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 

 

 

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

Grey Lenses — Circumstantiality (2020)

Hi everyone, we've just released a new album, it's my latest dark ambient / post-industrial work called "Circumstantiality".

It's a soundtrack for another story written by me. The story was published in Moscow in a zine named "Forbidden for Children", but the soundtrack is a-coming only now.

Mainly, it doesn't have much of novelty, still the same sonic structures I've been obsessed with for the last 3 years, this time maybe a little more experimental.

Though tracks are narrowly connected to the story, some pieces have their own sources of inspiration. The first track, "Raus", was created under heavy influence of tracks "Herz-felde" and "Das Spiel ist aus" by Laibach, but it might not be obvious.

"The Damage Has Been Done", the second track, was somehow inspired by "Damaged People" by Depeche Mode. "Good Natured" is a nod to John Lydon's awesome solo song "Sun", and "Make Them Fall" was written with melody of the UK national anthem playing in my head, with a bit of "Hymnen" by Einstürzende Neubauten.

"Stoic" is a philosophic approach which is actually found in every work I do, as I find it useful, up to date and effective. I mean Roman stoicism mostly (Seneca and Marcus Aurelius).

"Cherespolositsa" is a term used in Russian empire to identify lands which, like a chessboard, have different owners though they have common frontiers. I.e., here goes a field owned by Ivanov, and then there's a field owned by Petrov, then — again, a field owned by Ivanov, etc.

This weird division of the land was a result of infamous paranoia of Ivan the Terrible, then it became even worse under Peter the Great. Some attempts to get rid of such irrational division were made in XIXth century and under Nicolaus II, but Russian revolution made the situation even stranger. Cherespolositsa ended only in 1920s because since then such notion as "landowner" became ridiculos. Communists thought it's all "our" land. "Their", actually.

Well, the final track, "Circumstantiality", and the whole story, is about painful mindset, a communication disorder associated mainly with obsessive-compulsive disorder which the protagonist has.

The cover image was provided by our long-time collaborator Pavel Chainichkov, and it's his first cover image for our label since 2016. Glad to collaborate again!

Since there ain't much to add about the release, I gotta spread some news. We're working on an annual VA-sampler (hopefully to be released next month) and the 4th longplay by Nervöse Leute, which currently is on the stage of mastering.

That's all, folks. Hope you're fine.

Check out the new album and stay tuned!



Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

The Colourful Pictures — Forever E (2020)

Hi everyone, we're back after the long winter and we're presenting you our latest web-release.

This is a new project named "The Colourful Pictures". At some point, Snowbringer and me came to an idea that we need a new collaboration between not only two of us, but with participation of other fellow musicians. And the result of this collaboration is right here, it's a full-lenght album consisting of only one track.

We decided to dedicate the record to Genesis P-Orridge who has perished recently. That's why it's called "Forever E": P-Orridge called himself "E", he used "E" instead of "I", and his colleagues simply adopted this as another nickname of Genesis (check out Monte Cazazza's "Monte Adores E" or "Scars for E" written by John Balance and performed by Cultural Amnesia).

(I used "he" because at the time P-Orridge used "he" to identify "himself")

But when we were recording this stuff, personally I wasn't thinking of P-Orridge. I wanted to try something new in a new collaboration. I don't know whether we're going to continue but there are some chances that this project's becoming an ongoing one.

Now let's try to describe the record. It's basically experimental ambient with addition of live instruments, which brings a slight avant-garde touch. The base of the record goes from use of "heavy" synths played by Snowbringer and me, but it occasionally meets parts of electric piano, electric guitar and bass. The tracks aren't separated as it's obviously the flow which floats from the beginning to the end, changing its directions on the way.

The electric piano part was contributed by Предложный Падеж.

Electric guitar part was contributed by Yevgeniy Minaev.  

Bass part was contributed by Yevgeniy Dvoynishnikov, a member of Лосины Маршала Потемкина band.

The album was recorded at Red Moral Studio by Vladislav Klikunov.

Hope you like the record. Download in WAV!

Let's remember Genesis.

Stay tuned,

sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Grey Lenses — Northern Noises (2019)

Hi everyone, we're presenting you today our final release of 2019. It's my web EP "Northern Noises", and it's inspired by Russian North.

It includes 4 tracks, starting with an ambient piece "Teriberka", published on our recent VA sampler, followed by more post-industrial "Dreams of Alyosha", which even has sort of melody.

Then we have laptop noise composition "Karla Libknekhta", named after the same street in Murmansk. Its noisy character depicts its dark and mostly brutal look. This street was amongst the first rebuilt after WWII, and, to my mind, currently it provides the harshest experience when you wander through the city.

We end with "Drovyanoe", a remote area of city of Murmansk, almost a ghost town. It's rather hard to get in there by bus and it's almost impossible to get out of Drovyanoe from your soul. It's half abandoned, depressing and devastating place. The sound shows the ancient feeling of fear spreaded by this area, ruthless and confident at the same time.

You may check out the EP here:

It's been rather prolific year, I must say. Hope that 2020 will brings us more good music. Stay tuned, happy hollidays, Merry Christmas everybody!

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

Лосины Маршала Потемкина — Избегание проблемы (2019)

Hi everyone, we're happy to present you latest EP by Лосины Маршала Потемкина!

The EP is titled "Избегание проблемы" ("Avoidance of the Issue"), and it nods towards well-known song by Glaxo Babies. While previous album was majorly dedicated to recently perished Mr. Mark E. Smith, this time I was obsessed with Glaxo Babies and especially with Pere Ubu and their theory of "equality of all sounds".

This EP was released just today!! It includes 4 new songs recorded this spring. The cover has been drawn by our friend, young and promising artist Olezha Urzik.

It depicts some alternative reality Sergey Bezrukov playing gangster Sasha Beliy from old TV-series "Brigada" who's dropped another gangster on the rails and is waiting for the train... very bizzare.

This image is connected with title song, named after "Sergey Bezrukov". You see, this brilliant actor has managed to play most of Russian 19th and 20th century famous poets, Tsars from Vladimir the Red Sun to Boris Godunov, as well as policemen and gangsters, and ending with playing Jesus Himself.

So, for us, this is the image of Proteus. Any shape can be obtained, any personality can be assimilated. From the one hand, this is sad, as this is the ultimate victory of depersonalization (the issue we were singing about on previous LP).

From the other hand, it promises vast opportunities, like the story of Zelig teaches us. So this is basically about what makes up our personality.

Another major motive on the record is motive of overall sickness. Illnesses are everywhere, and getting to hospital in modern conditions is almost lethal. So the title songs tell a story of an ill guy Sanya, just like fictional gangster Sanya Beliy, who's suffering at hospital and watches movies via TV where Bezrukov is acting ("All of Sergey Bezrukov's roles have meaning, and you have no meaning at all"); then Sanya gets his leg amputated, and then gets buried alive by the same "guys" who've amputated his leg and "put it close to central heating to make it a little drier".

We didn't want comparisons with Egor Letov, but unfortunately these times are as harsh as times when he was at his best. That's why this cruelty and violence in lyrics is returning. Nobody cares that Sanya is being buried alive: "60% pass by, 12% kick him with the boots". That's much Mamleev-like violence, leading to catharsis.

"The Forests of Zvenigorod" where the story takes place, refer to Russian writer Anton Chekhov who worked in hospital of Zvenigorod.

Angst is a strong emotion, it is mentioned in lyrics. This is what we feel. We also feel "guys" are trying to bury us alive.

Then goes "Паблик со стишками" ("Social Network Page With Poetry"), sarcastic rant against popular poetry widely spread nowadays. It's way closer to The Fall aesthetics, it's topical in some way, and it's very social.

The third track, "Проезд капитана Тарана" ("Captain Taran Street"), goes back to topics of diseases. Captain Taran was an WWII hero, and after him a street in the centre of Murmansk, Northern Russia was named. Coincidentally, "taran" in Russian means "ramming".

So, the character's been just released from hospital, and, while still weak, he returns to Taran Street where he used to live in childhood, and he observes as his house is burning while nobody's trying to stop the fire ("If the house's burning, you can watch football").

The original title of this song — "Saperlipopet" (French swearing mentioning the Devil) was replaced because it's hard to pronounce it, but it remained in lyrics and it's significant for understanding. "Saperlipopet" is a title of book by Viktor Nekrasov, also WWII hero and writer who was forced to leave Soviet Russia because of his views.

In this book, the narrator also returns to streets of his youth in Kiev and Moscow, and his despair which sometimes grows in real anxiety is known to me when I go back to the city I spent most of my years.

This song is also touching upon issues of evil, control freaks, problem of Tick-borne encephalitis in Russia, among others.

Finally, the fourth track, "Не отрекаются" ("Don't Resign"), nods to Alla Pugacheva's song "Lovers Don't Resign". We made sort of parody, but we meant that resigning in general is an undesired thing.

The song tells a story of 4 dead people: a person hit by a train (see album cover), a person died in a car accident, a person who was drown, and a hangman. Each time some servicemen deputies act and perform what they must do according to instructions. Every verse is stone cold description of what happened, and each time it ends with a phrase: "But you wanted me to be the dead one here".

Enough said.

Well, musically, as I've said, I enjoyed Pere Ubu method of "equality of every sound". That's why I made the record less polished. I wanted to be harsh, disturbing and awaking the sleeping. It's like an alert. I wanted to express huge anxiety I feel. I guess I managed to do it.

But it would be totally impossible to achieve alone. Though I wrote all lyrics and sang all lines, did mixing, recordings, remastering, used found objects, played synth, melodica and percussion, the band did great amount of work in writing and arrangement.

Mikhail Alekseev is playing bass here; he also did some recordings, as well as our guitarist and musical advisor Evgeniy Dvoinishnikov, who also played metallophone here. Igor Ezhen provided live drums.

The EP was recorded in Red Moral studio hosted by Vladislav Klikunov who programmed MIDI, did recordings, mixing and mastering (except for track 3, where it was performed by Artyom Bogomolov).

So, I guess that's all. Hope you enjoy the record!

Sincerely yours,

John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Северный голос — Кто умер, тот не может умереть (2019)

Hi everyone, we're presenting our brand new release: a web mixtape «Кто умер, тот не может умереть» (The Dead Can't Die) by Северный голос (The Northern Voice). Sorry, Mr. Jarmusch, but we weren't aware of your work with similar title.

Moreover, it's a quote.

But I feel like I need to make an introduction. Северный голос isn't a band, it's a group of poets. Its members are Pavel Surnov, Alexander Shvetsov (in the centre of the cover) and me. The group reads poetry while the music is playing. The music can be different: we read over cello, acoustic guitar, synths, tank drum, whatever.

The project is sort of parody, as it mocks too serious "middle class poetry" popular in Russia, such as Мужской голос (The Male Voice) or Живые поэты (Living Poets). It's a mainstream commercial poetry, vanilla poetry which makes us die laughing.

That's why we decided to use complex approach to poetry. Pavel's poetry, as well as mine, is openly sarcastic, while Alexander tends to read serious verses which adds complication to the concept. It's mostly post-irony.

Reading awkward stories about failures, weird affairs and accidents is mixed here with pseudo-romantic lyrics. As a result, "decadent" tag has been applied to us a variety of times.

You may check out the earliest live performance of the project here:

Also, Северный голос deconstructs not only the image of a modern poet, but provokes an instant reaction to the street performances, just like here:

The fact that Alexander does it all seriously can't make us considering him a "weak link" as some fellow colleagues said. He's a prolific poet who's published 3 books of verses, and his traditional method of work adds balance to our more avant-garde oriented approach.

Pavel also has plenty of serious material, unfortunately it hadn't been published as a book yet, but we hope something would turn out.

Right, let's switch to the mixtape. Spoken word recording for "The Dead Can't Die" were made in a basement studio which was under maintanence then, and there were no proper vocal speakers, so we plugged into bass or guitar amplifier and set it to sound like 60's speakers, and some lyrics sound as if were actually recorded in the times of Akhmadulina's biggest success. Some lyrics also were recorded such tricky way to resemble lyrics by Arseny Tarkovsky (famous director's father and lesser known yet superb writer) read in "Stalker" movie by Kaidanovsky.

So, we wanted to express closer connection to mid-XXth century than to modern techniques where lyrics are read over a hip-hop beat or somewhat similar. We tried to be as analogue as possible. All technical works were done by me.

Anyway, nowadays it could be impossible not to use synths, so there's some ambient soundscapes as well, but it couldn't been avoided.

Alexander's "Запах сирени, запах акации" (The smell of lilac, the smell of acacia) is read while the nylon-stringed acoustic guitar is playing, other tracks feature synths or a tank drum mixed in a way to fit percussion industrial aesthetics.

It's been also done on purpose. Percussion industrial music (like Steh auf Berlin by Neubauten) is supposed be radical ("Extreme conditions demand extreme responses", Test Dept. claimed), so this nod was sharpened to underline the current situation the independent art finds itself in.

The topics of the lyrics are: love stories, famous Russian birches and patriotism in general (in a post-ironic way), Russian North (in Pavel's "Мурмаши" - "Murmashi" - verse), etc. Мурмаши is a place where an airport, a cemetery and a local resort can be found at the same time.

The final 4 verses are the most important. Эгоист (Egoist) tells a story of spiritual degradation, while Женщина с бородой (A Bearded Woman) touches upon difficult issues of transgender people's relationships. In the end, final Веткой надвое разломиться (To Break Down Like a Branch) leads us to the situation of existential defeat, and Горшок (Potty-Chair) falls back to senile lamentations of the lost childhood.

The picture for the cover was taken by Jo Har Key.

So this is the record which is reflecting the Zeitgeist and eternity at the same time. It's difficult and may not be interpreted in a narrow way. It's not even serious, nor a joke. I consider it an example of the most honest poetic and musical approach to the present time.

Download it (wav!) for free (the whole mixtape or any track you wish)!

Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey

Snowbringer — Final Handshaker (2019)

Hi everyone, today we're observing latest (and probably last) longplay by Snowbringer. Before the Final Handshaker, the project had released Perfect and Brutal Handshakers.

Handshakers were supposed to be sort of alternative series; while we get used to friendly ambient Snowbringer sound, Handshakers were considered as some harsher releases, (post-)industrial ones.

Now, this Final Handshaker is a long one-piece composition, quite dark and, let me say, moody.

As far as I'm concerned, Handshakers appeared not only to illustrate diversity of Snowbringer's sound, but also to demonstrate how this project gets more and more mature. Final Handshaker sounds even weary, and I think it's a feature of our time.

Final Handshaker, as well as other Snowbringer releases, came out not as Concern Void Records release. It's easy to understand we're looking for a "proper" label which would make promotion, etc., and if you know something suitable, some labels dealing with ambient / dark ambient / drone, as well as outsider music, please let me know by suggesting ideas in comments.

Final Handshaker isn't officially last Snowbringer release, but currently this project is "on vacation".

Check out this album:





Stay tuned!

Sincerely yours,
John "Grey Lenses" Grey