We go conquering YouTube! Watch us!

Hi everyone, we finally got a camera managed to upload a video made a video about one of our reviews, and we think we will make video versions of our posts from time to time if this first video would receive some good amount of views.

We started with the review of Nervöse Leute's first album because the second is actually on its way to the big world, and I believe it will be released this year. New text posts will also follow this year. And now you can listen about the first one.

We even think videos are quite convenient if you don't have time to read the reviews. Now you'll be able to listen to it while you're washing your dishes or doing some other useful things.

You can also take a look at my handsome face (especially if you're a female person) instead of looking at soulless letters on your screen. Here we go, enjoy!

P.S.: Please leave some feedback! Maybe you'd like to watch some certain review from our blog? Please subscribe and like our video if you like it.

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Константин Охотный — Ёжик (2015)

Hi everyone, we’re back again with a review of 3 tracks by our long-time collaborator Константин Охотный. He’s the guy behind Tatu Mentu and Man with a Dictaphone projects. 

Константин Охотный (Konstantin Okhotniy, Kostantin the Willing) is a funny pseudonym, as it’s a witty word play because it touches upon the meaning of to be willing, to do something willingly and the popular and cheap Russian trademark of high-alcohol beer “Охота Крепкое” (Okhota Krepkoe, The Heavy Hunt).  So the name both means “Willing” and “Charged by high-alcohol beer”.

These 3 tracks were recorded in 2014—2015. The title song “Ёжик” (The Hedgehog) tells a scary story of an acid forest where all the animals are dying. “Such music has no right to exist”, claimed a bystander whom we played this song.

“A green hedgehog runs away from the sun

He’s scared, the little one

That the sun will burn him down”

The lyrics are full of tongue-in-cheek expressions about “animals”, being actually a fable, even kind of a parable. There are 2 versions of this song, original and live. The original one was recorded in 2014 and it was included in our annual sampler “We Could Have Been Martians”. The live version as well as the rest of Константин Охотный’s songs was performed during the First Meeting of Shadowplay City community in Moscow in 2015. It was actually in Константин’s place. Константин plays acoustic guitar here while on the rest of the songs I was accompanying him.

The song “Песня про мать” (A Song about Mother) tells a creepy story of a young alcohol addict who forces his mother to go and buy him a bottle of cheap port wine by wasting the last few money of her pension. Константин confessed he played this song earlier on the street, and he was interrupted by a drunk gentleman who was offended by the songs, “because mother is something sacred”, he said. We can only agree with him.

And the final track is a pure improvisation, “Красная девица плывет в мою душу” (A Beautiful Girl Swims into My Soul). There’s a little bit noise on the recorded, we didn’t add it on purpose, but I believe it only adds some charm to this song.

Enjoy the special re-upload of these songs (mp3)!

Contact Константин Охотный (you may need to sign up)

Stay tuned! Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey

Acid Socks — Good (2016)

Hi everyone, we’re back with the new release, the 2^nd EP by Acid Socks, “Good”.

Photos by Pavel Chainichkov

Their 1^st EP was released in 2013, after that Socks were not active, and recently they were revived and participated in our sampler “In Vacuo”.

I think I should tell you what the name “Acid Socks” means. It actually means the color of the socks of the founder of this project, green, “acid”; nobody had such socks: that’s why the founder chose such name: something which makes you different.

We can be different

That’s what makes us good
 

Says the speech robot in the title track “Good”. The music for this EP was recorded by Acid Socks in 2009—2013, and remixed in 2015—2016 by me. I also contributed English lyrics and vocals and created samples using previously mentioned speech robot. The photos for covers were contributed on the courtesy of our long-time collaborator photographer Pavel Chainichkov; it’s also from his album of impressions of Southern Russia.

Every track of this EP was made in a different style: “Good” provides solid electro while “Still a Factory”, previously released on “In Vacuo” is something little more melodramatic in its 2^nd part.
 

The third track, “Low Speed”, is the only song here. It’s some very, very lo-fi garage post-punk, the music is not even in stereo. Acid Socks, as far as I’m concerned, used standard “garage rock band” equipment consisting of a drum kit, bass and electric guitar. I applied heavily the variety of effects trying to master my production skills to make it sound “wickedly” to fit the lyrics.

Is that unfair:

Things we’ve repaired

Are breaking again,

Breaking so fast

The lyrics are mainly about Nikolay Stavrogin, fictional character created by Dostoevsky in his novel “The Possessed”, the lyrics touch upon his suicidal way of life, tendency to play suicidal games, desperately craving for “raising the bets”. That’s what the chorus is about:

Reasons vary

No reason why

The speed is still low

We need to speed up

The reasons are actually “reasons to die”. The novel portrays several ideologists who have very different reasons to live and end up that way, although everybody has similar tragic “result”.
 

The final track “The Harbor” is an impression of visiting the harbor, it’s reading of a poem with some cinematic piano sounds and seagulls’ samples. Interestingly that Acid Socks were inspired by Aivazovsky’s picture of the harbor, while I was inspired by actual harbor when I was writing the poem.

Visiting the harbor, witnessing the grace

This world is actually an abandoned place

Ghostly and eluding, everything is gone

I am so confused now, don’t you see: I’m stunned

Dreams are dying quickly, touching this cold sea

I am trembling here, don’t you see?

Endings and beginnings, heads and tails

Help me now to leave these mysterious ways

This EP is very short but important to us. Hope you find it interesting! Stay tuned!

Download for free from BandCamp (lossless)

Or check out YouTube playlist

Yours sincerely,

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

Tatu Mentu – Портрет Сэма Райли (2011–2012)

Hi everyone, we're back again! You might remember my post about Man With a Dictaphone, right? So this is a project of the same person, and its sound is completely different.

“Tatu Mentu” means “A Tattoo for a Cop”, this name appeared when future founder of this project, together with his friends, was having a beer in the park, and a cop joined their company. Then the cop asked if someone could make a tattoo for him, and so that’s how the name appeared.

Tatu Mentu was founded in 2010, and it was very chaotic “band” which tended to have improvisations, its sessions were recorded basically on live underground (I mean, unofficial) gigs in quite Lo-fi quality, and Tatu Mentu perfectly fits Lo-fi aesthetics.

They took part in our annual sampler “Low Ambitions” in 2011 with a song «Портрет Сэма Райли» (“A Portrait of Sam Riley”), in which I participated as a guest vocalist and the co-author of the lyrics. The song was very ironic; it was mocking the hyping hipster subculture in Russia back in those days.

“A portrait of Sam Riley hangs above my bed

Forgive me, you don’t have to understand

A portrait of Sam Riley hangs above your bed

Write the word “HATE” on the asphalt

Tell all your friends, post in your blog

You’re a philosopher, just like Poushtchin on katorga”

A funny thing is that word “HATE”, which was written on the back of Ian Curtis’ coat, as in Russian you read it as «Нате» (“natye”) which is a title of popular poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, great poet of Russian futurism. 

And Ivan Poushtchin was one of the Decembrists, a Russian 19-century revolutionary organization. Poushchin was also a friend of Alexander Pushkin, “the sun of Russian poetry”, and Pouchtchine indeed was arrested and spent about 30 years (!) in Siberian katorga.

Another Tatu Mentu track which is worth mentioning is «Поп Василий» (“Vasily the Priest”), an improvised chant against greedy priests, accompanied by dreary lo-fi instrumental, quite close to industrial / post-industrial.

“Vasily the Priest, take all my money!”

This is real Lo-fi from Russia, hope you like it!

Download for free (mp3; exclusive re-upload of these tracks especially for Concern Void Blog!)

Contact the founder

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