H-Ural - "Дорога шамана" [2013]

Artist: H-Ural

Title: Дорога шамана

Genre: Industrial Rock, Folk-Rock

Country: Russia
Year: 2013

Track List:

1. Миш ар
2. Салы урнэ ойка эрыг
3. Осхул арые
4. Ханшан лук эвие
5. Ай куль
6. Дорога шамана
7. Акем ар
8. Шануш пох

H-Ural, formed in early 2007 in Ekaterinburg, are probably the only band to play a fusion of industrial rock and the traditional music of the eastern Ugric peoples (Khanty & Mansi). The band members also do a lot of ethnographic work, and have participated in many Uralic/Finno-Ugric culture festivals.

Their early recordings have interesting musical ideas but, unfortunately, a quite "cheap" sound (reminds me of early Nord'N'Commander, but with an "Uralic" touch). This is their second album, released in late 2013 (or, according to other sources, in early 2014), which is significantly more mature. The lyrics are mostly in Khanty, with a couple of songs in Russian. Interestingly enough, the language doesn't sound much alike its western Finnic relatives, or the Hungarian language; reminds me rather of the Tungusic languages. The music ranges from industrial/electro-rock to more traditional folk-rock inspired by the shamanic practices and ritual music of the Yugra people, with a prominent use of instruments like khomus (also known as the mouth harp). It's also influenced by the Amerindian (Sioux & Iroquois) shamanic musical traditions, which were extensively studied by one of the H-Ural's founding members, Sergey Yalunin.

Overall, the album makes for a nice listen, even if the vocal work seem to be weak at times. I'm currently listening to it while reading the works of Vladimir Napolskikh, the most competent Uralic ethnohistorian I know so far. If you liked this album and are interested in their earlier releases, all of them are freely available on the band's official site. Here's a couple of their early tracks, recorded around 2010:

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Vocal group "July" (Komi Republic)

To continue with the Komi theme, here's a folk/pop vocal group from Ust-Kulom (Kulomdin) - a small town in remote southeast Komi Republic, which is one of the few places where the original Komi-Zyrian culture is still more or less alive and well. As far as I can understand, they mostly sing about their homeland and its beauty. The female vocals are predominant, yet they two male backing vocalists as well. If you liked the Komi folk I've posted here before (Lydia Loginova, Victoria Pystina), you probably would enjoy this band too.

Don't know if they have released any proper albums (I think they do have a CD, but couldn't find any detailed info about it), so I just have compiled all their songs I could find (which wasn't easy, as their name "Июль" / "July" surely isn't search-friendly). Enjoy:

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Vazhes - "Deep Komis" [2010]

Artist: Vazhes

Title: Deep Komis

Genre: Ambient, Dub, Ethno-Industrial

Country: Russia
Year: 2010

Track List:

1. Pu Baraban
2. Chudskoy Otir
3. Chereshlan
4. Deep Komis
5. Pasture Dub
6. Oshkar (ft. Rapoon)
7. Vazh Otir (ft. Fanum)
8. A Dream Within A Dream (ft. Northaunt)

Vazhes is one of the monikers used by Sergey Gabbasov, an ethnologist from Moscow who also makes music. This album is dedicated to the Komi-Permyak people living near the northwestern slope of the Urals. "Vazhes" itself is a traditional Komi name for the "old people" of unknown origins who lived in these places before Komis came there, and the name of the album is apparently a homage to Deep Forest. The other albums released by Vazhes (at least the ones I've listened to) are mostly dedicated to the various Central Asian cultures, and appear to be more influenced by Muslimgauze (with some rhythmic noise elements).

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From The Forest - demo [2016]

Artist: From the Forest

Title: demo

Genre: Post-Rock

Country: Russia
Year: 2016

Track List:

1. Road to Sanda-Gora
2. You Are Here!
3. Sharya
4. Three Angels Are Sent To Kologriv

Nothing is known about this band, except they're from Kostroma and they're playing instrumental post-rock inspired by the nature of their home region and its Meryan heritage. The Merya were an ethnic group inhabiting the territory between modern-day Moscow and Kostroma about a millenium ago. Next to nothing is known about them or their language, except for the fact of their existence, yet they're generally assumed to be Volga Finno-Ugric people, probably related to the Mari people.

The area formerly inhabited by the Merya is well known for having a lot of apparently non-Slavic toponyms with no clear meaning and etymology, which most likely come from some unidentified non-Indo-European languages. Quite a lot of these place names (especially those ending with -ma, -ksha, -khta) appear to come from a single language whose word structure and phonetics are surprisingly similar to what's reconstructed for the hypothetical Proto-Uralic language. Some people assume it to be the Meryan language, although it's highly dubious. This demo is fully instrumental anyway, so the knowledge of Meryan isn't required to enjoy it :)

From what I could gather, the band was planning to release a 5-track EP titled "A Morbid Tale", but there were no news from them since May 2016, so I don't even know if they still play together. Anyway, these 4 tracks are good (especially the last two ones), and I'm definitely going to listen them in my future trips to Kostroma, Sharya, or elsewhere in that region :3

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Goblin - "Suspiria" [1977]

Artist: Goblin

Title: Suspiria

Genre: Avant-Prog, Jazz-Rock

Country: Italy
Year: 1977

Track List:

1. Suspiria
2. Witch
3. Opening To The Sighs
4. Sighs
5. Markos
6. Black Forest
7. Blind Concert
8. Death Valzer
9. Suspiria (Narration)
10. Markos (Alternate Version)
11. Suspiria (Intro)
12. Suspiria (Daemonia Version)

There are several progressive rock/RIO releases from 80s and late 70s which were claimed to be "some of the scariest music ever recorded", i.e. "Heresie" by Univers Zero and "Les Morts Vont Vite" by Shub-Niggurath. Although Goblin never were a part of the RIO movement, many of their works deserve to be on that list too - especially this particular album, which is a soundtrack for Dario Argento's 1977 movie "Suspiria". Without the soundtrack and the unusual color scheme, "Suspiria" would be just an ordinary horror movie like many other, but the combination of vibrant colors and blaring music created a very intense atmosphere (because of which, "Suspiria" is often considered to be one of the scariest horror films of all time).

Luigi Russolo - "Die Kunst der Geräusche" [2000]

Artist: Luigi Russolo

Title: Die Kunst der Geräusche

Genre: Noise, Avant-Garde Classical

Country: Italy
Year: 2000 (composed during 1910-20s)

Track List:

1. Risveglio Di Una Città
2. Crepitatore
3. Ululatore
4. Gracidatore
5. Gorgogliatore
6. Ronzatore
7. Arco Enarmonico
8. Antonio Russolo - Corale
9. Antonio Russolo - Serenata
10. Francesco Balilla Pratella - L'Aviatore Dro Op. 33: Fragmente 2. und 3. Akt für Klavier, Rombatore, Sibilatore, Scoppiatore, Ululatore und Stimmen
11. Giacomo Balla - Macchina Tipografica
12. Fortunato Depero - Canzone Rumorista
13. Riccardo Santoboni / Rossana Maggia - Omaggio a Luigi Russolo für Stimme und digitale Intonarumori

Many people who are interested in noise and industrial music know the name of Italian futurist Luigi Russolo, whose 1913 manifesto "The Art Of Noises" laid the foundation for the noise music scene. However, not many actually have listened to his noise compositions, until the German label WERGO, specialized in avant-garde classical music, has released this book/CD set in 2000. I think it should be listened by everyone who's into avant-garde music, and it won't take too much time anyway (the whole album is less than 25 minutes long). It features 7 original compositions by Luigi Russolo (mostly quite short), and 6 tracks by other futurists which generally sound less noisy and more like conventional music than Russolo's ones.

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If you want to know more about Italian futurist music of the early XX century, you may also want to check out the compilation "Musica Futurista: The Art Of Noises" which isn't hard to find on the net, but it mostly consists of more or less conventional piano music, with only Russolo (and maybe also Marinetti) being truly "avant-garde" artists. As for Russian futurist movement of the same time, it was mostly about poetry and (to a lesser extent) visual art, and its ideology differs significantly from that of Italian futurists; however,the early Soviet Union did produce several interesting avant-garde musical works, like this one:

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).

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Izakaron - "Chaoschrist" [2000]

Artist: Izakaron

Title: Chaoschrist

Genre: Symphonic Black Metal

Country: Russia
Year: 2000

Track List:

1. Hunting On Troyan Path
2. Aphrodite Of Hatred
3. Woods Of Thy Might
4. Thou Art Incarnated Souls
5. The Origin
6. I Am Of The Serpent
7. The Profound
8. Cold Kingdom
9. Benighted / At The 9th Gate

Surprisingly good symphonic black metal from the same era as the Valhalla album I'm posted here a couple of days ago. The band was formed in 1997 not so far from me - in Dzerzhinsk, a place that isn't very famous for its metal scene, and they were one of the first in my region to play black metal (along with Drauggard, which were formed in 2003, and whose early releases weren't nearly as good as this one). At least some of the band members were professional musicians (although I doubt if any of them still play any sort of music). Here's their only photo I could find, probably taken shortly after they have formed (later they've recruited some additional members, including a female keyboardist). It's so 90s :)

Fortunately, their music is much better than this photo, even if the quality of production isn't perfect (but fairly good for its time). "Chaoschrist" was one of the first black metal albums I've heard in early 2000s, and it left a strong impression on me at the time. Today, after I've listened to a myriad of metal albums, it doesn't impress me as much, but I still think it's a shame they haven't released anything beside this album (+ a couple of demos in late 90s)...

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