Hi everyone, we're presenting our brand new release: a web mixtape «Кто умер, тот не может умереть» (The Dead Can't Die) by Северный голос (The Northern Voice). Sorry, Mr. Jarmusch, but we weren't aware of your work with similar title.
Moreover, it's a quote.
But I feel like I need to make an introduction. Северный голос isn't a band, it's a group of poets. Its members are Pavel Surnov, Alexander Shvetsov (in the centre of the cover) and me. The group reads poetry while the music is playing. The music can be different: we read over cello, acoustic guitar, synths, tank drum, whatever.
The project is sort of parody, as it mocks too serious "middle class poetry" popular in Russia, such as Мужской голос (The Male Voice) or Живые поэты (Living Poets). It's a mainstream commercial poetry, vanilla poetry which makes us die laughing.
That's why we decided to use complex approach to poetry. Pavel's poetry, as well as mine, is openly sarcastic, while Alexander tends to read serious verses which adds complication to the concept. It's mostly post-irony.
Reading awkward stories about failures, weird affairs and accidents is mixed here with pseudo-romantic lyrics. As a result, "decadent" tag has been applied to us a variety of times.
You may check out the earliest live performance of the project here:
The fact that Alexander does it all seriously can't make us considering him a "weak link" as some fellow colleagues said. He's a prolific poet who's published 3 books of verses, and his traditional method of work adds balance to our more avant-garde oriented approach.
Pavel also has plenty of serious material, unfortunately it hadn't been published as a book yet, but we hope something would turn out.
Right, let's switch to the mixtape. Spoken word recording for "The Dead Can't Die" were made in a basement studio which was under maintanence then, and there were no proper vocal speakers, so we plugged into bass or guitar amplifier and set it to sound like 60's speakers, and some lyrics sound as if were actually recorded in the times of Akhmadulina's biggest success. Some lyrics also were recorded such tricky way to resemble lyrics by Arseny Tarkovsky (famous director's father and lesser known yet superb writer) read in "Stalker" movie by Kaidanovsky.
So, we wanted to express closer connection to mid-XXth century than to modern techniques where lyrics are read over a hip-hop beat or somewhat similar. We tried to be as analogue as possible. All technical works were done by me.
Anyway, nowadays it could be impossible not to use synths, so there's some ambient soundscapes as well, but it couldn't been avoided.
Alexander's "Запах сирени, запах акации" (The smell of lilac, the smell of acacia) is read while the nylon-stringed acoustic guitar is playing, other tracks feature synths or a tank drum mixed in a way to fit percussion industrial aesthetics.
It's been also done on purpose. Percussion industrial music (like Steh auf Berlin by Neubauten) is supposed be radical ("Extreme conditions demand extreme responses", Test Dept. claimed), so this nod was sharpened to underline the current situation the independent art finds itself in.
The topics of the lyrics are: love stories, famous Russian birches and patriotism in general (in a post-ironic way), Russian North (in Pavel's "Мурмаши" - "Murmashi" - verse), etc. Мурмаши is a place where an airport, a cemetery and a local resort can be found at the same time.
The final 4 verses are the most important. Эгоист (Egoist) tells a story of spiritual degradation, while Женщина с бородой (A Bearded Woman) touches upon difficult issues of transgender people's relationships. In the end, final Веткой надвое разломиться (To Break Down Like a Branch) leads us to the situation of existential defeat, and Горшок (Potty-Chair) falls back to senile lamentations of the lost childhood.
The picture for the cover was taken by Jo Har Key.
So this is the record which is reflecting the Zeitgeist and eternity at the same time. It's difficult and may not be interpreted in a narrow way. It's not even serious, nor a joke. I consider it an example of the most honest poetic and musical approach to the present time.
Download it (wav!) for free (the whole mixtape or any track you wish)!
Stay tuned!
Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey
