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

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

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

VA — Коллиматорный прицел бытия

Hi everyone, we're presenting our annual VA sampler. This is 10th annual sampler, actually, we faced a milestone.

This time it's titled "Коллиматорный прицел бытия" ("The Collimating Sight of Being"), and it's about a worldview, a viewpoint which can be seen through the scope / or if life itself has you in its scope.

A bit of paranoia, fears and anxiety, panic in this paranoid, fearful, anxious, panic time.
 But this compilation isn't about current events, some track were recorded long before the situation. The mood of the compilation partially corresponds to previous one, "Крики раненых и почти что павших" ("The shouts of wounded and almost deceased ones"). But there's also some difference between them, as it's no longer reasonable to shout, as our shouts seemingly can't be heard from here.

That's why the compilation is generally calm, quiet, almost mellow. I can't say it's "bedroom music" because we already released "Music for Homebodies" in 2013 and we're unwilling to repeat ourselves. (I just found out I didn't write a post about it, my bad. Gonna post it in June.)

All in all, it's outsider music. That's where we've been since the very beginning, mostly on purpose. No wonder some artists have left to seek acclaim. No wonder some of youngsters misunderstand it as "another no name stuff". Being a "no name artist" who struggles to be liked and a "no name artist" who can reflect on the aesthetics of outsider music and finds himself in it, are two different mindsets, I must admit. We're free to do music for nobody. We're free in general, and we're too old and too honest to betray this path.

Looking through the tracklist, we see that this time we have 6 tracks by 6 artists of 6 genres.

We begin with a new project of our long time friend. It's called Tulse Luper, and it's a field recording. I wanna believe there'll be a release of this project later this year.

Nervöse Leute contributed a track titled Brain Zaps from its 4th longplay hopefully to be released this summer on tape. Analogue samples, noises, post-industrial as usual. 

Snowbringer contributed the longest track on this compilation, "Palimpsest". It's not peculiar Snowbringer sound, and it's good that project hasn't been closed. There was an LP by Snowbringer not long ago, I think I'm gonna post about it later this year.

Our long time friend Владимир Лазнев (Vladimir Laznev) contributed a minimal synth track Дефицит ("Deficit") with speech samples. You might read about deficit in USSR to understand the context. Current events made people be afraid that it can return, but fortunately we were OK (it couldn't get much worse here lol).

Post-rock band Окно Овертона (Overton Window) who you could've listened to back in 2017 contributed an instrumental piece Чуть-чуть (A Little Bit), which melodic structure manages to reflect huge variety of emotions. 

Лосины Маршала Потемкина contributed studio remake of 2013 song Кисель which reminds of past and sort of compares it with present.

Cover photo was provided by our favorite photographer Pavel Chainichkov.

Check out the sampler, friends! (mp3)

Stay tuned.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Grey Lenses — Circumstantiality (2020)

Hi everyone, we've just released a new album, it's my latest dark ambient / post-industrial work called "Circumstantiality".

It's a soundtrack for another story written by me. The story was published in Moscow in a zine named "Forbidden for Children", but the soundtrack is a-coming only now.

Mainly, it doesn't have much of novelty, still the same sonic structures I've been obsessed with for the last 3 years, this time maybe a little more experimental.

Though tracks are narrowly connected to the story, some pieces have their own sources of inspiration. The first track, "Raus", was created under heavy influence of tracks "Herz-felde" and "Das Spiel ist aus" by Laibach, but it might not be obvious.

"The Damage Has Been Done", the second track, was somehow inspired by "Damaged People" by Depeche Mode. "Good Natured" is a nod to John Lydon's awesome solo song "Sun", and "Make Them Fall" was written with melody of the UK national anthem playing in my head, with a bit of "Hymnen" by Einstürzende Neubauten.

"Stoic" is a philosophic approach which is actually found in every work I do, as I find it useful, up to date and effective. I mean Roman stoicism mostly (Seneca and Marcus Aurelius).

"Cherespolositsa" is a term used in Russian empire to identify lands which, like a chessboard, have different owners though they have common frontiers. I.e., here goes a field owned by Ivanov, and then there's a field owned by Petrov, then — again, a field owned by Ivanov, etc.

This weird division of the land was a result of infamous paranoia of Ivan the Terrible, then it became even worse under Peter the Great. Some attempts to get rid of such irrational division were made in XIXth century and under Nicolaus II, but Russian revolution made the situation even stranger. Cherespolositsa ended only in 1920s because since then such notion as "landowner" became ridiculos. Communists thought it's all "our" land. "Their", actually.

Well, the final track, "Circumstantiality", and the whole story, is about painful mindset, a communication disorder associated mainly with obsessive-compulsive disorder which the protagonist has.

The cover image was provided by our long-time collaborator Pavel Chainichkov, and it's his first cover image for our label since 2016. Glad to collaborate again!

Since there ain't much to add about the release, I gotta spread some news. We're working on an annual VA-sampler (hopefully to be released next month) and the 4th longplay by Nervöse Leute, which currently is on the stage of mastering.

That's all, folks. Hope you're fine.

Check out the new album and stay tuned!



Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Forever E (2020)

Hi everyone, we're back after the long winter and we're presenting you our latest web-release.

This is a new project named "The Colourful Pictures". At some point, Snowbringer and me came to an idea that we need a new collaboration between not only two of us, but with participation of other fellow musicians. And the result of this collaboration is right here, it's a full-lenght album consisting of only one track.

We decided to dedicate the record to Genesis P-Orridge who has perished recently. That's why it's called "Forever E": P-Orridge called himself "E", he used "E" instead of "I", and his colleagues simply adopted this as another nickname of Genesis (check out Monte Cazazza's "Monte Adores E" or "Scars for E" written by John Balance and performed by Cultural Amnesia).

(I used "he" because at the time P-Orridge used "he" to identify "himself")

But when we were recording this stuff, personally I wasn't thinking of P-Orridge. I wanted to try something new in a new collaboration. I don't know whether we're going to continue but there are some chances that this project's becoming an ongoing one.

Now let's try to describe the record. It's basically experimental ambient with addition of live instruments, which brings a slight avant-garde touch. The base of the record goes from use of "heavy" synths played by Snowbringer and me, but it occasionally meets parts of electric piano, electric guitar and bass. The tracks aren't separated as it's obviously the flow which floats from the beginning to the end, changing its directions on the way.

The electric piano part was contributed by Предложный Падеж.

Electric guitar part was contributed by Yevgeniy Minaev.  

Bass part was contributed by Yevgeniy Dvoynishnikov, a member of Лосины Маршала Потемкина band.

The album was recorded at Red Moral Studio by Vladislav Klikunov.

Hope you like the record. Download in WAV!

Let's remember Genesis.

Stay tuned,

sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — Географический диктат (2019)

Hi everyone, we're presenting our latest VA sampler. It's called «Географический диктат» (Geographic Dictation), and it's a tongue-in-cheek game because it's almost similar to annual geographic quiz «Географический диктант» (i.e. Spelling test).

It's also about dictation = dictatorship, etc.

Geography, space in general, dictates how we ought to behave, what we should do. We are separated by vast spaces, miles and miles, thousands of miles, we haven't met with some of artists who contribute to us for years and years.

We present different styles here. Grey Lenses (me) presents an ambient piece titled "Teriberka" with geographic destination:"from Siberia to North West of Russia". It's made using different software than on previous ambient releases.

Владимир Лазнев (Vladimir Laznev) plays a minimal synth piece titled "Киевское шоссе" (Highway to Kiev) with geographic destination: "from Southern Russia to Kiev, Ukraine", but Kiev Highway can also be found in St. Petersburg and as a federal route from Moscow to Ukraine. Its sound somehow reminded me of Front 242's debut "Geography" which also fits the idea of this compilation.

Snowbringer continues to experiment here with his "Summer Collage" recorded on vacation with geographic destination "from Kazan to Nort West of Russia". Sometimes it sounds just like Nervoese Leute! You see, Snowbringer is not quite active now, perhaps a break is really needed to think about future of this project. We believe that it would surprise us and hope its new works will be exciting!

Лосины Маршала Потемкина contributed a song «3 соуса» (3 Sauces) with more local story: from Apatity to Murmansk. The song was recorded this summer and mastered this autumn. It tells a surreal story of Semyon Zolotarev (the most mysterious guy from Dyaltov Pass incident) found survived in a local fast food cafe. The protagonist says: "There are rumors you're a double agent", and Semyon replies: "3 sauces ain't always better than 2".

Yes, we love detective stories.

So, you can instantly download mp3 version of this compilation, but once downloaded, please change ".r2r" to ".rar" to open it normally.

Stay tuned!
I'd also like to inform you that since this post we're not going to make publications monthly; new posts will arrive when new records will be released.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Северный голос — Кто умер, тот не может умереть (2019)

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:

Also, Северный голос deconstructs not only the image of a modern poet, but provokes an instant reaction to the street performances, just like 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

VA — Крики раненых и почти что павших (2019)

TL;DR? Then check out video version!

Hi everyone, we're happy to present you our new annual sampler. This year, it was titled "Крики раненых и почти что павших" ("The shouts of wounded and almost deceased ones"), and, despite the fact we turn 10 years this time, it's in no way an anniversary sampler.

The picture for the cover was taken by me in Moscow.

The sampler represents the way we feel in modern media and social environment. It's mainly about self-actualization.

We begin from an end: the title track by Wladimir Laznew is called "Вместо эпилога" ("Instead of an Epilogue"), and it's a retrowave piece, very moving and suming things up at the very beginning.

You see, there's no action anymore; it's not even post-action, it's more like post whatever (just like your T-shirt prints say).

I did hope and I do hope Wladimir would release a solo record one day, because I know how many outstanding minimal synth pieces he has in store.

Then we have an abstract hip hop piece by Лосины Маршала Потемкина (prod. HANGOVER). It's the first and only experiment so far, and it might be considered even as a demo record, but we'd check out if it's liveable. Perhaps we would go on. Anyway, there's some remakes on the go, and plans to record newer stuff as well. And yeah, it's the only track featuring lyrics on this sampler.

Then there's a short interlude by Nervoese Leute, the track from their forthcoming 4th longplay hopefully to be released this year; further exploration of weirdest noises ever heard.

Then there's a super long track by Automatic Alice, the new monkier of our long-time friend. We decided there's no need anymore to have any shapes and restrictions for our samplers, so let this almost 12-minutes recording flow right into your ears. It's also an exploration, it's prorably even sort of meditation, it's kind of weird psycho folk / post-industrial experiment hopefully to be released later on tape in Moscow.

And we end with an ambient requem to Mark David Hollis of Talk Talk recorded by Snowbringer. The sad thing is also that it may be the final or one of the final tracks by this project before disbanding: perhaps there'll be final longplay, but it's uncertain.

And this is devastating. Musicians do leave; yup, they grow old, turn 30 etc., and got some other activities to waste their precious time on, but still there's sort of grief about that. Only few of us remain, new ones never seem to come.

Maybe there's no time or no creative space anymore for obscure Russian lo-fi diy records, partially because these efforts had never been appreciated seriously, anyway, when the desire to be avant-garde and weird disappeared, some cherished pieces of soul deceased.

Well, this sampler is designed to be percieved as a whole complex piece in 5 parts. It's different, but, without a doubt, it represents our vision. It's ideologically completed and it's more like a missile than an actual music piece. Seems like we've faced a dead end.

You may instantly download the sampler (mp3 only, change .7z to .rar when downloaded).

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Grey Lenses — Exploitation of Icarus (2019)

Hi everyone, we're entering 2019 with a brand new release, another soundtrack for a book by Grey Lenses.

The difference is that it is finally a soundtrack for a hardcover book, not a .pdf. "Exploitation of Icarus" is the title of the first story included in a book, and this album includes music which is supposed to be playing while reading first and last story featured in edition.

Since 2017, I annually release book OSTs, and they are always laptop dark ambient music. They are quite similar, I'm afraid it could be rather hard to tell one from another, but it's caused by the plot, because all these stories are connected, they share characters and show the development of both fictional narration and my skill in creating laptop ambient / post-industrial.

In this case, it's entertaining to think what is post-industrial literature and post-industrial music in general, and I hope this is something we can actually build by our own efforts.

To build is more fascinating than to demolish, it's some sort of creative credo. Despite the fact you might hear some quite disturbing noise and some occasional musical pieces here, it's all about sonic structures, it is by design. This album differs from previous ones because it has longer tracks consisting of different pieces. Previously, I created soundtracks making a track for a chapter; now these tracks reflect certain motives mentioned in a book, not particular chapters. This is why they are longer and even might be resembling dark ambient "sonatas".

"Icarus" is a typical "main theme", it exposes a sonic image of mythical Icarus which later disappears ("Disappearance"): a metaphor of losing the ideal role model. "Animal Blood" and especially "Death by Drowning" represent darker sound (there is honestly nothing cheerful in drowning), and final "In the Sandbox", "Reconstruction" and "Salvation" deal with an idea of liminal theme, topic of resurrection after a challenging encounter of death, all so traditional for world literature. The image of a sandbox is both Apocalyptic and modern, it's all about rebuilding. Reconstruction is a final phase of deconstruction, we destroy to rebuild, we'll never put up with empty spaces. And, in the end, everybody deserves salvation. If we're speaking about ideals, we should be moving towards such ideal unless it becomes irrational and/or useless.

Moreover, all my projects fight against music and it's pseudo harmony, because total harmony equals death. This is just another round, and I encourage you to be brave in creating most abrasive non-musical music which is not neccesary should be harsh. What is most valuable, is the method, the approach, not rawness for rawness. Just listen!



Stay tuned! 2018 was successful for our label, we had 2 physical releases and 4 web-releases, and I'm eager to make 2019 even more successful.

Feel free to leave feedback. Most physical releases may be ordered.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervöse Leute — Concrete Rats (2018)

TL;DR? Then check out the video version!

Hi everyone, we're happy to present you 3rd longplay by Nervöse Leute which has already been available in October if you had previosly purchased a floppy disk "Mellow" (still available).

This album is an exploration of a frontier zone between music and non-music, an attempt to find an answer where music begins (and where it ends). The album contains samples recorded since 2003 until present. As in case of previous longplay, I did all the work myself.

The cover shows you what one can see when going downstairs leaving my apartments, and it's all about living in an old concrete box. The title of the album messes around an idea of us participating in a rat race which is held indoors, in a box made of concrete. Moreover, there's some musique concrete on the record, to be fair.

OK, let's turn to the tracks.




The title track, "Erziehung" ("Education") was shown before on our VA sampler "Pereat". It illustrates the topic of importance of education, whilst the education  which we get, is almost totally inappropriate (which refers to "Bad Education" by Blue Orchids). It also laughs at background music dedicated to educational purposes, which is, to my mind, is simply ridiculous. Music distracts. It's supposed to do it. It is also inspired by Japanese noise and explores abilities of distorting the sound of an acoustic guitar.




Second track, "Take the Chance", is an attempt to play industrial music using abovementioned acoustic guitar.




"Health" is much more a complex piece, almost a play. It's partially inspired by This Heat's "Health and Efficiency", and it's sort of "anti-cover" concept. It's more percussion oriented attempt of deconstructing the composition itself; and, as we know, This Heat's aim was mainly to deconstruct rock music in general. Moreover, "Health and Efficiency" idea: to be sober, to be responsible, to be efficient — is a doctrine which I'm very likely to follow for years. This Heat stated it was a counter-culture step, a protest against punk junkies, and this approach of fancy dressed modest guys seeking to commit an act of violence against music and an image of musician, is so close to my methods. 

But it's not only about a tribute to This Heat. "Health" also includes recording of a Russian history lecture read in university at the same time when in a church nearby there was an Orthodoxal ceremony, and at some moment you can hear bells of the church together with lecturer's voice. There is also an alarm clock recording which also represents discipline, and some sounds which were supposed to expose the genie coming out of the bottle. So metaphorical, eeh.



"Smash" is a "play" which "contradicts" to "Health" the same way "Take the Chance" contradicts to "Erziehung". Again, it includes acoustic guitar, metal percussion, and it's the central piece of exploration of the borders of the music. Its ending with naturally stretched notes refers to bassline of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus.



"White Noise 2003" indeed contains radio samples recorded in 2003. It's the only track under Creative Commons license, it's a nod to previous Nervöse Leute albums. Just another radio collage.



"Frosch" ("Frog") is a field recording of frogs in Moscow. They were chatting in the centre of the city in a pond in the park. And I thought if it could be music? We say "birds sing", but what do frogs do? Probably it's not singing, but can we call it music? The track is an "investigation" of this issue.




"Foretelling" is the only track which has lyrics. I was thinking about the future which is always uncertain, and it reflects usual paranoia, so common for Nervöse Leute. The track also has plenty of radio noise, metal percussion, acoustic guitar — all the elements featuring on the album.





The final track, "Mystery and Something Else", is short but not that simple. It refers to Blaine L. Reininger's hit song "Mystery and Confusion" and Tony Wilson's TV show "Something Else". It's also a field recording made during a walk. I was strolling down and thinkng about David Thomas' (Pere Ubu) idea of "the art of walking", and I started to doubt if the walking is indeed a sort of art; I was recalling his interview when he was showing the bottom of the cup, and I guess this is what I tried to expose on this album as well. "If the walking is art", I thought. "Then I got to check if it's music or not". We know walking has a rhythm. Soldiers march, marches sound rhythmically flawless. But when we're walking without any purpose (wandering around), will our steps be rhytmically organized, and would it be suitable to create musical piece out of it? So I made this record trying to get the answers.

I have to confess that Nervöse Leute is the only project which never causes irritation while I'm working on it. The less musical it was, the better was my state of mind when I had been working on tracks. It's also the most therapy-oriented of my projects. I am deeply proud of what I created this time, and I sincerely hope it can make some impression.

Warmly remind you that your feedback would be much appreciated.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervöse Leute — Mellow (2018)

Hi everyone! We're happy to present you our latest physical release (proudly wearing "CVRP 03" code), a 3.5" floppy disk "Mellow" by Nervöse Leute.

This 3.5" floppy disk includes a brand new track "Mellow" (in mp3) and a flyer (written in English) with an instant free download link to a longplay "Concrete Rats" (in lossless), currently unavailable online.

We've turned to mid-2000's authentic 3.5" floppy disks as it's profoundly connected with nostalgia, a topic which penetrates the whole Nervöse Leute discography. We used aluminium for the cover to illustrate another topic which is peculiar to Nervöse Leute — the topic of paranoia spilled in modern life.

Track "Mellow" explores the opportunities of relaxation through noise and is genetically connected with first, self-titled album by Nervöse Leute. The album "Concrete Rats", a download link to which is included into package, provides new exploration of a frontier zone between music and noise and also includes some references to earlier Nervöse Leute works.

"Concrete Rats" LP will be available online as soon as certain amount of copies of "Mellow" will be successfully distributed. You can order "Mellow" by writing us, current price is just $1.2 + postal costs, and it might even be reduced when "Concrete Rats" will be available online.

There are only 16 copies of "Mellow" which makes it undisputedly exclusive.

Feel free to contact us if you'd like to purchase previous Nervöse Leute physical release, a split tape with Snowbringer ($3 + postal costs) (only few copies left!) or CD "Тренды" by Лосины Маршала Потемкина ($3.75 + postal costs) (only few copies left as well).

Hope you'll like it! And — stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — Pereat (2018): Video

Hi everyone! Finally recorded a video where I'm presenting you our annual sampler "Pereat". You can check it out right here:

Stay tuned, as the end of this year will provide you with our new releases. I'm sure about that.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Похороны безработного провинциала (2018, Single)

Hi everyone, we're happy to finally present you a studio single by Лосины Маршала Потемкина recorded this spring. It contains song "Хуже не будет" as a "b-side", previously included in our VA-sampler "Pereat".

The "a-side" is a studio remake of 2015 song "Похороны безработного провинциала" ("The Funeral of an Unemployed Province Dweller"). That song was much more appreciated than other Лосины...'s songs of that period, and its relatively successful live performances have also pushed us to rerecord it properly.

So, these songs were recorded with live drums played by our drummer Igor Ezhen; Mikhail Alekseev played bass, and Zhenya Dvoynishnikov played guitar. I performed as vocalist and lyricist.

"Хуже не будет" was mixed and mastered in studio, "Похороны" was edited by me. It may sound less polished than it could be, but I feel I managed to create the mood this song was supposed to create. While being a lone bedroom-folk singer, I spent plenty of time trying to make specific atmosphere on first Лосины...'s albums, and finally on "Похороны" I came close to what I wish it could sound like. I mean this song is like a devil chasing the listener, it's ruthless, it's like doom, like fate, like something totally inevitable. Despite that, it's not supposed to frighten a listener, not sort of "scare the kids" tag.

Lyrics' protagonist, Unemployed Province Dweller, has been important to me. He's the narrator of most songs recorded in 2012–2015. Our second album was titled "The Dreams of an Unemployed Province Dweller", so his "funeral" was a significant step, crucial, necessary if I wanted to move forward.

When I ask myself: "Who's telling all these weird stories which fill Лосины...'s lyrics?", I can say there are at least four of them, and I even created names for them. First songs were narrated by Vyacheslav Babochkin, who was sort of representative of famous Russian gopnik subculture. Then, an Unemployed Province Dweller had appeared. At some point Semyon Potemkin was added to tell smarter stories (like "Нудный", "Дэвид Линч") and represent positive, "Apollo"-like side, and finally I found out there's also a "wicked" character, kind of villain, named Phil, who narrates, e.g., "Утренний рейс". He has the lowest of my voices and represents a darker side of personality.

The cover was taken on 19th century cemetery in my native city in Siberia. Currently this cemetery is totally embraced by urban buildings, it's almost centre of the city, such a sarcastic coincidence.

I got to add this single is released a bit late. I thought it'd be ready in June, but again we had a delay. Currently we're visiting the studio more frequently, working on a longplay which is likely to be released this autumn.

Moreover, we're still preparing a lot of new stuff by Nervöse Leute this year, and maybe some of tracks by artists from "Pereat" sampler.

So, stay tuned, much fun is on the go.

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — Pereat (2018)

TL;DR? Then check out video version of this post!

Hi everyone, we're happy to present you our annual sampler! This time it's called "Pereat", it's a Latin word which can serve as sort of pessimistic motto, considering current situation.

The sampler starts with an anonymous short intro, it's an electronic instrumental by our long-time collaborator who decided not to sign this time:

Then goes a song by Concern Void band, it's titled Conscience, and we're really proud of it as it's a result of hard work on creating authentic minimal synth sound. I provided lyrics and vocals for the song, the music was written by Vladimir Laznev.

Then we have a new "Handshaker" by Snowbringer, and now it's "Modern Handshaker". It's a noise record, the sound is quite abrasive though it's not disturbing. It's also the longest track on the sampler. Snowbringer shows truly mature sound here.

Track #4 is a hip-hop by Alogical, he didn't write the beat, but the lyrics are original. It was first published as a part of Alogical Vlog, psychedelic and astonishingly modern. It's titled "Let's Get It", so it's based on a meme, and it's totally the least oldschool track on the sampler, which brings us diversity and all other valuable things nowadays.

The next track is an oldschool minimal instrumental "Time" by Vladimir Laznev, and it's supposed to be part of forthcoming soundtrack. It sounds really promising, and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole soundtrack released.

Then we have a new Nervöse Leute track, "Erziehung". It's a noise record and it's sort of a preview of their 3rd longplay hopefully to be released this summer/autumn. It's going to have less radio / tape noises, focusing on different noise sources instead; this track is an example of shifting quite primitive music to the spheres of sort of sophisticated noise.

Next track is a cinematic instrumental "Creeper" by Hipstor Smith. This track was written exclusively for our radio broadcast, Shadowplay FM, and it was aired earlier this year during a radio play "Post-irony".

The final song on the sampler is "Хуже не будет" by Лосины Маршала Потемкина. The title means "It won't get worse", and it's much a sardonic mood spread in the air these days. Together with a slogan "Pereat" it can be understood as a manifesto, and it was already honored to receive a comparison with a "sarcastic bomb". It's basically post-punk song, recorded in studio with live drums, though bass probably wouldn't sound really post-punk'ish, as it's too smooth. Anyway we hope to do something less sad next time we'll be heading to the studio.

  

So I gotta say we're proud of what we presented this year. From the one hand, there are no new projects / bands which would join us, there are even no guest artists this year, but I feel our "roast" is strong, mature and ready for new achievements. Hope you'll appreciate the result of our long and hard work.

What would you expect from us later this year? Well, we still hope to have 1 or 2 physical releases (they're on the go) by some of artists represented here. We hope to release a soundtrack by Vladimir Laznev, new Лосины's.. songs, and we also plan to release 3rd longplay by Nervöse Leute.

Probably we'll do something more. I feel like I need to invite new artists to our informal label. Let's see if I'll get lucky.

Instant free download (mp3 VBR) (Right click on "Click on this link — Save object as...").

Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey