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

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

VA — In Vacuo (2016)

TL;DR? Then watch a video:

 

Hello, dear fellow travelers! We’re happy to present you our brand new annual sampler! It’s called “In Vacuo”, which means not physical term of an experiment in airless conditions, but a philosophical term as it was originally understood in ancient Rome: an experiment without object.

You see, we’ve been around in Russian web for more than 7 years, remaining obscure and unknown to the majority of listeners, not gaining enough feedback from the efforts we’ve been making; having turned to a broader international audience last year we hoped for more, but we didn’t receive a comment, although I got some encouraging personal messages from readers from the UK, the US, etc., which I cherish a lot.

That’s why I picked name “In Vacuo” for this release: it’s like we’re acting disregarding the listener, the object of creative activity. Some of my peers who probably wanted to make fun of it, wrote me “You guys record it, and then only you listen to it”, and now it’s up to you to prove he was wrong :)

All right, no more lamentations, let’s switch to the sampler. Photos were provided on the courtesy of our long-time collaborator photographer, Pavel Chainichkov, and I thank him for it. The picture for front cover was taken in Moscow, the picture for back cover was taken presumably in Samara, Southern Russia.

Photos by Pavel Chainichkov

The introduction, a track by our new member; it's a neoclassical improvisation «Лидер не имеет права на безрассудство» (“The Leader Has No Right to Be Reckless”), of the project called «Наброски Арни» (“Arnie’s Sketches”), mixed by me. Actually, I suggested more radical remix, but the author rejected it by some unclear reason, and this mix is sort of compromise. Anyway, I find neoclassical style important in outsider music of Russia. We've already included neoclassical stuff by another project in our sampler "Music for Homebodies" (2013) which I'll review one fine day, and this sampler surely represents the direct evolution of our community.

Second song is my remix of Пророк СанБой’s nice pop song “Rainbow”, recorded in 1996, remixed in 2016. Our collaboration continued until this but I remain uncertain about its perspectives. The music video was filmed for the original version, but I changed the soundtrack by request of the artist.

Track 3 is a comeback of Acid Socks, awesome electronic track “Still a Factory”, a part of which was used in our promo video in 2015. Again I presented lyrics and chant, while Acid Socks wrote music. I want to believe Acid Socks will be revived for a solo release. This is the first appearance of Acid Socks on a music release since 2013, too.

Track 4 is a new composition by Snowbringer; still "brightest" ambient ever possible, dedicated to the famous ambient composer. Snowbringer released another "magnum opus" lasting about 2.5 hours just a few days ago, but we, Concern Void Records, anyway hope to release a split with Snowbringer this summer, so maybe there’ll be this track, too :)

Then goes the comeback of Man With a Dictaphone who also appears at our releases first time since 2013. I really like their instrumental electronic track “87+3”, filled with positive energy. Man With a Dictaphone has a lot of awesome unreleased stuff I wish to see released.

An interlude sound collage “Tonic Seizure”, edited for the sampler, is actually the evolution of “Nervoese Leute” project, which I renamed for “Insane Cassette” as I’ve been running it alone. I guess I'm gonna rename it again :)

It’s an analogue tape collage in a venue of Negativland, probably Culturcide, including cut-ups and mixes or Russian analogue radio stations from 2000's. I believe a long-play (or a split release) by “Insane Cassette” will follow. It’s published under Creative Commons license; if you own any samples used in a collage, please contact me, and it will be removed from the track.

Track 7 is a new dark ambient composition by Hipstor Smith, it’s important as it catches his mood, his state of mind during writing, I guess, overall weary state, so peculiar for spring.

Final track is by Лосины Маршала Потемкина, they tend to change the direction, releasing electronic stuff. The song «Нудный» (“Boring”) tells a story of a dull life of a dull man: I’m boring; it’s hard to deal with me.

It's also the very first music video we ever filmed, hope you enjoy it :)

The sampler can be downloaded for free (mp3, direct download)

Please leave some feedback, it’s much appreciated!

Your sincerely,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey

Пророк СанБой Remixed by Grey Lenses (2015)

Today’s album is really special, it’s the first time Concern Void collaborated with a guest musician who can be described as a “guest star”, it’s the only case so far but I hope the new cases will follow.

Пророк СанБой (Prorok SunBoy, SunBoy the Prophet) is a singer and musician from the town of Yartsevo who claims he was included in Guinness World Book of Records for driving a bicycle and playing guitar in the same time for a long distance; He also claimed he travelled around the world, met national leaders and completed several bicycle journeys within the countries of former USSR.

So he’s very bright and creative person, although I think he deserves more fame (he has about 6000 friends in social networks and about 500k views on YouTube which is way more than other Concern Void collaborators have, but it’s still less than he should have).

Пророк СанБой is active since the 80’s and he’s still composing new songs using an acoustic or electric guitar or electronic tunes, “borrowed” (cover versions with his own lyrics) or original. 

A friend of mine showed me a couple of СанБой’s videos, and I liked it; shortly after I wrote СанБой and I started to work on a remix of his song «Телефон» (“The Telephone”) for our annual sampler “In the Eternal Shadow” (2015). Then our collaboration went on to this release, a 7-track long-play web-album.

The title song «Раньше ругали за рок» (which can be translated as “In the earlier times they blamed us for listening to rock”) is about politics of Communist party which was constantly “blaming” the youth for listening to “wrong music”:

“In the earlier times they blamed us for listening to jazz

Then they blamed us for dancing twist

Then they blamed us for listening to rock”

This sense of freedom is very important to СанБой, as he says: “I stand for democracy”.

The second song, «Современная молодежь» (“The Modern Youth”), on the contrary, shows СанБой’s concerns about the youth of 90’s in Russia, СанБой accuses it in taking drugs, disobedience, desire to leave home, etc. This remix heavily differs from the original song by adding variety of new layers, sounds and effects.

The song «Телефон» (“The Telephone”) is funnier and “lighter”, despite its sad ending:

“Who has approached through the muteness?

Who has approached and what price has he paid?”

It’s interesting that СанБой tells his real phone number in this song (now it has been changed).

And the final track which I cherish the most is called «Черемуха» (“ Bird-Cherry Tree”) , it’s a fragile romantic story of the youth, gentle and sorrowful; lamentations of the lost youth (and time) are sincere and touching.

“Bird-cherry tree is like a bride,

Its top is bended and it looks so shy

Bird-cherry tree will touch my face

And I guess I’ll become gorgeous, too

And I’ll remember a girl from my youth

For whom I cared so desperately

A bride who didn’t become a wife

And I’ll remember her with a sigh“

Currently we’re working on new remixes, so I believe you find it entertaining. It’s less underground, less complicated and sophisticated than peculiar Concern Void music, that’s why it’s more popular, it’s just the way it goes. Enjoy!

Full playlist of the album (YouTube)

Contact the artist

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Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey