S+ЯvP & Grey Lenses — Hollow Soundtracks. First Album (2026)

 

Hi fellow travelers, I'm happy to present you the latest release I had participated in, it's a collab with S+ЯvP, and it's been released on Broken Tape Records. 

It's a noise record mostly, though there are some death industrial vibes, too.

Hope you're still here, hope you're fine, hope you'll like it.

Yours truly,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Grey Lenses — Nine Insights (2024)

 

Photo by Evgeniy Dvoynishnikov

Hi everyone, it's been more than a year since previous time I had updated this blog, and I hope some of you are still here to check out my new album.

I also noticed someone else started to use name "Grey Lenses" and releasing music under this moniker, which is actually ambigious: the good side is that it's actually a good name, the bad side is that they could google if the name's been occupied before using it, or, even worse, they don't care about such thing as an unique name for the band.

Anyway, as the first occupier of the name I found no reasons to rename my project, and released "Nine Insights" as Grey Lenses. Again, it's a soundtrack for a book. The photo for the cover was taken in 2021 by my friend Evgeniy Dvoynishikov in Murmansk, the district of Roslyakovo where there was a spontaneous "beach" also filmed in our video:

Also, one of the most important scenes in the book takes place there, so this image was the most accurate one I could ever pick for the cover.

Musically, one might not hear a great changes in sound between this record and some of my previous albums though I used a different software this time, and it took me about 18 months to finish the album while previously I used to take only 12.

For this album I tried to "compress" noise (it's almost completely a noise record with less than few pieces of dark ambient) into an everchanging structure which wouldn't allow listener to take a break. In addition, I tried to achieve "warmer" sound with using some of analogue equipment. Unlike Nervöse Leute, the project which was (is?) entirely analogue, Grey Lenses' noise records were entirely digital until "Nine Insights". This time it's sort of mix between digital and analogue technologies, and I believe I managed to make the tracks sound "oldschool" enough.

Technically speaking, the sound's based on feedback noise, a classic approach proved efficacy since 80s, but originally feedback was made when a mic was put against a speaker; I used a mic and a guitar amp with no guitar plugged, and this "absent" guitar was a symbol of significant loss, the great missing link which creates "a hole" in perception, which, i.e. hole, is getting filled with feedback noise.

I took inspiration in analogue noise pieces of industrial music (Cabaret Voltaire, Laibach), and also studied how guitar bands could use an amp to make noisy yet gentle sound (neither noise rock, nor shoegaze, but mostly in style of post-punk like Durutti Column, Joy of Life, Siglo XX or My Dad is Dead).

I hope you'll check out this record, it took effort of me:

Stay tuned for the new posts may follow!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

StereoStas — Starfall (2023)

 

Hi everyone, I'd like to share with you a single by our new project, StereoStas.

I collaborated with Vladimir Laznev, with whom we've already worked in Nervoese Leute and Concern Void band, and this collab logically continues our movement to more conventional music, started in previous year's Retrowelle EP.

Starfall is a single which includes the title song Starfall and a "b-side" Papa Dj. It provides post-punk sound with mellow melodic structure and more pop oriented verse-chorus lyrics.

The single is inspired by Sovietwave, space exploration and retrofuturism. Also, this is our first collab uploaded to Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music.

Hope you like our new beginning, and hope you're still here.

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Grey Lenses — Drain Muzak (2023)

 

Hi everyone, it's 2023, and it's time for new noise. We all know how catastrophic previous year was, and it unavoidably has been reflected in sonic structures I created.

Again, it's a soundtrack for my fiction, and, sardonically, it sort of predicted the events happened last year. The sound became glitchy and even eerier, and noise itself became the voice of rumination. I'd describe these structures as "numb".

Hope you're fine.

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Старозубов (2022, ЕР)

 

Hi everyone. Today I'd like to present you latest EP by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, titled "Старозубов".

Last year I moved again, and my bands had to be reformated. Лосины... was no exception. While we're still waiting for our former bandmates to rejoin us, we kept working as a duo with our new multi-instrumentalist and member of The Colourful Pictures Dmitry Mulganov.

We changed style in favor of minimalistic electronic sound based on beats. The cover image, of course, mimics Swans' "Filth", I made this collage by myself using 1970's book about math. The EP may even be called sort of tribute to "Filth", despite it sounds pretty different.

Firstly, overall feeling of filth around makes you want to get cleansed, and it's a cathartic practice leading to purifying oneself, often may be caused by tragic events (that's what tragedy is about), and violent art images are supposed to have an effect on a person in real life.

Secondly, Michael Gira said he used advertising slogans to compose lyrics for Filth, as these slogans are dehumanized and alienized by themselves, and I used the very same method while writing lyrics for the track "Нам доверяют" ("We're Trusted).

Some say this release is a "step back" to outsider music from what we achieved before, but I'd rather say it's a step aside. While I've been into outsider music for years and haven't got any acclaim at all, I used these aesthetics as a founding stone, Jandek especially, as it corresponded to my own feelings: "non-music", "not a proper" music, out-of-tune music seemed to have more opportunities to express what I felt and thought at the time, and currently I believe it's time to rearrange these approaches to express new experience.

"Старозубов" is a name (Starozubov) of fictional Soviet crooner played by an awesome actor Anton Lapenko. The line "Starozubov won't sing about me" is one of the crucial lines here, which means, post-ironically, that neither I would reach acknowledge, nor I'd be even able to try, because the crooner who's supposed to sing, is purely fictional.

This title track is quite depressive, and touches upon topic of suicide which has been "contemplated multiple times" (a Rowland S. Howard reference), but still remains "technically impossible" - a nod to famous Willy-Nicky telegrams and its representation by Neubauten.

World War I, "modernist war", remains part of modernist myth which still lives in our minds as tragic yet not cathartic memory, a trauma which wasn't cured because it had never been paid enough attention to.

Theme of violence, geniunely important for Лосины... (each Лосины... release contains a song about violence, about suicide and about a famous guy who I envy, as I joked), is transformed by the narrator as a stream which floats both inside and outside, it's a simultaneous implosion and explosion, it bursts out and rushes in, it knows no obstacles and never stops. Violence wants to destroy the outside world and its bearer at the same time, during the very same act of crushing the limits, because violence actually is when one crosses the borders which shouldn't be crossed (a Delphic maxima). Violence, therefore, is neither "an answer", nor a "proper" question, but a "rhetorical question". This is what I find similar to Swans' message, too.

The track also contains a reference to a great artist Leonid Purygin, whose works about dreams (and nightmares) inspired me.

Querulant behavior, indifference to "good vs. evil" issues, psychophobia and questions of control are also among the topics.

The track "Хибины с Ильёй" (Khibiny with Ilya) is a rememberance of North we left (Khibiny is somewhat popular place of tourism, ancient mountains somehow suited for mountain ski etc.), but the protagonist returns there "to bury their son" accompained by some unclear dude named Ilya.

The track "Старшие товарищи" (Older Pals) tells a story of a guy who whines that "older pals" "don't promote you" trying to sell you his washing machine at the same time. It's rather funny story, to be fair.

So, hope it find this EP worth your time. I don't know what's going to be our next step, but the fact we still make ones, kind of encourages me during this harsh time. Hope everyone's well these days.

Stay tuned,

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervöse Leute — Retrowelle (2022)

 

Hi everyone, we're happy to announce that Nervöse Leute have reunited in an original lineup to release an EP "Retrowelle".

This is indeed a retrowave EP with gentle minimal synth sound. Pure 80's flavor! All music has been written by Vladimir Laznev, and I picked and mixed the samples and also shot a cover picture.

The picture was taken in Petrozavodsk, one of the most depressing cities I ever visited.

But Nervöse Leute has always had a creepy part, and this time all the creepy stuff comes from the samples I used. Guess you know a meme about "I May Not Know My Flowers", that's how the title track's called, and you may know the funny movie "The Gay Deceivers" from which it comes from, but the creepy part is that in Russia you gotta be really careful when joking about gays. Certainly you may hurt their feelings, but there's also notorios "Gay Propaganda Law" oficially banning any coverage of the topic. To be fair, there's nothing in the samples which could be considered as propaganda: a joke's a joke. But if you know the origin of this joke, you sort of know the subtext and context, and you're, like: "Yeah it's something which may be banned in here, alright".

Alright, we're moving on. The second track also features creepy samples. "Why Tragedy in My Life?" is a title of an old YouTube video where an old lad tells and comments on the story from The Bible and discusses the topic of tragedy as part of God's Providnece. "God permits tragedy to get your attention", the old guy says. And here comes the creepy part: this is Edarem himself, a musthave in any "Top Creepy Old School YouTubers" list. Edarem was condemned for a really tough crime, and he was prohibited to use Internet, but he did use it to publish his videos, and it ended in second inprisonment; so he died in a prison hospital quite soon after that. He's creepy and what he says is creepy: someone has to die just to make me "pay attention" to God? No, thank you, sir.

The third track is titled "You Look Depressed", the samples were taken from some tape from the 90's with lessons of English. Nervöse Leute have always been keen on using analogue samples, tapes, etc., and this is the case. The thing is that overall mood of the tape is kind of blaming the listener for being a homebody, for being non-social and depressed as if it's a bad thing. You gotta go out, you gotta watch TV to be "up to date", you gotta meet people you dislike just to remain a normal guy in their eyes. Actually, it's about shaming of depression and other psychiatric issues.

The final track has shortwave (Nervöse Leute's hobby horse) samples of a radio show discussing Covid-19 and Omicron in general. It's just the feature of the time. We're having disastrous numbers of Covid victims here in Russia, kids get sick and die, children's hospitals have no vacant places, etc. It's horrorful when you look at the amount of victims of the pandemic. 

Well, we're proud of our work, I must admit. Nervöse Leute change, but remain truthful to their ideology. Let's see if we go on exploring creepy terrotories.

Check out the EP here: 

Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Grey Lenses — Issues of Nihilism (2022)

 

Cover by Pavel Chainichkov

Hi everyone, it's 2022 and we're still on the go, which is quite amusing, after all.

This time I'm happy to present you my latest and probably last solo laptop noise LP record titles "Issues of Nihilism".

It's another soundtrack for a book, just like I've been doing for last six years annually.

This particular record is more noisy, sometimes it tries to sound like pure Japenese harsh noise, sometimes it sounds calmer, but all in all, it's a quirky album.

Among other sources of inspiration, I thought a lot about Laibach this time, which found its incarnation in tracks like "We Rise" or "Ein Übergang".

The last one was taken from Nietzsche's Zarathustra, "the man is the most gruesame beast", etc.

There's also Dostoevsky's "Devils" ("Canton of Uri", i.e. suicide, or "The Devil") among sources of inspiration.

Guess I ain't got much to add. The release is pretty much peculiar for me. Currently I got no certain plans or something. Life changes, you know. Things change. So let's see.

But stay tuned, maybe something else would occur. And hope you like this effort.

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Distance

 

 

Hi everyone, this time I'm presenting you another, and probably last if not at all, then in a row of, release of "The Colourful Pictures".

It's titled "Distance" and it sounds sort of no wave-ish, mostly due to passionate bass played by Artyom Danilovsky who joined our weekly sessions.

I said it may be the last record because it appeared to be our final session; I've moved, and re-listened to it from a distance, that's why I titled the record "Distance".

Dmitry Mulganov played drums and recorded the session, I played synth, mixed and provided a cover image. This picture was taken in Yekaterinburg, one of the prettiest cities I've seen.

Well, let's see what the future brings. I believe at least some of our projects would go on, but currently it's sort of total hiatus here for me.

Anyway, stay tuned and check for updates from time to time.

Hope you'll enjoy the record:

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — What's That Noise? (2021)

 

Hi everyone, today I'm glad to present you another LP by The Colourful Pictures, titled "What's That Noise?".

This time it's a collaboration with a trumpet player who preferred to remain anonymous. I played synth and provided noises and Dmitry Mulganov who picked the album title and made a cover design suggestion, played drums.

Once again as in case of The Colourful Pictures, this is a free improv record of what we call a sonic meditation. As far as I can't know for sure what was on the mind of my colleagues, I'll speak for myself.

As you may know, my other project, Nervöse Leute, was put on hiatus after releasing the latest record "I Play the Music - You Dance" because I felt being done with field recording and analogue samples, I simply couldn't find anything worth attention, as if I've already recorded all the sources I ever wanted.

But some ideas remained, and I was messing with putting them on the go by different means, by using different sonic strategies, and The Colourful Pictures seemed perfect for it.

For instance, the track "Ravenous" was initially designed to be Nervöse Leute track dedicated to Coil, and I managed to create digital eerie noise somewhat similar to early Coil's samples.

"Are You Enjoying?", probably the most interesting track on this LP, was also initially designed for Nervöse Leute. There I was trying to create Cabaret Voltaire-esque synth noise. Also, this track was supposed to refer to Killing Joke-like "thickness" of sound.

Some tracks on this record were made out of findings for Grey Lenses, my solo project: my parts from "Youth Restored", "We Are Fossils", "Incompleteness of Life" and "Happiness of Sadness" could fit a new Grey Lenses album.

For example, "Youth Restored" was inspired by the same novel by Mikhail Zoshchenko, great Russian Modernist writer. "We Are Fossils" was a dreamy idea of what if Depeche Mode started to make noise music.

All in all, this is just about noise; I guess the main mood of the album is made by the trumpet. Hope you like such sound!

Check the record:

 

Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Urbi et Orbi (2021)

 

Hi everyone, today I'm presenting you our latest release, "Urbi et Orbi' by The Colourful Pictures.

This record is a free improv session dedicated to Ancient Rome. I provided synths, vocals, did mastering and made cover design for it; Snowbringer provided synths and recorded the session, and Dmitry Mulganov played live acoustic drums.

Mostly it's noise with live drums, sometimes there are more ambient-filled sections. Two tracks feature vocals, De Tranquillitate and The Enchiridion include reading of these works (fragments).

This Heat's S.P.Q.R. slogan "We are all Romans", as much as my interest to Stoic philosophy, led to thinking about fundamental core of civilization, established by Romans. We owe to them, we owe to them too much, I must admit, and it was sort of musical meditation (in a Roman way, not in an oriental way) about that.

You may check it out right here:

Stay tuned for new updates!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Wittgenstein Wittgenstein (2021)

 

Hi everyone, today we're presenting you latest album by The Colourful Pictures. The project goes on reflecting on famous scholars, and this time the record deals with ideas and image of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The problems of language studied by Wittgenstein inspired us to create this sonic piece, divided into 2 parts named after Wittgenstein's most famous works: Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations.

Basically, we treated this ideas like the idea of 'power of language' (Tractatus) and the idea of 'weakness of language'.

Sonically, this album contains several layers of ambient and laptop noise created by Snowbringer and me, live bass guitar, kalimba and flute by Mikhail Alekseev who also provided drum programming, and slight and actually interrupting the wholesome structure pieces of acousting guitar (sometimes barely heard) played by Alexey Pavlov.

There are also a couple of jokes: a musical phrase reminding of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus, and a sample of Siri (as an example of artificial speech).

We found this record extremely 'inconvenient' (there are 2 different levels of sound: 'harsh' level and 'musical' level, and the latter one divides into 'conventional' part and 'irrelevant' part) yet coherent to Wittenstein's views in its (d/r)evolution. I mean, we found the language itself both, at the same time mighty and useless. This is sort of total ambivalence which governs current cultural situation. Therefore, the record is also totally up to date.

We'd also like to thank Crank Playthings experimental podcast from New Zealand who played out track in a recent show, that was a real honor for us to be played in the same show with Lackthrow :)

Check the record, and hope you like it!

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Зинаида Миркина в ее лучшие годы (2020)

 

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

Grey Lenses — Health and Discipline (2021)

 

Cover by Pavel Chainichkov

Happy New Year everyone! We're bursting into 2021 with a new release by Grey Lenses, his 6th electronic release titled "Health and Discipline".

Once again it's a soundtrack for a book, once again it's a mix of laptop noise and ambient, so there ain't no major changes in the sound, despite maybe the fact this time it's less noisy, and ambient pieces are not dark ambient pieces mostly.

All in all, the record has some eerier structures, as well as darker soundscapes, but this 30~ minutes album in general provides sort of "mystical" sonic experience, as the book features some fantastic scenes.

Musically, it was inspired by rather big variety of artists: the title track You Can Never Go Home was inspired by Letter From Home by Blaine L. Reininger; Shower Sequence & Anxiety Attack was inspired by Shower Sequence by Minimal Man, and, certainly, by famous Shower Sequence movie scene.

Visitors was inspired by a song with the same name sung by Dave Gahan for the project named frYars. Finally, Hospital was inspired by the song with same title performed by The Modern Lovers.

One may not find out bigger resemblance of afforementioned tracks in this album, but it was just source of inspiration, perhaps we can speak only about traces of impressions which turned into newer sonic pieces. Again, Grey Lenses is about sonic experience, not music (melody and/or rhythm).

Well, hope you like the effort of this year:

Stay tuned for more!

Sincerely yours, 

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Shadowplay Tape #3 records availiable online!

 

Hi everyone, we've uploaded most of the tracks from recent Shadowplay Tape #3, so you can check it out now!

It includes longplay "I Play the Music - You Dance" by Nervöse Leute

 

And a long track One Drop of Petrol in a Whole Tun of Coffee by The Colourful Pictures:

 

If you want to purschase the cassette, feel free to send me a PM.

Stay tuned, new releases will follow (in 2021)

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Bakhtin Bakhtin (2020)

 

 

Hi everyone, today I'm gonna present you our latest release, an album by The Colourful Pictures titled Bakhtin Bakhtin after the name of famous and influential scientist.

 

The album consists of 5 tracks which I found difficult to tag; it's obviously experimental avant-garde music, sometimes it turns to noise pop or some weird lo-fi synthpop, though it's played with live instruments: despite typical layers of laptop noise (performed by me), there's electric piano played by Предложный Падеж, live acoustic ('rock') drum kit played by Dmitry Mulganov, live bass played by Михаил Алексеев from Лосины Маршала Потемкина, and there's a flute played by me (track 1) and Предложный Падеж (other tracks).

 

This album also delievers a big deal of vocals (male vocals by me, female vocals by Предложный Падеж). In tracks 1-3 I read excerpt from Bakhtin's scientific papers, for tracks 4-5 I found some lyrics telling various stories about Bakhtin's life and work.

 

The first track, the longest one, named "Франсуа Рабле и народная культура средневековья" (Rabelais and His World), represents sonic study of carnival, it features various resonant noise sources, sometimes abrasive, sometimes mellow. The voice on this album, as well as drums, is kept as background instrument, there was no specific mixing to make it sound "soloing", it's somehow beyond the noise. In general, it makes the track monstrous just like Rabelais' characters.

The second track "Проблемы поэтики Достоевского", (Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics) shows more chilled, relaxed sound, when noise mostly assists the melody.

The third track "Динамика Достоевского" (Dostoevsky's Dynamics) is more energetic track where tempo goes too fast to make words recognizable. The pace of Dostoevsky's works is too rapid to concenrate on every certain word, and the track was up to demonstrate it. Later it reminded of Radiohead's "Idioteque" and I felt sorry for that. It was accidental.

The 4th track, "Диалог / Хронотоп" (Dialogue / Chronotope) is our favourite one. It's actually a weird, long, repetitave outsider pop song about Bakhtin. It's filled with grotesque figures, so peculiar to his studies of carnival.

For instance, there are such lines as:

Little children and old babushkas, everybody knows Bakhtin

Reading Bakhtin, I understand Rabelais with mother's milk

I brought Pospelov's book to Bakhtin, and Bakhtin refused to read it.

When Bakhtin goes out to watch street soccer, it's a carnival on Earth.

 

The final track is titled "Закатилось Солнце гуминатарных наук" (The Sun of Humanitarian Studies has Descended), and it's dedicated to portraying Bakhtin's life and death. The lyrics I read touch upon his bizzare poverty, his status of unrecognized scholar, etc. Sonically, it features eerie noise structures and sad bass tunes.

So, check out the record and stay tuned!

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — Shadowplay Tape #3 (2020)

 

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.

 

 

Nervöse Leute

 

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 

 

 

VA — Music for Homebodies (2013)

Cover image provided by Pavel Chainichkov

Hi everyone! Just as I promised, here's the post about our 2013 sampler Music for Homebodies. Guess it's the right time to throw back time.

This piece of outsider music was hugely important for us back then; I think the nostalgia is rather explainable.

We began with the waltz by Andrew Hangover who had just had his band Mourning Dance split, and turned to more academic style music, moreover he had proper education to compose it. 7 years later I feel sad that Andrew hadn't released much of new stuff since that moment. Obviously talented guy whose both collective and solo creative work could've been awesome.

Then we had a track Monte by Hipstor Smith, dedicated to Monte Cazazza. Its pure industrial sound was typical to Smith back then. He's been generally successful with his bands but we always cherished his solo works as well, and I also feel upset he's not releasing plenty of new solo stuff in last couple of years.

Then we had a song by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, something that wouldn't appear on their saddest 2013 album, this song was sort of outtake which I now consider weak.

Acid Socks provided a track Benny named after Benny Hill. It was a bridge between their earlier instrumental sound and their first EP which would also follow later in 2013.

You know, Hill was really depressed and sad guy. He was unhappy, his life was full of dark, heavy times, especially in the end when he got fired, had his show shut, and nobody had tended to support him (except Michael Jackson). I know in the West people sometimes dislike Hill's show for being vulgar, and that's partially true, but he demonstrated that sort of comedy which makies you feel ashamed for your human flaws, weaknesses, etc., and thus you were supposed to learn how to be a better version of yourself. At least, that's what I always thought of Hill. I didn't enjoy his shows most of the time, but he had stuff to learn if analyzed thoroughly.

And so we made this track with Acid Socks. I cut samples from Beavis & Butt-head parody where they watch Hill's show, and we mixed it with electro instrumental written by Socks. It was funny and since that we decided to collaborate more intensely, which resulted in 2 EPs in 2013–2016.

The man behind Acid Socks completely disappeared in September, 2017, and I have no clue where's he, and how he's doing. Hope he's alright. Though his disappearance was (and still is) a loss for me, he was a friend of mine. We've never been close friends, so I didn't have his phone number or address, or even common friends who'd know anything about him, so... guess we respected each other's privacy a little too much to ask for emergency contacts. Now I regret it.

Well, the sampler ended with a track by MWaD, another project which I liked, and which is currently put on hiatus, as far as I can judge. I also sort of regret about that, as I enjoyed the project.

Maybe we all grow old. 7 years have passed. Some of us were students back then. Now we have jobs which steal almost all our time. We're older and we probably feel such type of creative activities which gets no acclaim at all, is useless. Perhaps such art is useless from some perspective, but I'm inclined to believe it's not the reason to stop doing what is reflecting your soul, your thoughts and mindset at the moment.

But maybe there are different ways to do it. Like Instagram stories. JK.

Here you can instantly download the compilation (mp3)

Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey