just before the winter starts to freeze our bodies and minds, let me present you our latest release, an EP by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, called "Тренды" ("Trends"). (TL;DR? Then check out the video!)
This is our 3rd physical release, and the first CD! And yeah, it's not just some home-burnt CD-R(W), but a proper limited edition audio CD recorded in a professional studio with professional sound technicians.
Лосины Маршала Потемкина exist as a real band for almost a year now, and this EP represents our evolution from neofolk & outsider music to post-punk. We played live quite frequently this year, and our performances (and, maybe, lyrics) encouraged people to tag us as art rock and avant-garde. This is much a direction of our forthcoming development, as I'm willing to believe.
You may check our live sound here:
But let's talk about the CD now. As I have mentioned, it's a very limited edition, even a promo edition. In 2018 we may print another edition with alternative mixes, but these copies are available for order (see details below).
The EP was designed by our friend Olga Klever, who made a cover and a beautiful booklet which is included into a hand-made envelope made of craft paper.
The whole package includes: abovementioned craft paper envelope, the cover and back cover with information originally handwritten by our guitarist and manager Alyona Kidun, the abovementioned booklet (4 pages: a page per a song) with elements of cover design, snapshots from shooting of our promo video (hopefully to be uploaded in early 2018), nice praise from wonderful people around, and some additional information. And, of course, the package includes the CD itself.
This EP includes 4 songs, and the first one is titled "Дэвид Линч" ("David Lynch"), and it's about David Lynch. It was easy to predict, I know. But David Lynch is such a cult person here, every hipster schoolgirl says she loves "Twin Peaks", so David Lynch is obviously a trend here. Don't get me wrong, we don't laugh at him, personally I respect David Lynch, but it's about public image, not the person.
The next song is a post-punk version of "Рив гош" ("Rive Gauche"), a fancy cosmetics store. It's also a trend. While listening to the first two songs, and "Рив гош" in general, I suppose I did my best to make Mark E. Smith grumbling that I've ripped him off ;)
The third song, "Незамерзайка" ("Antifreeze") is a topical song about tragic events happened in Siberia previous year. Yes, some people are drinking antifreeze. It's a serious social problem: vodka is rather expensive (a bottle costs ~$3.5 which is expensive for alcoholics), so the people who suffer from this disease, simply can't afford a quality product, they drink such booze, go blind or even die. And it's not about homeless people, or other misfits, but about workers, drivers; even a "regionally important poet", who is also a heavily drinker, can get in such trouble. And, obviosly, we're not laughing again. This is topical, but I was thinking about how Phil Ochs or even our 19th century writers could cover this issue. This is the longest track on EP, and, to my mind, it is seriously scaring track. While playing live, we used a live noise found object, for the studio I had to create an electronic sample. Technicians have made a cool mastering for this song, so it really seems that it was too cold in the studio. I read Joy Division used climate control systems to make the temperature in the studio really low, so that's a chilling coincidence.
The final track, "Утренний рейс" ("A Morning Flight"), is also topical, as it covers issues of suicidal tendencies among Russian teenagers, represented mostly wrong in the media. Unlike us, these millenials had happy childhood, and, becoming teenagers, they grow desperately bored. This problem is well-known to any keen Dostoevsky reader, for instance. On the contrary, the media tend to ignore our literature, and they created a criminal (though fake) version about malicious adults who encourage teenagers' suicides. Moreover, the song touches upon not only teenager suicide problem (which is definitely tragic), but also my personal experience of "wandering" and not having home, not just apartments, and this big amount of pain has turned into the song. Those teenagers often killed themselves early in the morning, in the same time when morning flights depart, and I remember sitting in the airport waiting for my morning flight and reading these stories about "suicidal games", and felt nothing but regret: I regreted their deaths, regreted my fate of a "wanderer", it was simply a depression I can never completely beat. That's why I tried to sing here as low as I could.
So, "Trends" is kind of sick name, really sardonic. The process of recording was tough. Technicians have removed almost all the noise, including the noise which was made by synths and added on purpose, especially in 3rd and 4th songs.
I can confess I learned a brilliant lesson: if you enter a studio while being inexperienced person thinking you're an underground hero, you'll be shocked by enormous expenses. We couldn't afford most of the proper equipment, we needed professional technicians, and it all costed us a lot. In addition, it was critically expensive and difficult to record live drums, so we had to ask for electronic ones. Because of all that, we bought more experience rather than this CD. I realize we need to continue learning, but I have quite ambitious plans for the next year.
"Trends" were presented in Moscow underground garage club recently, and I had some nice feedback from there. Thanks to my friend Hipstor Smith who organized the gig!
I want to thank everyone involved in making of this CD, technicians from a state-owned studio we recorded in, people who supported us and visited our gigs, helped us somehow, etc. Biggest thanks from me go to our bassist and guitarist Zhenya Dvoynishnikov, who is actually making almost all music here — I was responsible only for lyrics, vocals and some synths on the EP.
"Trends" are currently not available online, but it will be uploaded rather soon, I believe. Anyway, it's available for order. I feel I have no moral right to ask you to purchase it by real price (as it would currently be around $40, including postal services, to cover our costs, no joke, though in future it'll surely be reduced), but you can name your price.
Feel free to contact me in case if you want to order it or any of our previous tape releases:
Nervoese Leute / Snowbringer — Split ($3.5 + postal services)
VA — Music to Play With an Axe ($1.7 + postal services; only one copy left!)
Also, feel free to contact me to leave some feedback, as it's much appreciated! We consider our first CD and first studio experience as an achievement, and currently I'm really positive about out perspectives.
Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey
(design by Olga Klever)
This is our 3rd physical release, and the first CD! And yeah, it's not just some home-burnt CD-R(W), but a proper limited edition audio CD recorded in a professional studio with professional sound technicians.
Лосины Маршала Потемкина exist as a real band for almost a year now, and this EP represents our evolution from neofolk & outsider music to post-punk. We played live quite frequently this year, and our performances (and, maybe, lyrics) encouraged people to tag us as art rock and avant-garde. This is much a direction of our forthcoming development, as I'm willing to believe.
You may check our live sound here:
But let's talk about the CD now. As I have mentioned, it's a very limited edition, even a promo edition. In 2018 we may print another edition with alternative mixes, but these copies are available for order (see details below).
The EP was designed by our friend Olga Klever, who made a cover and a beautiful booklet which is included into a hand-made envelope made of craft paper.
The whole package includes: abovementioned craft paper envelope, the cover and back cover with information originally handwritten by our guitarist and manager Alyona Kidun, the abovementioned booklet (4 pages: a page per a song) with elements of cover design, snapshots from shooting of our promo video (hopefully to be uploaded in early 2018), nice praise from wonderful people around, and some additional information. And, of course, the package includes the CD itself.
This EP includes 4 songs, and the first one is titled "Дэвид Линч" ("David Lynch"), and it's about David Lynch. It was easy to predict, I know. But David Lynch is such a cult person here, every hipster schoolgirl says she loves "Twin Peaks", so David Lynch is obviously a trend here. Don't get me wrong, we don't laugh at him, personally I respect David Lynch, but it's about public image, not the person.
The next song is a post-punk version of "Рив гош" ("Rive Gauche"), a fancy cosmetics store. It's also a trend. While listening to the first two songs, and "Рив гош" in general, I suppose I did my best to make Mark E. Smith grumbling that I've ripped him off ;)
(Earlier electronic version of this song)
The third song, "Незамерзайка" ("Antifreeze") is a topical song about tragic events happened in Siberia previous year. Yes, some people are drinking antifreeze. It's a serious social problem: vodka is rather expensive (a bottle costs ~$3.5 which is expensive for alcoholics), so the people who suffer from this disease, simply can't afford a quality product, they drink such booze, go blind or even die. And it's not about homeless people, or other misfits, but about workers, drivers; even a "regionally important poet", who is also a heavily drinker, can get in such trouble. And, obviosly, we're not laughing again. This is topical, but I was thinking about how Phil Ochs or even our 19th century writers could cover this issue. This is the longest track on EP, and, to my mind, it is seriously scaring track. While playing live, we used a live noise found object, for the studio I had to create an electronic sample. Technicians have made a cool mastering for this song, so it really seems that it was too cold in the studio. I read Joy Division used climate control systems to make the temperature in the studio really low, so that's a chilling coincidence.
The final track, "Утренний рейс" ("A Morning Flight"), is also topical, as it covers issues of suicidal tendencies among Russian teenagers, represented mostly wrong in the media. Unlike us, these millenials had happy childhood, and, becoming teenagers, they grow desperately bored. This problem is well-known to any keen Dostoevsky reader, for instance. On the contrary, the media tend to ignore our literature, and they created a criminal (though fake) version about malicious adults who encourage teenagers' suicides. Moreover, the song touches upon not only teenager suicide problem (which is definitely tragic), but also my personal experience of "wandering" and not having home, not just apartments, and this big amount of pain has turned into the song. Those teenagers often killed themselves early in the morning, in the same time when morning flights depart, and I remember sitting in the airport waiting for my morning flight and reading these stories about "suicidal games", and felt nothing but regret: I regreted their deaths, regreted my fate of a "wanderer", it was simply a depression I can never completely beat. That's why I tried to sing here as low as I could.
So, "Trends" is kind of sick name, really sardonic. The process of recording was tough. Technicians have removed almost all the noise, including the noise which was made by synths and added on purpose, especially in 3rd and 4th songs.
I can confess I learned a brilliant lesson: if you enter a studio while being inexperienced person thinking you're an underground hero, you'll be shocked by enormous expenses. We couldn't afford most of the proper equipment, we needed professional technicians, and it all costed us a lot. In addition, it was critically expensive and difficult to record live drums, so we had to ask for electronic ones. Because of all that, we bought more experience rather than this CD. I realize we need to continue learning, but I have quite ambitious plans for the next year.
"Trends" were presented in Moscow underground garage club recently, and I had some nice feedback from there. Thanks to my friend Hipstor Smith who organized the gig!
I want to thank everyone involved in making of this CD, technicians from a state-owned studio we recorded in, people who supported us and visited our gigs, helped us somehow, etc. Biggest thanks from me go to our bassist and guitarist Zhenya Dvoynishnikov, who is actually making almost all music here — I was responsible only for lyrics, vocals and some synths on the EP.
"Trends" are currently not available online, but it will be uploaded rather soon, I believe. Anyway, it's available for order. I feel I have no moral right to ask you to purchase it by real price (as it would currently be around $40, including postal services, to cover our costs, no joke, though in future it'll surely be reduced), but you can name your price.
Feel free to contact me in case if you want to order it or any of our previous tape releases:
Nervoese Leute / Snowbringer — Split ($3.5 + postal services)
VA — Music to Play With an Axe ($1.7 + postal services; only one copy left!)
Also, feel free to contact me to leave some feedback, as it's much appreciated! We consider our first CD and first studio experience as an achievement, and currently I'm really positive about out perspectives.
Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey
