Hi everyone, we're happy to finally present your latest physical release, Shadowplay Tape #3, which includes 4th longplay by Nervöse Leute, titled "I Play the Music — You Dance", and also tracks by The Colourful Pictures and Vladimir Laznev.
Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a longread.
New album by Nervöse Leute is a story of an ill guy who is facing the fact he's about to die soon. The whole 45 minutes of noises and weird sound collages keep on exploring his state of mind. It took me more than 2 years to complete the album. This is mostly post-industrial record with several songs, but also with big amount of shortwave recordings and field recordings, bunch of metal percussion and quite musical pieces (mostly acoustic guitar and piano).
The meaning of the title can be explained in a way that long-lasting investigation of frontiers of music and noise led to an insight that in the end you'll get music, but not just sonic structure. And if it's music, then you're supposed to dance :D
A1: New Tab
New Tab is an opening track which was a result of an experiment of simultaneous mixing of the whole spectre of #shortwave stations (which were primary sources for the project when it was initiated), but when mixed, these 25 layers created rather dull soundscape which could be used as a background only, so I added some declamation of numbers from Soviet book about trains and from table of contents of Soviet songbook. It also includes an acoustic guitar piece with chant.
The story begins when the protagonist is about to take a train to see a doctor in Moscow. He studies the schedule.
A2: Brain Zaps
Brain Zaps is a short industrial piece based on found objects recordings which served as plastic percussion, is also has field recordings of workers doing repair jobs on the street. The sound resembles lo-fi version of Scatology-era Coil, but a bit darker.
The story moves to protagonist's monologue about "some serious brain zaps" he suffers from. It ends with the line "I just can't work anymore".
A3: Frankincence
The longest track of the album, Frankincense, is an exploration of movement. It was inspired by Neubauten's "Perpetuum Mobile". There are 13 layers of different sounds of movement, mostly train recordings (as protagonist is supposed to travel by a train), including Emperor's Route, a train which repeats a trip of former Tsar Nickolaus II to Siberian exile, being an allegory of protagonist's exclusion from life. It also has recordings made in Moscow Metro (Underground: the protagonist arrived to Moscow), in a Railway Station in Yekaterinburg, and some field recording made at Sheremetyevo Airport and Aero Express (Moscow).
It's titled Frankincense because there is actually a recording of frankincense which is believed to help reducing stress and is still used in Orthodoxal Christianity as a symbol of Divine Power, among others (because protagonist can only rely on God in his case).
There's also some laptop fan noise recording (the only "digital" source here), ultra-sound washing machine recording (it can't be heard by our ears just as frankincense, but it's making the spectre as full, as in New Tab), a steam generator recording (first trains used steam for movement), there are also some repair jobs field recordings, shortwave recordings, recording made in a museum of Russian history, and a recording of an emergency system telling "to exit the building" (which means death for protagonist).
"Musical" part consists of calimba, a real 19th century accordion recorded in Siberia, and more traditional acoustic guitar and piano pieces. The piano plays a significant role on the album, piano pieces portray soul movements, they're sort of sentimental. Sometimes piano sounds on this album as if a schoolboy tried to repeat Tuxedomoon's plays (Music #2 and others).
Guitar accompanies to the romantic song about "The descending sun sinking in the sea". There's also a declamation of an instruction from a book for electricians, it tells "when to change bulbs".
The track has also a "hidden" sample of a meowing cat, try to find it!
A4: Paper Clips
This piece was inspired by Paper Hats by This Heat and by What is This? by Swans. The main line ("Now what is this? Paper clips!") is like memories of protagonist working in the office, where he probably wouldn't return (as he can die soon).
A real paper clips box served as the source for percussion, there's also some piano and emergency system pieces which provide connection with previous track. It also has a feedback recording.
A5: Makeshift (Aus Ruinen)
This was also inspired by This Heat (Makeshift Swahili), and it has a distorted DDR anthem (Aus Ruinen; From Ruins) as a primary source. Metal percussion samples were recorded on the roof of Atmosphere studio (now they've moved) where Лосины Маршала Потемкина had rehearsals, so they can be heard playing at the background. Some samples were taken from stuff excluded from Северный голос's mixtape, for instance, Александр Швецов plays drums here.
