New goth

Linda. "Skor-Peonies" ("Mystery of Sound"). No, after all, our artists need to somehow gather their courage and prohibit themselves from: a) using a mixture of Latin and Cyrillic in the titles of their albums; b) make puns. Because puns are: a) bad taste; b) it still rarely turns out to be both funny and thoughtful. More often than not. Linda named the album the way she did because this mixture of peony flowers and scopon animals seems to reflect human nature. We are both defenseless flowers and animals with poisonous stings... That’s it, I’m silent about the conceptual component of the project. Let's get to the facts.

Linda is already recording her second album with the Greek multi-instrumentalist and composer Stefanos Korkolis. “Skor-Peonies” is a good album, a strong and high-quality work. Of course, Linda's songs are Linda's songs, angular melodies and peculiar lyrics. Although, it must be said that in some ways, and in the lyrics, she definitely went further than her ex-guru Maxim Fadeev. He keeps using imperative verbs and case endings, but Linda has gone all the way to the root rhyme “strength-viciousness.” Jokes aside, there are several things on the new album - coherent lyrics with plots, and not the continuous symbolism of previous songs. However, the singer won the main core of fans not in spite of, but thanks to this notorious symbolism.

Linda has one amazing quality: you can do anything you want out of her, and she will still remain a recognizable weirdo (that's a compliment!). If the previous album, “Ale-Ada,” presented Linda as such an aggressive sorceress, on the new one she is more of a modern “goth”. Music to match: medium-heavy alternative rock. There are some dreary songs, some upbeat ones, some hit and promising songs with hooks. But basically everything is done smartly and tastefully, with the goal of immediately captivating the listener. In “Hunt for Love” an unexpected piece of a kind of “alternative tango” appears. These are the “tricks” of Corcolis, who turned out to be a great connoisseur of this Argentine music and even managed to attend Astor Piazzolla’s master classes in the mid-eighties. And we thought that Linda was stealing ideas from Zemfira.

Brill Brozz and Roman Miroshnichenko. Together (“Melody”). This album has everything in abundance, everything is tangible and visible. Completely redundant music that doesn’t so much tell as it shows.

Alexander Bril and Dmitry Bril are saxophonists, sons of the famous pianist Igor Bril, regulars at various jazz festivals. They perform with their own team, which includes Roman Miroshnichenko. I heard their programs several times at different events. It was pretty great, but oddly enough, the album is a hundred times better. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

What style is this? Well, something like smooth-jazz mixed with ethnic motifs. Powerful “adult” music. Wonderful melodies: from puzzling tempo songs to ballads. Famous guests: saxophonist Igor Butman, Sergei Mazaev as a clarinetist, Vladimir Presnyakov Sr. and trumpeter Saskia Laroo, the Dutch “Miles Davis in a skirt.” On a good half of the tracks there is a narrator with a recognizable voice and a recognizable name - Emmanuel Vitorgan, in short. On rock and roll recordings, at the instigation of Grishkovets and Bi-2, narrative and melodic declamation have long become good form. But it seems like we haven’t used this on jazz albums yet.

Roman Miroshnichenko plays guitars of various brands, but mainly Ovation, which is a common instrument in smooth-jazz and new age styles. Miroshnichenko's playing evokes pleasant associations with all the worthy figures of this genre - from Al Di Meola to Jesse Cook or Craig Chaquiso. The best track is the bouncy The Endless Road, with a nice ethnic wooden vibraphone. This unidentifiable instrument gives the flavor of Mali or Indonesian gamelan.

The disc, printed by the Melodiya label, familiar from the old days, will give odds to other releases from the catalog of the Heads Up label and other producers of comfortable listening.

Alexander BELYAEV