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

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 — 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

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: Video

Hi everyone, here's the video version of my review of our recent VA sampler "Крики раненых и почти что павших":

We got some more stuff to review, so 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

Nervöse Leute — Mellow & Concrete Rats: Video

Hi everyone! Check out a video telling stories about latest Nervöse Leute releases:

Annual sampler is on the go! Stay tuned!

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

We are trying streaming

Hi everyone! Just before we load up two last releases for 2018, it feels like it's a proper time to catch a departing train of streaming. Recently I've tried to stream oldschool game GTA2 and talking about avant-garde as a method. Well, perhaps it might be not that vivid and active monologue, though it's mostly a test stream to find out if you're interested. If you are, I'll go on streaming and talking at our Twitch channel ShadowplayCity.

Hope you'll pay some attention to it!

Best wishes,
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

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  

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Дебютный альбомчик (2010)

Hi everyone! Just before the work on a new Лосины Маршала Потемкина's single is, as far as I'm concerned, crawling to the end, it's time to tell about their very first release.

 While observing its cover, you might have prepared for extraordinary amount of weirdness, and this is indeed the weirdest Лосины...'s release. The history of the band, started in 2009, was frustrating at that moment, as mates began to leave it, and I remained the only member since late summer 2010 and for long, long years.

The "doctrine" of the band in 2009 and first half of 2010 proclaimed we ain't going to record, and we didn't even manage to perform live in a club then, so when I was left alone I felt like I should make this record just to save the impressions from being in a band. Of course, I was very limited in instruments.

The faces who stare at you from the cover were our avatars created in a PhotoRobot software which is, as we believed, was quite close to ones used by the police. The cover was also decorated with excise stamps from alcohol bottles which represented "alcoholic folk" genre we played back then.

I believe this EP is really, really hard to listen to. It's pathologically lo-fi. It's recorded to irritate listener. It's weird, it's atonal, it's noisy and hopelessly out of tune. It represents mostly anger.

The EP includes 4 songs, some of which we still play in 2018: I have to mention sort of "alcoholic folk anthem" "Я не могу сказать где, твои деньги" ("I Can't Tell You Where's Your Money"), re-recorded in 2011 and still quite popular in a post-punk version (set timecode to 36:21); "Мягкие игрушки" ("Soft Toys") — also check out truly magnetic post-punk version (the timecode is 7:17).

It also featured melancholic yet ironical "Шерстяная кофта" ("A Wool Sweater") which we still play in a modified version, and "Заначка" ("A Stash") with weird arpeggios, and it's the only song from the EP we don't play now.

Well, the primary instrument for the EP was a steel-string guitar, sometimes accompanied by harmonics and synths. The EP touched upon topics of alcoholism, fear and poverty. Perhaps it's anti-music but it's definitely not anti-folk; it's real Russian outsider folk music, as it's close to people.

Retracing this way, I find it easy to surprise how far we've gone, how much we've mutated, and before releasing a post-punk single, our 2nd post-punk release, and dreaming of making an abstract hip-hop record and conceptual post-punk album, it's fitting to recall the very beginning. Moreover, I found this EP missing on BandCamp, so this link is possibly the only chance to download it.

I feel sorry that our new stuff, including annual sampler, is still delayed, but it only means we'll have a bunch of new releases at some moment.

Stay tuned,

sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey