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 

 

 

Nervoese Leute / Snowbringer — Split (2016)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,
John “Grey Lenses” Grey

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

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

Design & photo by Hipstor Smith

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

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

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

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

Design by Hipstor Smith

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

Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey