Hi everyone, today I'd like to present you latest LP by Лосины Маршала Потемкина. It's titled "Зинаида Миркина в ее лучшие годы" (Zinaida Mirkina in Her Best Years).
The fun thing is that "best years" of Zinaida spent in total obscurity, she was a religious poet who couldn't be published in USSR, so first issues of her books were released only in 1990s, when it was anyway too late (she was 65 years old at the moment).
So I thought it's actually about us, we're not receiving anything at all at time, we have to wait for so long to get something which is never enough.
The cover picture was taken by our bass player Mikhail Alekseev in Belarus, and it's actually a reference to famous picture Alyonushka.
Switching to the sound, I got to admit not much has changed, it's still post-punk based songs with rather witty lyrics.
We begin with "Я не могу сказать, где твои деньги" ("I Can't Tell You Where's Your Money"), it's one of the earliest songs, first recorded in 2010, rerecorded in 2011, and finally remade as post-punk track in 2020. It features synths, metal percussion and a fine guitar riff. The lyrics touch upon topics of alcoholism in Russia.
Next goes "Бычьи цепни" ("Beef Tapeworms"), a story about parasites and intoxication, a metaphoric idea which is connected with Nick Drake's "Parasite", from one hand, and nodds to The Fall's bass sound in musical part. Lyrics also have reference to "Krvava Gruda - Plodna Zemlja" by Laibach (Bloody ground - fertile soil). Our favourite artist Vasily Shulzhenko was also mentioned (Life is a Shulzhenko's picture). And another reference is to notorious "You got AIDS" from "Family Guy" (You get beef tapeworms, yeeeah!).
Then we have "Отпуск ради отпуска" ("A Vacation for Vacation's Sake"), a sardonic story of a Russian employee who has to depart for vacation (otherwise he'd be forced to keep working). It also has a reference to David Lynch's "Eraserhead" ("I'm on Vacation"), touches upon topics of suicide (Strozsek is mentioned, see also a reference to Ian Curtis), isolation, poverty ("I got enough money to afford one lemon candy"), about office work as a new form of slavery ("A man is born to work at the office / He's not as free as his favourite kitty"), which is also strongly connected with early topics of Swans' lyrics (like "Power for Power's sake", "Money is flesh", etc.).
The fourth track is titled "Новый год в СИЗО" ("A New Year at Pretrial Detention Centre"). It's purely social, because many Russians, unfortunately, have an experience of being put in such centres. Musically, it has a reference to Neubauten's "U-Haft Muzak" (metal percussion in the end, which resonates with fireworks sound). The song begins with a sample by a great actor Leonid Kanevsky saying "Aah it's such a place no-one wants to leave" taken from famous and memetic show "Следствие вели", a crime show about well-known Soviet mass murderers. The song also features a Russian reversal, and a panic attack inside.
Then we have a song about workout which is titled Воркаут (Workout). It depicts sort of intellectual workout of memory training, claiming "How many quotes of the great men can remember your brain?", which is quite post-modern approach when we think in quotes and actually speak not our own words, but constantly repeating, quoting someone else's words. Lyrically, there's a mentioning of epoche, Husserl and reductionism, as well as one of the first Soviet pranks (Дед ИВЦ). The song ends with pictures of hospital, novocaine, ambulance, gleet, etc.
Then we have a song "Удачный день" ("A Lucky Day") which is actually a narrated story also in The Fall's spirit, about a guy who saw a man resembling famous maniac (and an occasional poet) Mukhankin and began to spy at him. All the way long, Ivolgin's laughter can be heard — which refers to Dostoevsky's character from "The Idiot" and a character from notorious Russian movies "Peculiarities of the National Fishing". Bela Lugosi and "Bride of the Monster" are also mentioned. Of course, the narrator underlines that "Bela Lugosi's dead" (we all remember Bauhaus). Closer to the end of the story, a suspicious man fights the narrator, but stray dogs arrive like Deus ex Machina and save him by biting the suspicious man to death: the narrator admits that it's similar to Ivan Karamazov's story from Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov". In the end the narrator goes back home happily boasting that it's "Such a lucky day", and "Our debt's been payed, and the light is ours" — another reference to Laibach (Hostnik's suicide note / Apologija Laibach song).
Then goes a weird psychedelic song "Гусь Хрустальный" (Gus-Khrustalny), about a town in Russia which mythically mocks (in our song) Tupelo from Nick Cave's song: The sun doesn't rise in Gus-Khrustalny, the birds don't fly in Gus-Khrustalny. No-one knows the exact site of the town, no-one can guarantee that the post will be delievered there, no-one knows about famous people from this town, it's a dark and criminally dangerous place. "Napoleon said we don't need this town", which echoes with radio-like speech that Gus-Khrustalny "is not kind of town we need because it wouldn't help us to replace SWIFT". In the end the narrator confesses he'd move to Gus-Khrustalny to "die", and his scream drowns in maliciously sounding guitar effects.
Then we have a song "Кисель" ("Kissel", Russian national soft drink), it's a studio remake of 2013 song, I already told you its story, so we move along.
Next song is called "Чумной доктор" ("The Plague Doctor"), which refers to SCP, pandemic (though it was written way before the Covid), and shows the viewpoint of a man whose "business" is to "heal". He appears to be a sensitive guy taking care of prostitutes, wounded birds, lost dogs etc., but shows a great arrogance claiming "I'm better than Brodsky, and Pakhom's better than Brodsky, and Hölderlin's better too". Musically the guitar riff remind of Joy Division's "A Means to an End", lyrically it has references to Russian rap and pop music, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky's The Devils.
The final track is titled "Кевларом" ("By the Kevlar"), where kevlar is a metaphor of mental "armour" we put on ourselves. It has a piano part played by our collaborator Andrew Hangover. Lyrically, it's a symbolistic work having plenty of various images, but it also has some popular culture references, e.g. Dr. Myasnikov, a Russian propaganda-style TV doctor (the funny thing is that name "Myasnikov" in Russian means "Butcher"), or references to the Bible.
This album was the fruit of the whole 2020 year, it took about 11 months of hard work. We did our best and hoped to show some progress. I'd like to thank everyone involved, you can see here all the credits.
Check out this album, hope you like it!
Stay tuned for more!
Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey
