Ганс Зиверс - "Кровавый Навет" [1986]

Artist: Ганс Зиверс

Title: Кровавый Навет

Genre: Neofolk, singer-songwriter

Country: USSR
Year: 1986

Track List:

1. Астарот
2. Аннабель
3. В советском подвале
4. Пубертатная революция
5. Les structures de la pensee alchemique... (Диссертация)
6. На острове Лесбос
7. Нарцисс
8. В розовом стакане
9. Эверс
10. Кадиллак
11. Агасфер
12. Нога (Песня о матери)
13. Гелиополис
14. Палестина
15. Танго СА
16. Москва 1982
17. Золушка
18. Гарпия
19. В садах Гесперид
20. У маркиза де Сада
21. Violette

Yet another rare artefact of the Soviet underground scene, whose significance would probably be hard to understand outside the cultural context within which it was created, but which I'll post here anyway just for the sake of completeness. It's 30 years since this album was released, and the person behind this project is an internationally famous (or rather infamous) and controversial politician now. I'll leave finding out his real name to you (in case if you're interested ofc.), and will rather focus on the music, which is possibly the only example of Soviet neofolk (good or not). As for the pseudonym under which this album was published - it's a portmanteau of "Hanns Ewers" and "Wolfram Sievers".

The songs on this album were written during 1981-84 and recorded in 1986 with a cheap tape recorder. In 2000, the album was released on CD by Ur-Realist Records. Of course you shouldn't expect much from it: when it comes to music, it's just typical "one man and his acoustic guitar" type of songs which was the most common type of independent music in 1960-80s USSR, and just like in case with most other singers-songwriters of this kind, there isn't much to listen to if you don't understand the lyrics.

The lyrical content of this album, however, is starkly different from almost everything released in USSR (no matter officially or unoficially) before. The lyrics are inspired mainly by XIX century Romanticism and gothic horror literature, as well as ancient mythos, medieval occult literature, and the 3rd Reich mysticism - basically, everything that projects like Death In June took their inspiration from (although I seriously doubt that anyone in the USSR knew about DI6 or Currect 93 in the early 80s). Ultumately, it's one of the most provocative and unusual releases in the Soviet underground scene before the late perestroika, and it deserves a place in history no matter if you love or hate it (or its author).

Download