Grey Lenses — Nine Insights (2024)

 

Photo by Evgeniy Dvoynishnikov

Hi everyone, it's been more than a year since previous time I had updated this blog, and I hope some of you are still here to check out my new album.

I also noticed someone else started to use name "Grey Lenses" and releasing music under this moniker, which is actually ambigious: the good side is that it's actually a good name, the bad side is that they could google if the name's been occupied before using it, or, even worse, they don't care about such thing as an unique name for the band.

Anyway, as the first occupier of the name I found no reasons to rename my project, and released "Nine Insights" as Grey Lenses. Again, it's a soundtrack for a book. The photo for the cover was taken in 2021 by my friend Evgeniy Dvoynishikov in Murmansk, the district of Roslyakovo where there was a spontaneous "beach" also filmed in our video:

Also, one of the most important scenes in the book takes place there, so this image was the most accurate one I could ever pick for the cover.

Musically, one might not hear a great changes in sound between this record and some of my previous albums though I used a different software this time, and it took me about 18 months to finish the album while previously I used to take only 12.

For this album I tried to "compress" noise (it's almost completely a noise record with less than few pieces of dark ambient) into an everchanging structure which wouldn't allow listener to take a break. In addition, I tried to achieve "warmer" sound with using some of analogue equipment. Unlike Nervöse Leute, the project which was (is?) entirely analogue, Grey Lenses' noise records were entirely digital until "Nine Insights". This time it's sort of mix between digital and analogue technologies, and I believe I managed to make the tracks sound "oldschool" enough.

Technically speaking, the sound's based on feedback noise, a classic approach proved efficacy since 80s, but originally feedback was made when a mic was put against a speaker; I used a mic and a guitar amp with no guitar plugged, and this "absent" guitar was a symbol of significant loss, the great missing link which creates "a hole" in perception, which, i.e. hole, is getting filled with feedback noise.

I took inspiration in analogue noise pieces of industrial music (Cabaret Voltaire, Laibach), and also studied how guitar bands could use an amp to make noisy yet gentle sound (neither noise rock, nor shoegaze, but mostly in style of post-punk like Durutti Column, Joy of Life, Siglo XX or My Dad is Dead).

I hope you'll check out this record, it took effort of me:

Stay tuned for the new posts may follow!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Старозубов (2022, ЕР)

 

Hi everyone. Today I'd like to present you latest EP by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, titled "Старозубов".

Last year I moved again, and my bands had to be reformated. Лосины... was no exception. While we're still waiting for our former bandmates to rejoin us, we kept working as a duo with our new multi-instrumentalist and member of The Colourful Pictures Dmitry Mulganov.

We changed style in favor of minimalistic electronic sound based on beats. The cover image, of course, mimics Swans' "Filth", I made this collage by myself using 1970's book about math. The EP may even be called sort of tribute to "Filth", despite it sounds pretty different.

Firstly, overall feeling of filth around makes you want to get cleansed, and it's a cathartic practice leading to purifying oneself, often may be caused by tragic events (that's what tragedy is about), and violent art images are supposed to have an effect on a person in real life.

Secondly, Michael Gira said he used advertising slogans to compose lyrics for Filth, as these slogans are dehumanized and alienized by themselves, and I used the very same method while writing lyrics for the track "Нам доверяют" ("We're Trusted).

Some say this release is a "step back" to outsider music from what we achieved before, but I'd rather say it's a step aside. While I've been into outsider music for years and haven't got any acclaim at all, I used these aesthetics as a founding stone, Jandek especially, as it corresponded to my own feelings: "non-music", "not a proper" music, out-of-tune music seemed to have more opportunities to express what I felt and thought at the time, and currently I believe it's time to rearrange these approaches to express new experience.

"Старозубов" is a name (Starozubov) of fictional Soviet crooner played by an awesome actor Anton Lapenko. The line "Starozubov won't sing about me" is one of the crucial lines here, which means, post-ironically, that neither I would reach acknowledge, nor I'd be even able to try, because the crooner who's supposed to sing, is purely fictional.

This title track is quite depressive, and touches upon topic of suicide which has been "contemplated multiple times" (a Rowland S. Howard reference), but still remains "technically impossible" - a nod to famous Willy-Nicky telegrams and its representation by Neubauten.

World War I, "modernist war", remains part of modernist myth which still lives in our minds as tragic yet not cathartic memory, a trauma which wasn't cured because it had never been paid enough attention to.

Theme of violence, geniunely important for Лосины... (each Лосины... release contains a song about violence, about suicide and about a famous guy who I envy, as I joked), is transformed by the narrator as a stream which floats both inside and outside, it's a simultaneous implosion and explosion, it bursts out and rushes in, it knows no obstacles and never stops. Violence wants to destroy the outside world and its bearer at the same time, during the very same act of crushing the limits, because violence actually is when one crosses the borders which shouldn't be crossed (a Delphic maxima). Violence, therefore, is neither "an answer", nor a "proper" question, but a "rhetorical question". This is what I find similar to Swans' message, too.

The track also contains a reference to a great artist Leonid Purygin, whose works about dreams (and nightmares) inspired me.

Querulant behavior, indifference to "good vs. evil" issues, psychophobia and questions of control are also among the topics.

The track "Хибины с Ильёй" (Khibiny with Ilya) is a rememberance of North we left (Khibiny is somewhat popular place of tourism, ancient mountains somehow suited for mountain ski etc.), but the protagonist returns there "to bury their son" accompained by some unclear dude named Ilya.

The track "Старшие товарищи" (Older Pals) tells a story of a guy who whines that "older pals" "don't promote you" trying to sell you his washing machine at the same time. It's rather funny story, to be fair.

So, hope it find this EP worth your time. I don't know what's going to be our next step, but the fact we still make ones, kind of encourages me during this harsh time. Hope everyone's well these days.

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

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

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

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 — 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

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Бессмертные шлягеры (2013)

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

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

Photo by Pavel Chainichkov

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you know what tortures me?

I’m possessed by the devils”

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

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

The sick life experience cannot be useful for you anymore

What to do know? Now you’re forever dirty

No-one will allow to clean the slur

Set the borders and open the gaps again”

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

“You know that any activity can be easily destroyed”

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

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

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

“And there’s no truth anymore

We have kidnapped it

The day before yesterday”

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

 
Stay tuned, new releases will follow

Sincerely (too sincerely for this time!) yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey

Лосины Маршала Потемкина – Сны безработного провинциала (2012)

While just a week ago Лосины Маршала Потемкина released their fourth album, we’ll take a look on their second one now, as I believe this “band’s” story is more like a story of evolution, so it’s necessary to get known with their discography in chronological order.

A year after their debut LP, Лосины.. released this one, showing deeper and more serious approach. The title (“The Dreams of Unemployed Province Dweller) aimed to alienate the songs from “the crowd” (big cities – province; society – unemployed; and even reality – dreams), which was sort of escapist manifesto, but only sort of, because in particular, it was heavily realistic, sometimes even topical album.

Photo by Pavel Chainichkov

It was still neofolk / folk with primitively sounding out-of-tune acoustic guitar, harmonics, found objects… not much has changed, but generally the sound was a bit “brighter” and closer to bard music, popular in Russia, but there’s a huge distance between real “bards” and Лосины Маршала Потемкина, while saying “closer”, I mean that previously the distance was like between Earth and Mars, and then it has shrank to the distance between Earth and the Moon :)

Some songs were really inspired by the dreams I saw («На мелководье» — “In the Shallow Waters”), some songs («Лишняя песня лишнего человека», «Я хочу быть котом Феликсом», «Лужа» — “A Superfluous Song from a Superfluous Man”, “I Wanna Be Felix the Cat”, “The Pool”) were written in a sick mood after being hit on the street by some criminal bastards trying to steal my cell phone (a common situation in a remote Russian town), and appeared earlier on our annual sampler “Superfluous Music”.

You might know that “Superfluous Man” was a typical character of the Golden Age of Russian literature (I suggest you to check out the true masterpiece of Russian realism, “Diary of a Superfluous Man” by Ivan Turgenev), and it’s kinda funny that this song was a true improvisation, I just took my guitar, pressed “Record” and started to play, composing the lyrics on the go, there was only one take, and the result was quite impressing.

When you don’t know where to start

Think about what could be the end

While the 1^st album was ~90% humorous, the 2^nd was only about 50% humorous. Amongst humorous songs «Медитация №9» (Meditation #9), «Ксива» (The Pass) and especially «Случай на стройке» (A Case on the Construction Site) deserve mentioning. In this song, a “passer-by” Petya tries to save a boy who was hit in the head by a brick while walking on the construction site… and it’s also a common story, I mean – haven’t you ever wanted to take a walk on the construction site? I guess every boy wanted.

“In the Shallow Waters” is important for me as it shows the structure and even the “tectonics” of a dream I experienced, its music is closer to industrial and lyrics are one of my favorites, it also includes a brief quote from “The Possessed” by Dostoevsky. 

“What have we inherited? A sense of shame.

What will remain of us? Only the sorrow”.

“They have discipline – they have submission”

“An overpopulated shoebox – it’s our favorite town, it’s the whole world”

“I will be swimming in the shallow waters

Because I can’t swim”

The line “I was born on Herzena Street” comes from quite popular in the Russian web Soviet recordings of mentally ill people, released in 1962, and this line was illustrating schizophasia aka “word salad”. Alexander Herzen, by the way, was famous Russian 19-Century writer, publisher and journalist, I highly recommend you his desperately unknown work “Dr. Krupa” (sorry, couldn't find a free-access English translation). Herzena St. is also peculiar as there are Herzena streets in various Russian towns.

Industrial sounds can also be heard on «Сказка про вахтовика» (“A Fairytale about a Shift Worker”), while closer to album’s end there are two short acoustic songs «Похмелье» and «Обидный факт» (“The Hangover”, “An Offending Fact”), which are totally sombre.

“If there is any freedom in this world,

Then there’s not much freedom has left”

“Though different people are tortured by different demons,

We’ll hang all the demons on one rope

And we’ll bury all the demons in one grave

And we’ll cry one tear for all the demons”

I believe this album reflects my own and even people’s state of mind back in that time, I dare to say so, I dare to tag it as “folk” music, as this is what Russian folk music should be like. It’s half funny, half depressing, a very bipolar album from a representative of “bipolar nation” as some YouTube user commented on a video about our country. Who knows, maybe he was right, I refuse to judge and, certainly, refuse to condemn anybody. I’m just a regular guy, you know.

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Still yours sincerely,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey