StereoStas — Starfall (2023)

 

Hi everyone, I'd like to share with you a single by our new project, StereoStas.

I collaborated with Vladimir Laznev, with whom we've already worked in Nervoese Leute and Concern Void band, and this collab logically continues our movement to more conventional music, started in previous year's Retrowelle EP.

Starfall is a single which includes the title song Starfall and a "b-side" Papa Dj. It provides post-punk sound with mellow melodic structure and more pop oriented verse-chorus lyrics.

The single is inspired by Sovietwave, space exploration and retrofuturism. Also, this is our first collab uploaded to Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music.

Hope you like our new beginning, and hope you're still here.

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Nervöse Leute — Retrowelle (2022)

 

Hi everyone, we're happy to announce that Nervöse Leute have reunited in an original lineup to release an EP "Retrowelle".

This is indeed a retrowave EP with gentle minimal synth sound. Pure 80's flavor! All music has been written by Vladimir Laznev, and I picked and mixed the samples and also shot a cover picture.

The picture was taken in Petrozavodsk, one of the most depressing cities I ever visited.

But Nervöse Leute has always had a creepy part, and this time all the creepy stuff comes from the samples I used. Guess you know a meme about "I May Not Know My Flowers", that's how the title track's called, and you may know the funny movie "The Gay Deceivers" from which it comes from, but the creepy part is that in Russia you gotta be really careful when joking about gays. Certainly you may hurt their feelings, but there's also notorios "Gay Propaganda Law" oficially banning any coverage of the topic. To be fair, there's nothing in the samples which could be considered as propaganda: a joke's a joke. But if you know the origin of this joke, you sort of know the subtext and context, and you're, like: "Yeah it's something which may be banned in here, alright".

Alright, we're moving on. The second track also features creepy samples. "Why Tragedy in My Life?" is a title of an old YouTube video where an old lad tells and comments on the story from The Bible and discusses the topic of tragedy as part of God's Providnece. "God permits tragedy to get your attention", the old guy says. And here comes the creepy part: this is Edarem himself, a musthave in any "Top Creepy Old School YouTubers" list. Edarem was condemned for a really tough crime, and he was prohibited to use Internet, but he did use it to publish his videos, and it ended in second inprisonment; so he died in a prison hospital quite soon after that. He's creepy and what he says is creepy: someone has to die just to make me "pay attention" to God? No, thank you, sir.

The third track is titled "You Look Depressed", the samples were taken from some tape from the 90's with lessons of English. Nervöse Leute have always been keen on using analogue samples, tapes, etc., and this is the case. The thing is that overall mood of the tape is kind of blaming the listener for being a homebody, for being non-social and depressed as if it's a bad thing. You gotta go out, you gotta watch TV to be "up to date", you gotta meet people you dislike just to remain a normal guy in their eyes. Actually, it's about shaming of depression and other psychiatric issues.

The final track has shortwave (Nervöse Leute's hobby horse) samples of a radio show discussing Covid-19 and Omicron in general. It's just the feature of the time. We're having disastrous numbers of Covid victims here in Russia, kids get sick and die, children's hospitals have no vacant places, etc. It's horrorful when you look at the amount of victims of the pandemic. 

Well, we're proud of our work, I must admit. Nervöse Leute change, but remain truthful to their ideology. Let's see if we go on exploring creepy terrotories.

Check out the EP here: 

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 — Географический диктат (2019)

Hi everyone, we're presenting our latest VA sampler. It's called «Географический диктат» (Geographic Dictation), and it's a tongue-in-cheek game because it's almost similar to annual geographic quiz «Географический диктант» (i.e. Spelling test).

It's also about dictation = dictatorship, etc.

Geography, space in general, dictates how we ought to behave, what we should do. We are separated by vast spaces, miles and miles, thousands of miles, we haven't met with some of artists who contribute to us for years and years.

We present different styles here. Grey Lenses (me) presents an ambient piece titled "Teriberka" with geographic destination:"from Siberia to North West of Russia". It's made using different software than on previous ambient releases.

Владимир Лазнев (Vladimir Laznev) plays a minimal synth piece titled "Киевское шоссе" (Highway to Kiev) with geographic destination: "from Southern Russia to Kiev, Ukraine", but Kiev Highway can also be found in St. Petersburg and as a federal route from Moscow to Ukraine. Its sound somehow reminded me of Front 242's debut "Geography" which also fits the idea of this compilation.

Snowbringer continues to experiment here with his "Summer Collage" recorded on vacation with geographic destination "from Kazan to Nort West of Russia". Sometimes it sounds just like Nervoese Leute! You see, Snowbringer is not quite active now, perhaps a break is really needed to think about future of this project. We believe that it would surprise us and hope its new works will be exciting!

Лосины Маршала Потемкина contributed a song «3 соуса» (3 Sauces) with more local story: from Apatity to Murmansk. The song was recorded this summer and mastered this autumn. It tells a surreal story of Semyon Zolotarev (the most mysterious guy from Dyaltov Pass incident) found survived in a local fast food cafe. The protagonist says: "There are rumors you're a double agent", and Semyon replies: "3 sauces ain't always better than 2".

Yes, we love detective stories.

So, you can instantly download mp3 version of this compilation, but once downloaded, please change ".r2r" to ".rar" to open it normally.

Stay tuned!
I'd also like to inform you that since this post we're not going to make publications monthly; new posts will arrive when new records will be released.

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

VA — Pereat (2018)

TL;DR? Then check out video version of this post!

Hi everyone, we're happy to present you our annual sampler! This time it's called "Pereat", it's a Latin word which can serve as sort of pessimistic motto, considering current situation.

The sampler starts with an anonymous short intro, it's an electronic instrumental by our long-time collaborator who decided not to sign this time:

Then goes a song by Concern Void band, it's titled Conscience, and we're really proud of it as it's a result of hard work on creating authentic minimal synth sound. I provided lyrics and vocals for the song, the music was written by Vladimir Laznev.

Then we have a new "Handshaker" by Snowbringer, and now it's "Modern Handshaker". It's a noise record, the sound is quite abrasive though it's not disturbing. It's also the longest track on the sampler. Snowbringer shows truly mature sound here.

Track #4 is a hip-hop by Alogical, he didn't write the beat, but the lyrics are original. It was first published as a part of Alogical Vlog, psychedelic and astonishingly modern. It's titled "Let's Get It", so it's based on a meme, and it's totally the least oldschool track on the sampler, which brings us diversity and all other valuable things nowadays.

The next track is an oldschool minimal instrumental "Time" by Vladimir Laznev, and it's supposed to be part of forthcoming soundtrack. It sounds really promising, and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole soundtrack released.

Then we have a new Nervöse Leute track, "Erziehung". It's a noise record and it's sort of a preview of their 3rd longplay hopefully to be released this summer/autumn. It's going to have less radio / tape noises, focusing on different noise sources instead; this track is an example of shifting quite primitive music to the spheres of sort of sophisticated noise.

Next track is a cinematic instrumental "Creeper" by Hipstor Smith. This track was written exclusively for our radio broadcast, Shadowplay FM, and it was aired earlier this year during a radio play "Post-irony".

The final song on the sampler is "Хуже не будет" by Лосины Маршала Потемкина. The title means "It won't get worse", and it's much a sardonic mood spread in the air these days. Together with a slogan "Pereat" it can be understood as a manifesto, and it was already honored to receive a comparison with a "sarcastic bomb". It's basically post-punk song, recorded in studio with live drums, though bass probably wouldn't sound really post-punk'ish, as it's too smooth. Anyway we hope to do something less sad next time we'll be heading to the studio.

  

So I gotta say we're proud of what we presented this year. From the one hand, there are no new projects / bands which would join us, there are even no guest artists this year, but I feel our "roast" is strong, mature and ready for new achievements. Hope you'll appreciate the result of our long and hard work.

What would you expect from us later this year? Well, we still hope to have 1 or 2 physical releases (they're on the go) by some of artists represented here. We hope to release a soundtrack by Vladimir Laznev, new Лосины's.. songs, and we also plan to release 3rd longplay by Nervöse Leute.

Probably we'll do something more. I feel like I need to invite new artists to our informal label. Let's see if I'll get lucky.

Instant free download (mp3 VBR) (Right click on "Click on this link — Save object as...").

Stay tuned!

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

Grey Lenses – Motivating Tunes (2016)

Hello again, we’re back with my brand new EP "Motivating Tunes", released less than 2 weeks ago! I’m proud to announce this release has solemn “CV 20” mark, as it’s 20^th release of our Concern Void Records informal label.

Mostly this post is about informing you about the news, as it’s kinda hard to review a record which has been released almost yesterday.

I recorded this EP in late 2015, the album cover again shows snow in my native Siberian town, but this time the snow gets dirty, as well as the sound goes harsher, with more noises – and it represents what (in my opinion) a noise-pop record should sound like.

Actually, additional noises is the only major change, this is still minimalistic, “cold” EP inspired by our ruthless winter, a lo-fi minimal synth which I wanted to be as “icy” as it was a year ago on my previous EP.

The title track, “Cell” has its roots in the very early times of my existence as “Grey Lenses”, a metaphor of being put in a cell where the only thing you could do is beating its walls by your own head (this is what the noises in the interlude are supposed to express). This image got stuck in my mind for years, and finally I found courage to express my feelings in the song. Moreover, it’s a humble tribute to one of my favorites, a song “White Cell” by Clock DVA; also it was partially inspired by Coil’s “Cold Cell”, but I tried to express feelings and thoughts without any quotes or tendencies to sound alike, to resemble, and to remind of these songs.

Teach me, mother’s little helper,

‘cause my patience’s growing thinner

Things are still the same: “forced” sense of guilt, lack of “metaphysical” freedom (something what the Underground Man constantly craved for). The lines

I reject to make a fortune

If we’re fortunate with none

Are about famous poem “How Fortunate the Man With None” by Berthold Brecht, also known for its interpretation by the legendary Dead Can Dance.

The second song, “The Windstorm”, is mostly inspired by winter, the cruel wind in the Siberian plain, the blizzard, etc. (noises again serve their purpose), but it also touches upon some topics which I found bothering me again and again, like the poseur suicide, this time about the story of a “brave just for a day” German philosopher Philipp Mainlaender who hanged himself by jumping from the pile of copies of his freshly published book “The Philosophy of Redemption”:

Why does the salvation come too late?

Why do we think our doings were that great?

And then I reflect everything on me and see myself as a web-partisan hiding behind the mask for these long years, which is corresponding with an ad of Laibach’s app which should be downloaded to help me “be a better partisan”. An image of Sisyphus and a novella by Akutagawa, “Dialogue in the Dark”, are also mentioned in this song.

The third song, “Curiosity (Lead Masks)” is a topical song about a creepy story occurred in 1960’s in Brazil. Having read about this story, I was shocked for its desperately tragic character, almost cathartic and sacrificial, while it is most likely to be a murder for money. Such examples teach us that sometimes it is better not to have faith at all than to trust that much.

The final test of your belief

A secret mission of New Dark Age.

How much would you pay for curiosity?

The motive of climbing a hill repeats here and in the previous song, the state of “climbing up” is what I’m currently trying to do, and I experience certain difficulties connected with it.

The final track, “External Approval”, is about motivation and dependence from others’ points of view, about lack of confidence in order not to overestimate myself; and also about the tendency to hold my ambitions. The final words have also been in my head for a long, long time, and finally found their expression. The line “I’d like to hear a new noise” nods towards Tuxedomoon’s “What Use”, which, I dare to say, has quite a similar mood.

Download for free from BandCamp:



 

Or listen to YouTube playlist 

Well, that’s it, I hope you like my new EP. Anyway, your feedback is desperately needed! Please recommend this EP to your friends if you like it. Remember that I need you and

Remain, yours sincerely,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey

Grey Lenses – Perfect Conditions (2015)

 Despite the fact it’s rather hard to review my own records, I’ll try to write about my recent EP “Perfect Conditions”.

I picked the name “Grey Lenses” in 2008 for a band we planned to form with my mate, we were inspired by Iggy Pop, PIL, Joy Division and wanted to play something similar, but there was a problem: we lived in a quite small town, Internet was relatively expensive back then, so almost nobody who was rehearsing in garages didn’t know these bands, everybody played pop-punk and metalcore, so we simply couldn’t persuade anyone to play something different, and our enthusiasm had grown thin, though I had a notebook full of lyrics.

So, I was left alone at some moment and “Grey Lenses” became only my pseudonym, I tried to record stuff using this moniker in 2008, but I wasn’t satisfied with the result, so I didn’t even show most of these songs to most of my friends.

After that, I was involved in various creative activities, but I didn’t release any serious songs as “Grey Lenses” until this year. If you read one of my previous posts, you might know I participated in a project named “Acid Socks”, but it was put on hiatus, and I had to go on working alone. I started to work on this EP in 2014 and released it in early 2015. It can be extremely cold in a town I live in, so I tried to make this EP as cold as possible, and some listeners told me I managed to create such sound.

I found the title “Perfect Conditions” in the Bible, I really liked this quote:

“If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done” (Ecc 11:4)

Sorry for a personal detail, but I’m a very melancholic man, so I often need to be encouraged, and this quote encouraged me, I realized I can’t wait anymore, it’s time to act now!

And I recorded this EP. “Perfect Conditions” can be described as lo-fi minimal synth with low range vocals, although some purists said it’s not “proper” minimal synth – well, ok, I actually wanted to create original sound with more ambience and “cinematic” feeling of suspense, and I hope I succeeded :)

“The Follower”, the title track, is about the fear of being trapped by idols I created, the fear of committing a poseur suicide like some crazy fans did.

“Got rid from the dreary visions,

Woke up right at 5 AM

You acted with great precision

The ritual has turned to slam.

Can you prevent me from following you?

I am afraid I’ll end up just like you”

And from the “relationships” with dead poets, idols, EP moves to relationship with mates (“The Teammate”) which portrays a figure of helpless outsider “waiting for a guide”, like one of my “idols” said:

“Help me to pass this test:

I am tired to be the last

Apathy I had to face

Is covered with layers of rust”

The third song, “My Goal Can’t Be Reached”, is about a dull evening in a small town, where “there’s nothing to do”, nothing can be done, nothing can be changed, etc.:

“I have to spit on my own grave;

Something has faded from my field of view.

My goal can’t be reached,

And there’s nothing to do”

And yeah, “the sly man” is the same sly man which was mentioned by Blue Orchids in their awesome “Low Profile” song, I think you know it’s from Gurdgieff’s works.

The final track – “Artificial Crimes” – is an insomniac cry of despair, cry of fear of infernal visions in Ivan Karamazov’s manner, and also an insight that “things must change” mixed with the feeling of shame / regret for not having any faith:

“I feel like I’m disabled in some spiritual way

I’ve lived in a hurry, so thirsty for time,

And now the time has come for these few crucial days:

It’s time to stop suffering from artificial crimes”

The title, “Artificial Crimes”, was inspired by a work by Russian philosopher Lev Shestov (Camus mentioned him in his famous essay), who, if I’m correct (I forgot the certain quote), wrote something like: “What if Raskolnikov didn’t commit his crime, what if his crime was artificial?”, and I thought: it’s such a similar situation, I know I didn’t commit any crime, but I’m treated like if I did.

Well, enough talking, just listen to this EP!


 

Or check out SoundCloud or YouTube playlist of "Perfect Conditions"

Sincerely yours,

John “Grey Lenses” Grey