The protagonist is up on the roof looking down to the city dreaming of possibility to "arise from ruins".
The track also includes field recording of heavy wind at the Fool's Mountain, air conditioning system recordings, field recordings made in Moscow State University, a jackhammer recording.
A6: Was ist Information — Fernsehen
This piece consists of a piano piece and a TV noise piece, it's like a dialogue between music and white noise.
A7: Elisa Lam Elevator
This piece has me reading Wikipedia page about death of Elisa Lam dubbed with piano piece played by children at the shooting of a film about WWII. It sounds really scary!
A8: Celebrity Armpits
This was inspired by Celebrity Lifestyle by Swans and also consists of Лосины Маршала Потемкина's rehearsal outtakes which seemed to me sounding like a deconstructed version of Swans' song. Pretty weird, to be fair.
B1: Suicidal Behaviour Among Male Lions
Well, this is actually a song. It's a lo-fi singer-songwriter piece done with acoustic guitar and metal percussion. It's sad, totally depressing story. The protagonist tells about "caves where lions prefer to die", reflecting on his possible death, too.
B2: Kosygin Kamp — Death of Hurvinek
This is the harshest song, sounding like a lo-fi early Coil meeting Test Dept. and Laibach: metal percussion, eerie voice, disturbing flutes and melodica which remind of a French horn, and a story of "starving to death in the camp of Kosygin".
"Camp of Kosygin" is actually the whole USSR/Russia, Kosygin was a Prime Minister of USSR for 16 years, and a member of Soviet Government for 42 years. Hurvinek is a puppet toy from Czech Republic, also a character of Soviet children's magazine "Веселые картинки" (Funny Pictures), a smart boy who often comes to help to his silly Papa Spable (but not vice-versa: "no Papa Spable will come to help").
The song also features piano piece, broken external storage noises, street workers' recordings (including samples of them coughing), and also David Lynch's speech samples like "I'm so depressed, I don't know what I'm doing", recording of a folk song sung with accordion accompany, and also shortwave speech samples cut from documentary about mountain lions (connection with previous song about lions).
B3: I'm Ready
The final song is mostly like Suicidal Behaviour..., but it's even sadder. Musically it's the same: acoustic guitar, metal percussion (this time based on parts from Soviet vinyl player) and depression. It was inspired by 2 songs with the same name recorded by Jandek and also by Leonard Cohen's song You Want It Darker — with a chorus "Hineni, hineni, I'm ready, My Lord" (from the Bible; Cohen translated hineni as "declaration of readiness" while in Russian translation it means more like declaration of presence: here I am, My Lord").
So the story ends when the doctor says protagonist's case is uncurable (sic!), and he expresses readiness with it.
The Colourful Pictures — One Drop of Petrol in a Whole Tun of Coffee
This was recorded in Red Moral studio as an attempt of 2nd jam of The Colourful Pictures. This time it was Snowbringer, Предложный Падеж and me, so we created synth only sound. The recording of the jam was cut then, and it provides more traditional laptop soundscapes.
Владимир Лазнев — Маятник
Vladimir Laznev's minimal synth piece Маятник (The Pendulum) closes the tape. This is great minimalistic play made with true passion of 80's!
About the tape
The tape is obviously limited edition (50 copies). Each tape has a unique cover and unique design of the tape itself, made with cuts from Полярная Правда newspaper (2016). Covers portray historical photos of English army marching in Russia celebrating the end of WWI, pictures of Red Army soldiers during Russian Civil War, photos of destroyed Navy Theatre and sunk Kolskaya Jack-up Rig.
So it's nice collector's item, I must admit.
You may purchase a copy at a tremendously low price ($2.75 + postal costs), just leave a comment or write me a e-mail.
The content of the tape is currently unavailable to download. We'll inform you when it's done.
Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey
