I was recently sent a
huge batch of CD from this very eclectic Russian Label. Some of these bands I have heard of before
and had some music by like the Grand Astoria, Ciolkowskia and Disen Gage, all
the others are totally new to me.
Ciolkowska
This band started off as an improvised instrumental trio and over the
course of time has become a larger and more focused band. The band has released
at least two albums on this label. I own one of their other albums. The latest
one is called Avtomat Proshlogo. This band shares some members with Transnadeznost. This album was recorded
live in the studio in 2018. IT features
a very eclectic mix of music and styles. IT keeps you on your toes as you don’t
know what to expect. Some intense vocals start the album off and then it drifts
into a very different vibe for the 2nd
track, Earth with the ukulele taking the main lead and then into an almost DOOM
like heaviness. Thereabouts starts with some nice percussion and a trumpet
solo. The vocal is quite layed back and spacey to start. A very cool track. End of Action sees the
return of the trumpet but it is played in a very slow fashion and mixed in well
with the melodic lines of the guitar. Nice use of some effects. At just about
2mins, the bass takes the lead and then the guitar and ukuele have some cool trading parts.
Intersting song with a bit of a Russian theme. The album also features a couple
of obscure cover songs by Liompa and UdUbrenje, two bands I presume are
Russian. At Trees Height is over 8mins and a bit faster and the vocals return.
The track starts off quite happy but then the guitar gets quite intense with a
lot of distortion, a new tone not heard yet on the album, the happiness
returns. We are from Jazz starts with a sample in Russian and then the cymbals
followed by the bass and then the trumpet take us into jazz land, for a
different vibe. 108 brings back the Ukulele and a more dreamy spirit but occasional heavier guitars. The closing track is one of the covers, About
Lord and Buddha.
This is a very interesting and cool band. I am not sure what the
western world would think about them. Check it out.
Disen Gage
Moscow scientists/musicians have returned after 8
years without a release. In May 15, 2019, an new album was digitally released
by addicted label and later on CD.
The band was formed in 1999 by Yuri Alaverdyan and
Konstantin Mochalov on guitars, Nikolay Syrtsev on bass guitar and Eugeniy
Kudryashov on drums. In 2004 their recorded material reached the RAIG music
label, which released it as the band's debut album “The Screw-Loose
Entertainment”. In 2005, with the arrival of a new guitarist, Sergey Bagin who
took the place of Yuri Alaverdyan the band turned from a guitar-oriented
progressive rock to a challenging avant-prog group. As a result, in 2006 Disen
Gage released its second album “Libertage” (RAIG) composed from spontaneous
improvisations and third studio album “...The Reverse May Be True” (2008, RAIG),
which stylistically blended the structural patterns with the improvisational
freedom.
After long silence the same participants released
single “Equilibrium Trip” (Addicted label, 2016) and full album
"Snapshots" which is whimsically balancing on a weird edge between
psychedelic and romantic mood, between a krautrock improv and a soundtrack to a
western movie. "Snapshots" CD was released shortly by Art-Beat in
January 2017.
In 2016 Disen Gage turn their status from
"rock-band" to "musician association" with a flexible crew
of participants that led to a significant widening of their art. Thus, in 2017
"Hybrid State" – a science-art documentary, presenting a situation in
which scientists make music in the course of an experimental procedure, and
directly in the lab was created by Konstantin Mochalov, Anton Efimov, Daria Solovyeva
and Alexey “Al Argus”. This self-titled soundtrack was released by dependent
label BNiL in the same year.
In 2018 Disen Gage consisting of Konstantin Mochalov
and Anton Efimov experimented in music concrete, ambient and noise directions
crafting the album “Nature” (Addicted label BNiL) from sounds of planets,
trains and animals (including higher primates). Alexandra Semenova organically
supplements this sound adventure with a video.
In February 2019 band released album “The Big Adventure” with traditional line-up to celebrate 20 years of existence. This album features 8 tracks in a little over 40mins. IT starts off with Shiroyama, a slight Japanese influence in the guitar line and a bit spacey with some industrial like sounds mixed in as well. Adventurers changes the vibe totally and is quite happy Russian party vibe. Some great bass lines on this track. Chaos Point reminds me a bit of something Zappa might do. Some chaos for sure, mixed with some more heavy riffs. Later the focus is on the piano. Enough features some very nice cello playing and some intense lead guitar as well. A lovely track that nicely counters the Chaos point! All the Truth’s Meeting starts off quite funky and has this sort of Russian rhythm at the same time. A quite happy one you could dance to! Selfish Tango brings in some interesting sounding percussion, almost like a vibraphone (one is not cited) and this one could be in a movie soundtrack. Carnival Escape has some spacey synths and sort of creepy horror movie vibe that slowly evolves and takes a radical turn into something with some jazz piano and then some intense guitar. Cool song. FIN ends the CD and features a lot of piano. Very good album. This is a great and interesting band. Not sure if they have even ever played outside of Russia.
Detieti
Detieti was formed in 2004 in Moscow by bassist
Mikhail "Han" Ivanov and drummer Roman Karandaev. Ivan
"Vanish" Khvorostukhin, who had already played in the stoner-rock
group Stone Cold Boys, joined the band soon. Initially, in the early years
Detieti was almost homemade project and didn’t show a lot of activity. The first
demo was recorded in 2010 with new band's drummer Viktor Tikhonov (Kshettra
band). Sometimes Roman still participated in concerts and recordings as a
vocalist and showman. The music of the band is an avant-prog, that has a foundation
in mixing alternative rock, funk, psychedelia and punk rock. Mike Patton's
projects, funk-metal, early Queen, improvisational music of different genres,
comics, circus and 80's films can also be named as important sources of
inspiration.
Detieti transformed into a quartet with keyboardist Peter
"Peyote-R" Bolotov in 2011. This line-up recorded two albums -
"Ne eP" (2013) and "Detieti в общих чертях" (2015). Vanish
quit the band in 2016, Alexander Kosarenko became the new guitar player. He
brought in new colors to the band's sound. Detieti recorded the new album
"Frogressive Punk" in the summer and autumn of 2017 and it was released
in May 2018.
This CD comes in a large sleeve, which features
another smaller cardboard sleeve inside with the CD and a very strange story
about villagers, frogs and a submarine. The song titles also seem to relate to
this story. The CD features 9 tracks and like many of these Russian bands, they
have a lot of guest musicians (5 in this case on different tracks). Cocaintro
starts off with some voices, piano and then gets quite heavy and aggressive and
then it gets happy and funky with some wah guitar. Lazy Madonna also features
some funky wah guitar to start. Rasta Fear, you might though would have a
reggae inspiration (a tiny bit of skank is thrown in) but it is quite heavy
stuff with some really intense guitar at times.
The Dream of Woodland Animals changes the vibe completely and the band
clearly had a lot of fun making this track with an almost country flavor with
lots of animal sounds. Murat-Zlurad is a strange one. IM Pokh starts very
spacey with a synth leading the way at the beginning almost like a space
journey and then at 1.40 disentegrates into madness and then gets more intense
and almost symphonic. Some horns come in and then it goes into some very strange
stuff. Diemback features a lot of strange stuff as well and a more heavy
sound. In Latrine (Cocaintro revisted),
is what the title says. Threeptile ends the album. This is a very eclectic band
as they slide in and out of so many styles of music. I think Mike Patton and Mr
Bungle is a good reference for this band.
I really was quite captured by the diversity and insanity. My wife did
not like it much though!
Pree Tone
Pree Tone was born at the junction of mass-protests/clashes
and war in Ukraine in 2014. They start rehearsing as trio in a small basement
in the capital’s downtown. Very soon, in the beginning of spring, they recorded
and released the first album Brights. Listeners and critics mostly positively
received the songs, so after a month they played the first show in Kyiv and
received invitations to perform at two summer festivals.
During 2014 we released two more EP’s Wild Highs and
Simmer. In 2017, they released two albums D-A and L'Illustré and after
line-up changes became a four-piece band. Brights and Simmer were released on
tapes by freak friendly d.i.y. Wild Highs turned into tapes by Swamp Meat
and c'était cela notre amour. D-A was released on tapes by Beaver house.
During November they recorded a six-song album “Kiddy”
which was released in August 2018 by dependent label BNiL on CD & Geertruida
on tapes. These tracks are quite long
and starts off with Treasures of Fall. This is quite psychedelic stuff and
reminds me of some UK psych bands from the 80s and features a quite dissonant
guitar with a steady hypnotic groove with occasional sparks of madness.. Maze of 60 Ticks is a nice melodic track but
with some intense guitar at times and a sort of spoken like vocal. The mid section has some cool organ-keyboards
and is quite psyched out. Safe and Sound is a bit more freaky and a sort of
stoned vocal. Nice layers of noisy distorted
guitars but a melodic thread is maintained. They have a long trippy section
that gets quite noisy as well. Token continues with a faster pace, rolling bass
lines, quick drum fills and a slightly dissonant guitar line. A rocking track
which finally comes down around 5mins to a mellow finish. Diadam is another
fast paced one with a high energy and drive and psyched out guitar action.
Bricks slowly fades up with a heavy guitar riff that is repeated over and over
until the rest of the band joins and a drone synth adds to the mix and a slow
dynamic builds throughout. A very nice psych record.
The Grand Astoria
The Grand Astoria needs no introduction and is one of Russia’s most
productive and eclectic and interesting bands. They have released many albums
on this label over the years. I am a big fan of this band and have almost all
of their output. Some of their albums
like The Might Few and Punkadelia Supreme are really amazing records.
The band is celebrating 10 years in 2019 and has been
touring all over Europe. The band has recorded
their 7th album and plans to release it in the fall of 2019\early 2020. Check out a new song below from 2018..
Pressor
The band was formed in 2008 in Kostroma, Russia under
the name Leaden Sky by guitarist, vocalist and main songwriter Stanislav
«Zoiner» Vasiliev in collaboration with bassist Ilya Beschastnov (they already
played together from 2006). Guys mixed funeral doom with death metal. Also in
2008 Stan and Anton Khmelevsky played together in black metal band
Nocturnlands, where they recorded first tracks together. In 2009 Anton joined
Leaden Sky on lead guitar. At the same time Leaden Sky were joined by drummer
Viktor Grigoriev. With that line-up guys started to move from funeral doom to
sludge, first writing "Cheerful Song" (now you may know it as 'Grave
Full of Weed' track from first EP). Now the band resides in St. Petersburg and
has another EP released in 2018 called Weird Things. It is 4 tracks and lasts about 20 mins. Heavy State starts things off with a spaced
out doom vibe. The spacey synths really
make this instrumental doom quite trippy. The title track is an angry song with
a very aggressive vocal and heavy bass line that drives it. The tuned down
guitars really are nasty. Later the
track slows down and it reminds me of Ministry. Hexadecimal Unified Insanity,
is another Doomy mutherfucker with the return of some psychedelic sound additions. Tripping Deep ends the EP with another
tripped out psych doom track. Reminds me a bit of Domovoyd at times. Not for
the timid.
Soom
Soom are from the
Ukraine and started off as a stoner sludge band in 2013 and has released at
least 7 items and are one of the more heavy bands on this label. Experimental
sludge band from Kharkiv (Ukraine) testing acid metal by their own way: going
deeper into lo-fi, under-underground, noise and industrial. You still can find
traditional stoner doom riffs and Ukrainian melodies, but please beware, it's
not relaxed walking in the sun, really weird and creepy things happening here.
Their latest CD (has a name in Russian letters) and is
10 tracks spread over 70 mins. The main tracks are all quite long with a few
shorter pieces. The digisleeve is a
great package with a booklet with all the words in Russian and some interesting
imagery. The opening 7.5min track starts
very slow and spacey with different string instruments, some bass, percussion
and the flow of the ocean. At the very end you get some flute and then a spoken
word. Great number but what happens next is some just nasty sounding sludge
music with a massively distorted guitar and bass but they come back to some
clean tones now and then in specific interludes. Dark stuff. After a short interlude
track of 1min with a spoken word vocal, the longest track at over 13mins
starts. This one has some more melody to it but the same overall heavy, sludge
sound. Track 4 is very psychedelic at times the way they mix the vocal. The band is a three piece Amorth, Tomrer and Kova, who play all sorts of
instruments, it would appear unless I miss the credits in the CD for extras.
Anyway, this is a DARK record but also with some variety. A tough 74mins listen
but check it out. You can hear the entire album below.
Transnadeznost
Transnadežnost' first emerged at Kamennaya Sreda’s
regular parties in the DaDa club in St. Petersburg, Russia on 12/24/12 with
Alexander Yershov on guitar and Vladimir Gurov on drums. Soon Max Zhuravlyov
has joined the band on bass and synths, and the first demo Shamantra/First Arab
Astronaut was recorded.
On 02/23/15 No Name label (Moscow) released
Kailash/Ladoga EP with Natasha Bogulyan on drums and TaSha supplementing band's
sound with theremin.
On 12/27/17 the split Huldra/108 with Ciolkowska
band was released, followed by "Monomyth" , the debut album featuring
David Aaronson on drums, Nikolay Vladimirovich on bass, Alesya Izlesa and
Alexander Yershov on guitars. The album marks the band's switch from jams to
regular more composed songs and features 6 instrumentals and one song with
vocals by Egor. Pachamama starts things off and has a bit of a GONG vibe to it.
Some interesting delays on the guitar give it his spacey feel at times. Some
intense playing as the track grows. The next two songs date back to 2015 and
have a more jammy feel at times. Star Child and Day/Night (the last track),
change the vibe a bit with the addition of the trumpet by Aleksey. I enjoyed this album very much. If you like
instrumental music, this is a good one to check out.
Follow the label at the links below:
Found this post because I similarly just came across this label, which blew my mind just a little. Haven't gone through all the material yet, but some of it I definitely really love, and I'm also impressed by how varied the releases are. Your article is helping me navigate all of it a bit. Much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteI think I got a similar bundle to you. Very interesting music going on in Russia right now.
ReplyDeletehttps://tudortelescope.blogspot.com/2020/09/addicted-to-russia.html