Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Триумфальное возвращение (2015)

Hi, fellows! From the depths of profound sorrow I’m writing you now just because I need some readers (I wouldn’t dream of interlocutors) who would make me a company on this dark autumn (in Russia it’s already winter, actually) evening.

Poverty and unemployment are surely among our biggest troubles, you all must have heard about it. Actually I’m facing it every day, and I’d like to look in the eyes of those who claim that troubles like these can become some sort of sources of inspiration — how wrong they are!

The latest album by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, «Триумфальное возвращение» (“The Triumphant Return”) is basically about it. I wasn’t about to return to this project after previous release which turned out to be pretty devastating, but I think I had to return due to external reasons. I felt I had to remind that things are still going wrong.

The title cover was traditionally contributed by my friend Pavel Chainichkov, who also takes part in a conversation in the opening track «Алкоголик-фолк» (“Alcoholic Folk”).

Starting with this album, «Лосины…» correct their direction again. Having begun with “alcoholic folk” with heavy found objects’ sound, this project turned to completely acoustic folk, and then — to somewhat I call “conceptualist folk” on this record, meaning actually the influence of poets representing Moscow conceptualism (firstly, Dmitri Prigov, but also Vsevolod Nekrasov and German Lukomnikov, whom I had a chance to meet personally).

The second track, «Вторичный крик» (“The Secondary Scream”) refers to “Primal Scream” theory, as it’s easy to find out. I doubt if some accidents occurred during the first year of a life can determine the whole living, as there is always some breaking point, which, I suppose, is the “secondary scream”.

The third track, «Вечная гармония» (“The Eternal Harmony”) is another reference to Kirillov, mixed with real-life cautions and rows:

“One year ago I was told to get a job

And I still can’t get rid of the fear”

The fourth track, «Дискриминация» (“Discrimination”) doesn’t need to be explained, I believe. Well, maybe you haven’t been discriminated. Lucky for you! Poetically, it’s some kind of cut-up lyrics read using one-chord harmony and industrial synths.

One of favorites from this album is an instrumental «Музыка для поножовщины» (“Music for a Knife Fight”), one of few tracks from this record which got positive acclaim and pretty big (for me) amount of plays. Certainly, I used a real knife, recording it. When I tried to promote the record, some editor of a magazine wrote:

“It’s not music at all, it’s not art at all… you wouldn’t prove anything to me, because I have musical education”.

When I received this answer I was on cloud 9: I reached my goal! “Music for a Knife Fight” (knife fights quite often occur in Russian towns, because holding a gun is most likely illegal, and there’s a heavy risk of suicides, as Dostoevsky thought) contains some very heavy overloads, although it’s not harsh at all, it’s very sweet noise-pop with some sweet acoustic guitar, at least that’s what I thought.

The song «Камни» (“The Stones”) is a sad sadness song, like stuff from previous album. The title refers to Ivan Turgenev, who wrote: “I envy to the stones”. There is also a line about savage faces which was a nod towards my hero Blaine L. Renininger’s song “Teenage Theatre”.

“Look closer and you’ll see

Things which seemed to be made of iron

Are actually made of paper”

“I’m fed up with living in constant fear

I’m fed up with living with pain

I’m fed up with living like a dog

Who notices only bad things”

“When no-one knows you,

No-one’s going to forget you”

“Hopes of our childhood have been mixed with dirt”

“So many years have passed,

But I have just noticed how much I’m exhausted

How futile it was to envy the strong ones

How futile it was to envy the stones

Because the stones have crushed me”

Another sad song is «Чувство дистанции» (“Sense of Distance”). It nods to The Sound’s song “Fatal Flaw”. But the most depressing song here is, probably, «Похороны безработного провинциала» (“The Funeral of an Unemployed Province Dweller”). This character, unemployed province dweller, gave a title to second Лосины…’s album, and now I found out that he’s gonna die if he’s about to stay unemployed. Actually I’m still unemployed and in the hour of need there’s nothing to wait for. This song includes a hard work of applying effects to acoustic guitar, and I think I can be proud of the result. It also includes Akutagawa’s quote “I don’t have a conscience, I have only nerves”.

“I have nothing to be afraid of

I have nothing to lose

There is no difference at all

If I stay or if I go”

“Those who love the life that much

Jump down from the bridge”

“If you’re that far ahead

Maybe your way is wrong”

“When each and every of us was put in hell

You were thinking if you’ll be allowed to return for a cell phone charger”

The album ends with song «Времени нет» (“There’s No Time”), it repeated the Apocalyptic line “there is no time anymore”. I guess I was wrong then. Well, maybe I’ll need to release another Лосины…’s album then. 

Download for free from BandCamp:

Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Бессмертные шлягеры (2013)

Hi everyone! We’re happy that our blog has recently reached its first anniversary, now we’re one year old, and it’s encouraging although we still barely know who are our readers and if they like what we do. I’m counting views and see some progress, though maybe less than 5000 views per year is a poor result, but I still got enthusiasm in showing you the deepest stuff from Russian underground.

That’s why I chose for the autumn the third album by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, «Бессмертные шлягеры» (“The Immortal Hits”). 

Photo by Pavel Chainichkov

It’s the deepest and the darkest one, I consider it as the best album by Лосины…

I wrote, recorded and released this album in Summer 2013, it was the most depressing time in my entire life when I thought I reached the bottom, and the album was the pure expression of pain which I suppose didn’t have a reason, and now I think I dared to be too brave in my honesty, I shared things which seem too personal, but I guess it was the right way to solve the problem because it was like a discussion with my own self.

The whole period of “production” was very short. I remember there was maybe a week of time when I was laying on the floor in my flat and playing guitar all day long, improvising and recording stuff which formed the songs. Some of my friend told me, after listening to it, that it has “totally the same atmosphere” as “Pink Moon” by Nick Drake as it was written in similar circumstances, but I consider it as a white lie :)

Actually it’s a folk album, only atonal me and my atonal guitar. And it’s all about lyrics. I’m still proud of the depth of this record, I may be flattering to myself too, but I haven’t heard a modern Russian folk singer who could reach such depressive mood (but yeah, there’s not much to be proud of, I realize).

The album goes deeper slowly. The title song «Лед» (“Ice”) is about ice “in the mind”, contrary to “fire in the mind”:

“The ice in the fridge would melt faster than the ice in my head would even start to melt”.

 The next song, «Противоречие» (“The Contradiction”), tells a story of painful frustration:

“When I try to seem smart I feel that I’m so stupid”.

 And the third song, «Невеселое открытие» (“A Sad Discovery”) became Лосины’s hit for its minimalism, raw sound (some of my friend said it sounds like Bain Wolfkind) and lyrics. And it was a pure improvisation.

“Once I went out in the yard and found out that no-one is waiting for me here”.

 There’s also an instrumental, «5:35 утра» (“5:35 AM”) — a sign of early awakening, often a symptom of depression which annoyed me for a long time. The song «Знаешь, что» (“Do You Know What?”) became a favorite of my friends who also suffered from depression. I even found some of its lyrics in a post on some psychological help forum where my friend cited it as his favorite. I wish I could help people somehow.

“Do you know what tortures me?

I’m possessed by the devils”

 The next song, «Кисель» (“Kissel”, a sort of Russian traditional soft drink based on berry juice) also found consoling feedback from my friends. This is the picture of total isolation and devastating sense of guilt. In such conditions, people often turn to aggression as their primary weapon, as attack is the best defense. But this sort of revenge is fruitless as any act of revenge, and the isolation will never be broken.

“The cold sticky kissel has been spilt on your pants in the dining room

The sick life experience cannot be useful for you anymore

What to do know? Now you’re forever dirty

No-one will allow to clean the slur

Set the borders and open the gaps again”

 This line is about postmodernist slogan, published in Playboy. I thought the time of postmodernism is over for a long time, and we should build something different. The song «Папоротник» (“A Fern”) tells another story of isolation, but it involves mythical figures and attributions, like Sisyphus and the doom as natural force. “I’m doomed” — that’s how Nick Cave’s novel begins, that’s how it feels when you’re thinking about laws of nature, I mean, about death, too much.

“You know that any activity can be easily destroyed”

 The next song, «Бледное солнце» (“The Pale Sun”) is the pure outsider music piece, too atonal even for me. Hypnotic, it’s like some feeling of psychic seizure which is coming at you with war drums and horns.

“And now there is none to tell if something’s going on”

 Finally, album is finished with the song «Позавчера» (“The Day Before Yesterday”). It was the heaviest experience in my entire life but some signs point that it was the heaviest experience just so far.

“And there’s no truth anymore

We have kidnapped it

The day before yesterday”

 You can check out and /or download this album for free, just as usual

 
Stay tuned, new releases will follow

Sincerely (too sincerely for this time!) yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey

Константин Охотный — Ёжик (2015)

Hi everyone, we’re back again with a review of 3 tracks by our long-time collaborator Константин Охотный. He’s the guy behind Tatu Mentu and Man with a Dictaphone projects. 

Константин Охотный (Konstantin Okhotniy, Kostantin the Willing) is a funny pseudonym, as it’s a witty word play because it touches upon the meaning of to be willing, to do something willingly and the popular and cheap Russian trademark of high-alcohol beer “Охота Крепкое” (Okhota Krepkoe, The Heavy Hunt).  So the name both means “Willing” and “Charged by high-alcohol beer”.

These 3 tracks were recorded in 2014—2015. The title song “Ёжик” (The Hedgehog) tells a scary story of an acid forest where all the animals are dying. “Such music has no right to exist”, claimed a bystander whom we played this song.

“A green hedgehog runs away from the sun

He’s scared, the little one

That the sun will burn him down”

The lyrics are full of tongue-in-cheek expressions about “animals”, being actually a fable, even kind of a parable. There are 2 versions of this song, original and live. The original one was recorded in 2014 and it was included in our annual sampler “We Could Have Been Martians”. The live version as well as the rest of Константин Охотный’s songs was performed during the First Meeting of Shadowplay City community in Moscow in 2015. It was actually in Константин’s place. Константин plays acoustic guitar here while on the rest of the songs I was accompanying him.

The song “Песня про мать” (A Song about Mother) tells a creepy story of a young alcohol addict who forces his mother to go and buy him a bottle of cheap port wine by wasting the last few money of her pension. Константин confessed he played this song earlier on the street, and he was interrupted by a drunk gentleman who was offended by the songs, “because mother is something sacred”, he said. We can only agree with him.

And the final track is a pure improvisation, “Красная девица плывет в мою душу” (A Beautiful Girl Swims into My Soul). There’s a little bit noise on the recorded, we didn’t add it on purpose, but I believe it only adds some charm to this song.

Enjoy the special re-upload of these songs (mp3)!

Contact Константин Охотный (you may need to sign up)

Stay tuned! Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey