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 

 

 

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 — 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

ZARUBIN — Немузыка (2016)

Hi everyone! Christmas is almost here, and we prepared some kind of present for you, dear readers. It’s an EP by our long-time collaborator ZARUBIN. It’s actually his first release, although he is known for various activities which include frequent participating in our radio shows.

So, this is not a serious release, it’s a sampler of parodies. It’s called «Немузыка» which means “Non-music”, and the first two tracks are made with the non-musical samples: some “dark beat box” (that’s how I called it), sounds of the knives, clicking fingers, etc.

"Хоровод"

"Молитва"

The other two tracks are parodies featured in our radio shows, and they are actually parody covers. The first one, «Песенка Берни» (“Barney’s Song”) is a Yakety Sax cover, and the final track «90-е» (90’s) is a cover of popular Russian band «Кровосток». Although the lyrics in both parodies are completely different, which makes the sound funnier. In case if you study Russian and can understand Russian humor, you’d be amazed, I guarantee you!

Download for free (mp3; instant download. Change “.7z” to “.rar” if there will be problems opening the archive. Please leave a comment if the link’s not working)

So, stay tuned in the 2017, plenty of new releases are about to come!

Happy holidays,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey