Shadowplay Tape #3 records availiable online!

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

Stay tuned, new releases will follow (in 2021)

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Bakhtin Bakhtin (2020)

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

For instance, there are such lines as:

Little children and old babushkas, everybody knows Bakhtin

Reading Bakhtin, I understand Rabelais with mother's milk

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

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

 

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

So, check out the record and stay tuned!

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

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

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 — Die Stühle in der Hölle (2018)

Hi everyone, I'm happy to present you a brand new remix by Nervöse Leute! This project was invited to paricipate in an ongoing international remix project "The Fencepost Reclamation Project": I received an invitation from British coordinatiors of the project, and Nervöse Leute created a remix using samples of field recordings provided by coordinators. I guess this remix shows how musique concrete samples can be turned into something entirely different, noisy, (post-)industrial sound. Not long ago I started to think we're lacking real industrial sound here, so it's an attempt to fill the gap.

The title, "Die Stühle in der Hölle" (The Chairs in Hell), is obviously a reference to Einstürzende Neubauten's "Ein Stühl in der Hölle". There are many reasons why it is so. First of all, provided samples included a bunch of recordings where chairs were actually used as sources of sounds. So, many chair samples equals many chairs in the title. Why are they put in hell, you may check out while listening to the track.

Secondly, "Ein Stühl in der Hölle", as we all know, is an interpretation of a folklore ballad "Lord Randall" about a young lord who was poisoned by his beloved one. This evolution illustrates long chain of influences: from folk to 80's industrial, from 80's industrial to 2010's post-industrial / noise. We're the representatives of the same culture, all in all.

Finally, in addition to desire to portray an industrial soundscape, there's actually a strong desire to portray hell. Pictures of sadness and torture fill our daily lives via newsreels, TV, etc., we hardly ever observe anything inspiring.

Well, I'm unwilling to add any other mourning cries here, instead I'd like to announce the 3rd longplay by Nervöse Leute. I'm uncertain whether it's gonna be a physical release or not, it's supposed to be released — probably this summer.


So, stay tuned and check out this remix!



Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervöse Leute — Insane Cassette [Now available online]

Hi everyone, you might remember we've released a cassette in December, 2016, which included new albums by Nervöse Leute & Snowbringer. After a while, the 2nd album by Nervöse Leute is finally uploaded and available for free listening and download though some copies of the tape still can be purchased.

The picture for a cover was taken by me this summer, but the album was completed by me in 2016.

Online version differs from the physical one, and such long expectation has some benefits: online listeners get an extended version of the title track "The  Queen" and of the sound collage "Tonic Seizure" plus bonus "Bury Me Dressed Like a Chanson Star".

Now let's talk a little about the record. As you may know, Nervöse Leute (Nervous People) is a web project making sound collages from samples and occasional musical / spoken word pieces and live found objects recordings.

The main aim is to put different pieces into logically built compositions. We consider sound collage a form of art. No effects have been applied to the samples except changing the volume and the speed of the records, and occasional delay effect. The additional information and disclaimer can be found in an archive file below.

The album messes around tape samples and tape manipulations. Some of these tracks are tremendous tape manipulations, others are collages, some mix these two tactics, adding occasional lyrics, original musical pieces and found objects. The tape samples are all authentic and made using analogue equipment. The samples have been recorded in 1997-200? by a variety of people, whose contribution remains anonymous but not forgotten (some tapes have been found, so they performed as found objects, too). There are samples of what have been popular in this period in Russia. We are still faithful to radio samples, too. This is a solid nostalgic record.

Title track "The Queen", tracks "Give Me Your Hands" and "I'm Allergic to Music" are "tremendous tape manipulations" of pop music, while "Tape Sonata" is a manipulation with classical music.

Sound collages include "Postapoc in a Nutshell" and "Tonic Seizure". There is also an unique field recording titled "A Trip into the Past" which was recorded by an anonymous little boy in early 2000's, probably at school, — this tape had been found and turned into a collage by me.

For those who know Russian language, there are 2 humorous collages — "Unbearable Humor" and "The Art of Advertisement" which contain collages of Russian FM radio samples recorded (probably) around 1997–2004 by anonymous people and me — some tapes had also been found. These samples had been edited by me into humorous stuff, using basically "cut-up technique". I believe it's a proto- audio version of future video "cut-up" jokes (YouTube poops). "Unbearable Humor" includes DJs' conversations and funny song cut-ups, while "The Art of Advertisement" tries to make fun of awkward and sometimes risky 1990's Russian radio ads.

I am sure Nervöse Leute will go on and ahead, and I even hope to perform live again under this moniker; moreover, I'm sure this project will continue to explore weird spaces and release new stuff.

Stay tuned and check out this work of Art!



 
(instant download link, please change file type to .rar if you have some issues opening it)

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervöse Leute / Snowbringer — 2nd Split (EP) (2017)

Hi everyone, we're happy & proud to present you our latest release, a web-EP split of Nervöse Leute & Snowbringer.

(click to see the album cover; images refuse to be imported by some unclear reason) 

This is like a large bonus to a split cassette released last year (still available for purchase). The picture for the cover was taken by me in 2015.

So, the tape is almost out of print, so we're preparing to upload albums from it, and while it's not done yet, you may enjoy watching all the covers (each tape had an unique cover) and listening to these tracks.

Nervöse Leute present here a 10-minute exploration of Russian chanson, a musical genre quite separated and distant from original French chanson. In Russia, chanson is supposed to be the music of criminals and young criminal wannabes subculture. This music has enormously big radio and TV rotations, and even the most respectable people tend to enjoy it, especially somewhat called post-chanson or chanson pop. Emigrants feel huge nostalgia while listening to it live in some Russian restaurants abroad.

A tremendous tape manipulation by Nervöse Leute distorted the structure of typical chanson cassette, making it totally noire, close to Bain Wolfkind, and maybe even apocalyptic. Above these distorted layers (by the way, no actual distortion effect was applied) there is a song, "Bury Me Dressed Like a Chanson Star" sung by me imitating typical chanson singers' intonations. I also played guitar here. After it goes apocalyptic folk version of this song, resembling some of David Tibet's whispers.

You know, the idea of being buried "dressed like a chanson star" is some kind of dream of getting rich and die, not having a chance to use benefits of being prosperous. The dress code is extremely important here because "chanson stars" dress like kings of far 3rd world countries, their look represents success & wealth, not style. Also, I can tell you it's some kind of dialogue with Nick Cave's "Higgs Boson Blues" where he expressed wishes how he'd like to be buried. Irony, irony everywhere.

Regarding Snowbringer, I gotta confess I don't know what else to say about it. He presented his classic untitled work, "bright ambient", "Andromeda music", "Northern lights soundtrack" — and there's not much to add. I believe now he moves to a different sound, cruder and firmer, and this split shows more a glance to his past than to his present. I hope this autumn or winter I'm gonna tell you about his latest release which, in my opinion, is so far his best.

And now you may download this sampler for free (flac; instant download; if broken, please change file type to .rar) and check it out!

Stay tuned! I'm sorta worried we release only a couple of projects this year, but I keep dreaming of expanding our label and of new physical releases.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — Coldspot Muzak (2017) [VIDEO]

Hi everyone, check out a new video about our sampler "ColdSpot Muzak", released this year. The text version is right here.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — In Vacuo (2016) [VIDEO]

Hi everyone, check out a new video about our sampler "In Vacuo", released in 2016. Or read more about it!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervoese Leute / Snowbringer — Split (2016)

 Hi everyone, I finally managed to put everything together and tell you about our 2nd and last (so far) physical release. I’d honestly say in the very beginning that I feel sort of pessimistic regarding the possibility of releasing cassettes in the future, but this tape has become some true piece of art.

 
First and foremost, this C80 tape looks very rich. Hipstor Smith, who designed the cassette, has made truly huge amount of work. Just look: this tape is a very limited edition (37 copies), made manually recording analogue equipment, even the tracklist, included in a tape, was printed manually using a typewriter, and it was printed on authentic tabulating cards. Moreover, each copy has a different, unique cover which has originally been a part of geological map. 

Hipstor Smith was very enthusiastic in putting Nervoese Leute’s music back to analogue form, when he has found frames from analogue photo film, and the pictures were taken in 1983. I thank Hipstor Smith for such great work! You may purchase a tape or two directly from him, the price per copy is somewhat around $3.5 + shipping costs.

Now, let’s switch to music. Side “A” is filled with the second album by Nervoese Leute. It was meant to be called “Insane Cassette”, as it consists of tape collages made using analogue equipment. Sometimes humorous, sometimes scary, these 40 minutes hopefully demonstrate the further development of the project. Tape samples include ones recorded from FM-radio in 1990-2000’s and it shows the atmosphere of Russian mainstream radio back in those days. Nervoese Leute, as always, worked under Creative Commons License (Some Rights Reserved), and, as always, worked in a style somewhat similar to bands like Negativland.

On the side “B”, there’s a new album by Snowbringer. It’s untitled, and all the tracks are untitled. Snowbringer did it on purpose as he believes that listeners can name them whatever they like. He also claims this album is a result of long experiments, and the final track represents a darker side of this project.
So, this album is not available online, and, at least for Nervoese Leute, will not be available online at least for 2–3 more months, so the only chance to listen to it now is to buy it. Please support us, as it may play a significant role in a decision we have to make soon: if we continue to make physical releases, or not.

And stay tuned, we have some encouraging plans for future web-releases!

Sincerely yours,
John “Grey Lenses” Grey

VA — Music to Play with an Axe (2016) (rec. 2011—2015)

Hi everyone, we’re happy to announce that finally we managed to release the physical tape of our “Best of”. This C90 compilation includes 27 tracks, released in the web in 2011—2015. This very limited edition (50 copies) is “almost totally handmade”.

Design & photo by Hipstor Smith

If you want to get a copy or even more, feel free to post a comment or write to Hipstor Smith, the coordinator of this project (you may need to sign up). Unfortunately, tapes are not free, but I believe that price won’t be much higher than postal costs. If you’re a member of Russian social network VK, you may win a copy if you take part in the repost contest!

In the tracklist, you will find songs by artists about whom you might have already read in our blog, like Лосины Маршала Потемкина, Grey Lenses, Acid Socks, Hipstor Smith, Nervoese Leute, Man With a Dictaphone, as well as by artists about whom we haven’t written a post yet, like Алёна Кидун, Константин Охотный (a side project of Man with a Dictaphone), Шумотрон and Concern Void (a band which released only 1 song).

The music varies from Russian neofolk to lo-fi synthpop, from ambient to post-industrial.

The tapes and tape boxes were manually painted black, check out the enormous amount of care we invested in this release!

Design by Hipstor Smith

 We hope this is only the first physical release, and the next will follow soon!

Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey