Your condition is enchanting: Stereopolina is waiting for a holiday, the "Dictaphone" is studying itself

The year has finally come to an end - it's time to take stock and finally relax. A new recording of the brightest stars of modern Russian rock, the Dictaphone group, will help someone in this, the electronica of Stereopolines will help someone, and someone will turn to the eternal classics performed by the Virtuosos of Moscow. Izvestia — about the most interesting December music albums that you might have forgotten to listen to.

"Dictaphone"

"Dictaphone"

Anton Makarov's project from the Zhukovsky science city near Moscow has gained a foothold in the intellectual indie niche in recent years. In his songs, the restraint of postpunk merges with the poetics of urban chronicles and the rare flair of a pop melodist on our stage. The team consistently builds the image of an observer — without slogans and declarations, but with increased attention to the details of everyday life. Their music has always tended towards documentaries: cold arrangements, deliberately "flat" vocals and lyrics that sound like notes on the margins of a notebook or fragments of internal monologues. "Dictaphone" does not aim at a wide audience, but it consistently retains the interest of listeners who are looking for thoughtfulness and distance in the Russian scene.

The new album continues this line, but makes the sound more dense and collected. Minimalistic synthesizers and guitar loops work like a memory soundtrack, on top of which songs about breakups, anxiety, and the feeling of stopped time unfold. There are no bright hits here — the record is perceived as a whole, as one long track, where pauses, not climaxes, are important. This is music for attentive listening and for those who are not afraid of silence between notes.

"We got scared and became laureates — that's how it all started"

The leader of the "Crematorium" Armen Grigoryan — about the anniversary concert of the band, questions from the police and "sexy cats"

The The

Odyssey

Briton Matt Johnson has been working mainly on soundtracks for the last quarter of a century, apart from a sudden return with song material last year. However, Johnson initially used his project The The as a tool for various tasks, from the socially charged pop-rock of the 1980s to chamber, almost documentary works of recent years. Music here has always been subordinated to context, whether it's a political commentary, a theater project, or visual art. For Johnson, soundtracks are not a side activity, but a logical continuation of his interest in the form and applied function of music.

Johnson's new work is again film music, a collection of meditative tracks for the British crime drama "Odyssey" by Gerard Johnson. It is a soundscape of solitude, with a minimalistic techno beat, ambient guitars and laconic electronic backgrounds. Gillian Glover's vocals in Unrequited and Live & Let Live add emotional tension to this quiet storm. Odyssey does not try to work as an independent release in the usual sense, it is strictly functional music designed for perception with a visual range, which, however, a listener with imagination can imagine on their own.

Stereopolina

"Extravaganza"

Having become a Stereopolymer, a simple Kazan girl Karina Morgunova rapidly turned into the queen of the Russian retro scene. At the same time, of course, one must understand that for her generation (Morgunova recently celebrated her 30th birthday), the category of "retro" is not light jazz or rockabilly, but the music of dad and mom, that is, eighties electronic pop with a slight touch of vague memories of dance music of the 1990s. Stereopolina perfectly manages to cope with the task: her tracks are similar to the soundtracks to arthouse short films, she does not chase hits, but judging by her popularity among the masses, she creates them quite successfully.

"Extravaganza" is, as is fashionable nowadays, a mini-album; the listener can no longer concentrate on more than an hour. Eight tracks with a total duration of about 22 minutes, during which the Stereopolymer manages to go from an almost gloomy introduction to the dancing "We Are Like Birds" and "Don't Be Afraid". In the lyrics, the romance of the 1980s, as it is seen from our distance to a person who has never lived in those days, organically overlaps with the artist's own experiences.

Big Band Brass, Dominique Rieux

Take The Airplane

French trumpeter and arranger Dominique Rieu assembled Big Band Brass more than a quarter of a century ago and has been relentlessly delighting the world with generous portions of swing and cheerful retro jazz ever since. During this time, his big band has become one of the most recognizable big formations on the European stage, performing at numerous festivals on the continent, both on its own and with recognized stars of international jazz.

Rieu, however, enjoys studio albums with original material only occasionally, which is understandable, but his band is more focused on preserving and popularizing the jazz tradition. That's why "Get on a plane" is especially interesting.: This is a serious and skillful attempt to rethink big jazz in the 21st century. In Blues Altitude and Ravel's Dance, where Big Band Brass demonstrates the ability to balance between classical jazz and modern experimental sound, this skill is especially noticeable.

Flaming Diamonds: Auctioneer searches for treasures, keiyaA teaches physics

The most interesting music albums of November

Vladimir Spivakov, "Virtuosos of Moscow", Tamara Sinyavskaya, Anthon Ayestaran, Orfeón Donostiarra, Makvala Kasrashvili

"Vivaldi: The Four Seasons, Gloria"

This release of "Melodies" is interesting not so much for the names, which are loud in themselves, as for the history of their appearance. The recording of "The Seasons" by Vivaldi and Gloria, made in 1986 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, had not been published at all before — and now it has finally become available to the general public (on streaming services) and to the aesthetically pleasing few (on vinyl and CD). The special feature of the publication is that the CD contains the complete recording of the concert in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on December 15, 1986, in the second movement of which the cantata Gloria was performed.

Performed by Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosos, Vivaldi sounds collected and clear, without trying to modernize the material or, conversely, turn it into an academic ritual. There is a lot of movement and attention to form: the fast parts do not accelerate to demonstrative virtuosity, the slow ones do not get bogged down in decorativeness. Gloria turns out to be a real gem: the great Makvala Kasrashvili and Tamara Sinyavskaya kept strictly within the framework of the score, without excessive effects, and the Basque choir Orfeón Donostiarra added volume and structural stability.