The origins of the Nile: Young's early album and Gladkov's "forgotten" musical

Dream Theater reunion album, Neil Young's "lost" record and posthumous edition of Gennady Gladkov's musical. Most stars plan to release their new releases in spring, so the last month of winter is traditionally lacking in high-profile releases. But it is an ideal time for those works that could go unnoticed in a more busy time. "Izvestia" tells what music lovers should pay attention to in the beginning of February.

Dream Theater - Parasomnia

In 2023 one of the main prog-metal bands Dream Theater reunited in its "golden" composition: the co-founder of the group - the great percussionist Mike Portnoy - returned to John Petrucci, James Labrie, John Mayang and Jordan Rudess. The musicians forgot a long-standing quarrel and immersed themselves in creativity, resulting in the album Parasomnia. There is no doubt that this is an event: suffice it to say that the last collaboration of the five Black Clouds & Silver Linings dates back to 2009. What has changed in the sound of "Theater" for 16 years?

It will finally become clear on February 7, when Parasomnia will appear on streaming services, but for now we can judge by the three published singles and the track list as a whole. There are eight numbers in it, one of which is a short interlude, and another one is an extended instrumental intro. The remaining six songs can be called songs, with the last one lasting almost 20 minutes! The total duration of the record (70+ minutes) corresponds approximately to the best works of the band.

These are just statistics, though, and they are not as indicative as the music. Even by the published singles it is clear that the material and sound inherit just the works of the 2000s. In one song there can be a lot of contrasting sections and instrumental solos, rhythms are extremely whimsical, melodies are dark and pathos (check out the guitar playback in Night Terror), and in general the sound, reinforced by machine-gun bursts of Portnoy's drums, is firmly heavy and brutal.

In general, those who love the style in general and, of course, Dream Theater as a band, will definitely not be able to pass by the novelty.

Neil Young - Oceanside Countryside

Folk-rock legend Neil Young has been meticulously working with his archives for many years now, pulling out all sorts of rarities from half a century ago again and again. Most of them are released as part of a series called The Archives, but there are a few things the musician feels he should release separately. Oceanside Countryside, due out in February, is one of the latter. The album was recorded in 1977, at the same time as Comes A Time, released a year later. Three songs (Goin' Back, Human Highway and Field Of Opportunity) were planned to be included on both records. In the end, they were released only on Comes A Time, and the rest of the material was reworked by Young, performed live and finally released as part of Archives Vol. III.

But, it seems, this decision didn't satisfy the maestro. So he decided to bring the original 1977 mix to the public, where all vocal parts, including backing vocals, are performed by himself, and his instrumentalist friends Ben Keith, Joe Osborne, Carl T. Himmel and Rufus Thibault play slide guitar, bass, drums and fiddle (a type of fiddle popular in Irish and American roots music), respectively. In addition, on one track they are joined by percussionist Tim Drummond, a regular collaborator of Neil's.

Stylistically, this is a country record that represents Young in his folk role. There's no rock or grunge, which Young got into later, so for Russian fans of the artist the songs may seem boring and simple. But in its genre Oceanside Countryside will probably turn out to be an exemplary work, which begs for a serious audio collection. Moreover, it is expected to be released on vinyl.

Gennady Gladkov - "Shivorot-navvorot, or Ivan and Alyona against the Dragon".

But not only foreign novelties deserve this month's close attention of music lovers. On streaming services will appear the full recording of Gennady Gladkov's musical on the verses of Yuri Entin "Shivorot-navvorot, or Ivan and Alyona against the dragon". The score was written back in the early 1980s, in the wake of the popularity of vocal-instrumental ensembles (VIA) and with the intention that they would participate in the performance of the work on the theater stage. However, soon the fashion changed, VIA gave way to rock bands, and then, in the midst of perestroika, and then, in the midst of large-scale musical productions.

As a result, for a long time the musical remained unclaimed. The only production took place at the Mossovet Theater in 1995, and the authors were not quite satisfied with it. There was no recording at all. Therefore, in the 2020s Gladkov's colleagues decided to return to this work: Andrei Semyonov instrumented the music for a pop-symphonic ensemble (Gladkov had no orchestration at all, as he expected the VIAs to make it for themselves), and Sergei Skripka and his renowned ensemble, the Orchestra of Cinematography, and soloists-singers recorded the opus at Mosfilm under the composer's own supervision.

For Gennady Gladkov this was his last work (he passed away in October 2023), so in a sense the edition of "Shivorot-navvirot" is the creative testament of the maestro. We will be able to find out what the authors have put into their work very soon, but from the fragments from the studio published in social networks it is already clear: it is an action full of humor and creative imagination, in which Gladkov's trademark melodism is combined with witty style tricks - elements of rock, disco and even oriental music.

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Lady Gaga - Abracadabra

Strictly speaking, Lady Gaga's single may well be considered a February novelty, as it was released just the other day: the clip was first shown at the Grammy Awards, and the digital release took place shortly after. But since it's a number from Mayhem's upcoming album, which won't be released until March, we'll talk about it in detail next month. For now, we recommend watching the video for those who miss Lady Gaga from the Bad Romance and Born This Way days. Everything here - both the visuals and the music - follows the same recipes. How well they work a decade and a half later is up to you to decide.

Zveri "Josephine Pavlovna"

The group "Zveri" has already demonstrated their love for Chekhov's work more than once. Let's say more: there is no other pop-rock band so consistently and thoroughly working with the legacy of any of the classics of Russian literature. Suffice it to name the album "Lonely Everywhere Desert", each track of which refers to one of Anton Pavlovich's works. The fresh single is timed to the 165th anniversary of the writer's birth, and the lyrics themselves mention him more than once. However, don't expect traditional anniversary pathos. The allusion here is not to stories or plays, but to a line from Chekhov's letter. For a long time, literary scholars could not understand who the genius meant when he wrote "Josephine Pavlovna is freezing", until they guessed to add up the first syllables of the mentioned name and patronymic. To Roma Zver, Chekhov's sad and hooligan irony is as close as anyone.

Izvestia playlist

Our traditional playlist this time is a bit unusual - in general it could be characterized as "flirting with bad taste". And if we don't expect any cool music from the duet of rappers Tyga and Lil Wayne on the background of monotonous female vocals, but the work seems remarkable just because of this annoying looped short motif (whether to consider it as bad taste is an open question), then Stereopolina and Brotherhood of Atom's cover of Tanya Bulanova's "Clear My Light", a landmark hit of the 1990s, is already a conscious metamodern. The hard synth accompaniment (we remember Atomic Heart) and the cover with the image of the post-apocalyptic world as if hint that sentiments are in the past, but the melody is sung by Stereopolina so close to the original that one can't help but see it as a forbidden pleasure - enjoyment of pop as such, in its pure uncontaminated form.

And Sigma Boy is already a hit of mass destruction for the new generation. And it's a very new one - the one born in the 2010s. And, perhaps, it will be interesting to compare the work of Betsy and Masha Yankovskaya with what the mothers of today's teenage girls listened to when they were the same age, namely - with the schlager from Dima Malikov's main album "My Distant Star". In January, the musician celebrated his 55th birthday and presented a collection of his old songs in new remixes by DJ Antonio. However, as in "Yasniy My Light", the essence remained the same. And only the title of the record "Merry and Fresh" reminds us that we should take it all with a certain degree of irony. And you certainly won't suspect "Zveri" in excessive seriousness. And why - read above in our review.

Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»

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