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

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

VA — Shadowplay Tape #3 (2020)

 

Hi everyone, we're happy to finally present your latest physical release, Shadowplay Tape #3, which includes 4th longplay by Nervöse Leute, titled "I Play the Music — You Dance", and also tracks by The Colourful Pictures and Vladimir Laznev.

 

Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a longread.

 

 

Nervöse Leute

 

New album by Nervöse Leute is a story of an ill guy who is facing the fact he's about to die soon. The whole 45 minutes of noises and weird sound collages keep on exploring his state of mind. It took me more than 2 years to complete the album. This is mostly post-industrial record with several songs, but also with big amount of shortwave recordings and field recordings, bunch of metal percussion and quite musical pieces (mostly acoustic guitar and piano).

 

The meaning of the title can be explained in a way that long-lasting investigation of frontiers of music and noise led to an insight that in the end you'll get music, but not just sonic structure. And if it's music, then you're supposed to dance :D

 

A1: New Tab

 

New Tab is an opening track which was a result of an experiment of simultaneous mixing of the whole spectre of #shortwave stations (which were primary sources for the project when it was initiated), but when mixed, these 25 layers created rather dull soundscape which could be used as a background only, so I added some declamation of numbers from Soviet book about trains and from table of contents of Soviet songbook. It also includes an acoustic guitar piece with chant.

The story begins when the protagonist is about to take a train to see a doctor in Moscow. He studies the schedule.

A2: Brain Zaps

 

Brain Zaps is a short industrial piece based on found objects recordings which served as plastic percussion, is also has field recordings of workers doing repair jobs on the street. The sound resembles lo-fi version of Scatology-era Coil, but a bit darker.

The story moves to protagonist's monologue about "some serious brain zaps" he suffers from. It ends with the line "I just can't work anymore".

A3: Frankincence

 

The longest track of the album, Frankincense, is an exploration of movement. It was inspired by Neubauten's "Perpetuum Mobile". There are 13 layers of different sounds of movement, mostly train recordings (as protagonist is supposed to travel by a train), including Emperor's Route, a train which repeats a trip of former Tsar Nickolaus II to Siberian exile, being an allegory of protagonist's exclusion from life. It also has recordings made in Moscow Metro (Underground: the protagonist arrived to Moscow), in a Railway Station in Yekaterinburg, and some field recording made at Sheremetyevo Airport and Aero Express (Moscow).

It's titled Frankincense because there is actually a recording of frankincense which is believed to help reducing stress and is still used in Orthodoxal Christianity as a symbol of Divine Power, among others (because protagonist can only rely on God in his case).

There's also some laptop fan noise recording (the only "digital" source here), ultra-sound washing machine recording (it can't be heard by our ears just as frankincense, but it's making the spectre as full, as in New Tab), a steam generator recording (first trains used steam for movement), there are also some repair jobs field recordings, shortwave recordings, recording made in a museum of Russian history, and a recording of an emergency system telling "to exit the building" (which means death for protagonist).

"Musical" part consists of calimba, a real 19th century accordion recorded in Siberia, and more traditional acoustic guitar and piano pieces. The piano plays a significant role on the album, piano pieces portray soul movements, they're sort of sentimental. Sometimes piano sounds on this album as if a schoolboy tried to repeat Tuxedomoon's plays (Music #2 and others). 

 

Guitar accompanies to the romantic song about "The descending sun sinking in the sea". There's also a declamation of an instruction from a book for electricians, it tells "when to change bulbs".

The track has also a "hidden" sample of a meowing cat, try to find it!

 

 

A4: Paper Clips

 

This piece was inspired by Paper Hats by This Heat and by What is This? by Swans. The main line ("Now what is this? Paper clips!") is like memories of protagonist working in the office, where he probably wouldn't return (as he can die soon).

A real paper clips box served as the source for percussion, there's also some piano and emergency system pieces which provide connection with previous track. It also has a feedback recording.

A5: Makeshift (Aus Ruinen)

 

This was also inspired by This Heat (Makeshift Swahili), and it has a distorted DDR anthem (Aus Ruinen; From Ruins) as a primary source. Metal percussion samples were recorded on the roof of Atmosphere studio (now they've moved) where Лосины Маршала Потемкина had rehearsals, so they can be heard playing at the background. Some samples were taken from stuff excluded from Северный голос's mixtape, for instance, Александр Швецов plays drums here.

The protagonist is up on the roof looking down to the city dreaming of possibility to "arise from ruins".

The track also includes field recording of heavy wind at the Fool's Mountain, air conditioning system recordings, field recordings made in Moscow State University, a jackhammer recording.

A6: Was ist Information — Fernsehen

 

This piece consists of a piano piece and a TV noise piece, it's like a dialogue between music and white noise.

A7: Elisa Lam Elevator

 

This piece has me reading Wikipedia page about death of Elisa Lam dubbed with piano piece played by children at the shooting of a film about WWII. It sounds really scary!

A8: Celebrity Armpits

 

This was inspired by Celebrity Lifestyle by Swans and also consists of Лосины Маршала Потемкина's rehearsal outtakes which seemed to me sounding like a deconstructed version of Swans' song. Pretty weird, to be fair.

B1: Suicidal Behaviour Among Male Lions

 

Well, this is actually a song. It's a lo-fi singer-songwriter piece done with acoustic guitar and metal percussion. It's sad, totally depressing story. The protagonist tells about "caves where lions prefer to die", reflecting on his possible death, too.

B2: Kosygin Kamp — Death of Hurvinek

 

This is the harshest song, sounding like a lo-fi early Coil meeting Test Dept. and Laibach: metal percussion, eerie voice, disturbing flutes and melodica which remind of a French horn, and a story of "starving to death in the camp of Kosygin".

 

"Camp of Kosygin" is actually the whole USSR/Russia, Kosygin was a Prime Minister of USSR for 16 years, and a member of Soviet Government for 42 years. Hurvinek is a puppet toy from Czech Republic, also a character of Soviet children's magazine "Веселые картинки" (Funny Pictures), a smart boy who often comes to help to his silly Papa Spable (but not vice-versa: "no Papa Spable will come to help").

The song also features piano piece, broken external storage noises, street workers' recordings (including samples of them coughing), and also David Lynch's speech samples like "I'm so depressed, I don't know what I'm doing", recording of a folk song sung with accordion accompany, and also shortwave speech samples cut from documentary about mountain lions (connection with previous song about lions).

B3: I'm Ready

 

The final song is mostly like Suicidal Behaviour..., but it's even sadder. Musically it's the same: acoustic guitar, metal percussion (this time based on parts from Soviet vinyl player) and depression. It was inspired by 2 songs with the same name recorded by Jandek and also by Leonard Cohen's song You Want It Darker — with a chorus "Hineni, hineni, I'm ready, My Lord" (from the Bible; Cohen translated hineni as "declaration of readiness" while in Russian translation it means more like declaration of presence: here I am, My Lord").

So the story ends when the doctor says protagonist's case is uncurable (sic!), and he expresses readiness with it.

The Colourful Pictures — One Drop of Petrol in a Whole Tun of Coffee

 

This was recorded in Red Moral studio as an attempt of 2nd jam of The Colourful Pictures. This time it was Snowbringer, Предложный Падеж and me, so we created synth only sound. The recording of the jam was cut then, and it provides more traditional laptop soundscapes.

 

Владимир Лазнев — Маятник

 

Vladimir Laznev's minimal synth piece Маятник (The Pendulum) closes the tape. This is great minimalistic play made with true passion of 80's!

 

About the tape

 

The tape is obviously limited edition (50 copies). Each tape has a unique cover and unique design of the tape itself, made with cuts from Полярная Правда newspaper (2016). Covers portray historical photos of English army marching in Russia celebrating the end of WWI, pictures of Red Army soldiers during Russian Civil War, photos of destroyed Navy Theatre and sunk Kolskaya Jack-up Rig.

 

So it's nice collector's item, I must admit.

 

You may purchase a copy at a tremendously low price ($2.75 + postal costs), just leave a comment or write me a e-mail.

 

The content of the tape is currently unavailable to download. We'll inform you when it's done.

 

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey 

 

 

VA — Music for Homebodies (2013)

Cover image provided by Pavel Chainichkov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here you can instantly download the compilation (mp3)

Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

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

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 — 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

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

Grey Lenses — Music for The Cub (2018)

Hi everyone, it's time to put out a new release by our label: my latest soundtrack to my latest book.

This release bears proud "CV30" sign which is sort of anniversary for us. A picture for cover was taken by me in Peredelkino in 2016 (like to our previous release).

The record continues the direction I chose on Demotivating Tunes, a soundtrack to my previous book.

The book has pictures of stray cats and dogs on every page, basically pictures serve as background images for text, which makes it hard and painful to read it. It was made on purpose because reading is supposed to be source of your enrichment, and where's no pain, there's no gain, you know.

I know that cats and dogs have kittens and puppies, not actually cubs, but I chose these images to show there's no difference between cats and, for instance, cougars, because they're both predators. "Predator" type in literature has always been one of the most prolific, different writers used it, some liked it, but others blamed it. So when I decided to tell a story of a "little predator", no-one but the stray cat could match it better.

Basically, the story is more about an "accidental family", such typical and traditional topics which I believe I expressed differently. The story is finally published online, and I gotta say people tended to mistunderstood or being caught in traps I set just in every sentence. I don't want to explain what I meant to say, moreover, the story isn't translated, and I feel I'm totally unable to translate myself (though I tried so hard). Maybe some of our readers would like to help me out?

Anyway, I believe this soundtrack deserves your attention. It still has some dark ambient and post-industrial sound, but now the album is shorter, and it offers bigger variety of sonic structures. The structure of the sound is critically important, this is what I'd like to build in my tracks, and I try to build it the same way as I'm 'building' texts, it's construction, not composition.

And I also avoided to use musique concrete techniques, the only instrument here is the synth. Though I believe I'll do some musique concrete records, but probably under Nervöse Leute moniker.

All right, here's the album, and I hope you like it!

Stay tuned, I believe the spring is going to bring you our annual sampler, and probably a new Concern Void Video.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey 

Grey Lenses — Heaven Accepts Ordinary People

Hi everyone, we're back again with my another album. This, "Heaven Accepts Ordinary People", is actually a lossless recording of my live set played this June.

The covers are my photos taken in the centre of Moscow in 2015.

I gotta say that, despite the fact "Grey Lenses" exist for 9 years, this was the very first gig for such a long time. I presented classic laptop dark ambient and some classic laptop noise.

The first two pieces, "Teleport Me Home" and "Heaven Accepts Ordinary People", represent more ambient side of my music. "Teleport Me Home" was inspired by the idea of despair, homesickness and nostalgia. Pretty much same things and same emotions. "Heaven Accepts Ordinary People" was inspired heavily by David Lynch's "Eraserhead", and the famous radiator scene.

The last two pieces, "Searching for Cats in Dark Rooms" and "You Were Out Again", represent more noisy, (post-)industrial side of my music. This is a very rhythmic noise, dymanic and active. Almost a music. "You Were Out Again" is made probably more in an oriental style, a friend of mine compared it with works by Kazumoto Endo, that's why I picked such name for this track. But that's not the only reason for such title: I thought it's a piece of a thought, very peculiar for outsider music and especially for Jandek, whose way of lyrical thinking I sincerely respect.

In the end of the show I performed my minimal synth song "External Approval":

And yeah, the show was filmed, but it's an incomplete version. On the other hand, this video version contains occasional vocals, inspired by abovementioned radiator scene and Japanese noise influences.

You can download the album in any possible format from BandCamp:




Stay tuned, we're working hard to present you new releases soon!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

VA — ColdSpot Muzak (2017)

Hi everyone, we've just released our new annual sampler, and here's the information about it!

TL;DR? Then check out the video version!

 

It's called "ColdSpot Muzak", and even the title can already tell you a lot. Cold spot is a place in space which is extremely cold (well, that was obvious). It's a relict of very ancient times, and it may be a sign of presence of another universe or a "great void" — such a perfect term for us.

Moreover, "cold spot" is opposite to "hot spot", which is associated with electronics, so it can give you a sign that the sampler is purely electronic and minimalistic.

And "Muzak" might imply irony, and it's actually a sardonic word: this is background music which wasn't meant to be background music, this is the music listeners never pay attention to.

The cover also follows this "Coldspot" strategy, this picture was taken by me in Northern Russia about a year ago.

OK, let's check out the tracklist. We begin with my remix of a song "Money" by Пророк СанБой. It's rather enegry-filled track you can even dance to, and the lyrics are actually a nursery rhyme "Work While You Work" sang with significant accent. The intention of adding a chorus "Oh, money" is unclear to me, though I realize it has some sense. Our collaboration goes on, so maybe one day we'll release the 2nd album of remixes.

The second track is a new electronic song by Лосины Маршала Потемкина. This project exists as a real band for several months now, and the live sound differs greatly from what you can hear on "recordings". Anyway, fortunately, we play live quite frequently, so you can also check out our live sound. The song "Рив гош" ("Rive Gauche") tells a story about irritation connected with constant visits paid by narrator's interlocutor to Rive Gauche (fancy cosmetics store). There was also a song with similar name, so Лосины... tend to deconstruct it by humor, and its humor is based on a pointe (wendepunkt), an unexpected turning point, so if you study Russian culture and language, you might enjoy it.

The third track is a sound collage by Nervoese Leute "I'm Allergic to Music" (opposition to music / melodies has always been important to us), which can also be found on a tape split (still available for purchase!). This project is also developing and may even see its live debut soon!

Then goes the very first appearance on our releases: the artist's name is Jo Har Key, and the track is my mix of his 2000 song "Виктория" ("Victoria") is a superb synthpop recorded using analogue equipment.

Our friend from Moscow Hipstor Smith recorded an instrumental "My Favourite Dance Machine" especially for the sampler!

The next track is a very interesting electronic work filled with Soviet speech samples. It's called "Другие миры" ("The Other Worlds"), and the project which released it, is called "Диспозиция Линча" ("Lynch's Disposition"). Thorough work with samples, pads and synths makes its sound so profound.

Then goes surprisingly noisy track by Snowbringer:

And the final track is by project Concern Void, its it's 2nd song, and I want to believe, this project will go on. It's called "In Disguise", and you may consider it as both our manifesto and a lamentation.

Hope you like our new sampler!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey