Letting

On the birthday of Yegor, Letov recalls him Maxim Semelik

Interestingly, it seems to not let go of people. More than seven years have passed since the day of death, and nevertheless, some maet around (and because of) Letov does not resolve-and this is clearly not a question of mourning, belated reverence and reading or clinical retriment. Those who did not complain are still curse with a doubled welded senile enthusiasm, very young people, on the contrary, complain that the Apple Music is not enough “civil defense”, large actresses learn his texts for secular monospores (and you try to learn the lyrics “patch on the patch”, this is still experience), some kind of wild French are on “everything is going on. The plan ”in his dialect, and now the rowers suddenly admitted that the“ Russian album ”, it turns out, is inspired by Letov. And even this text I write not out of passion for the anniversary, but by order of the editorial office it is difficult to imagine that, for example, in the first half of the zero, some editors celebrated the birthday of Letov.

Apartian at a “citizen” in St. Petersburg, 1991. Photo: Dmitry Konradt

Why is this happening? Obviously, he struck a certain psychological mark, behind which walking in a circle and a state when “no one lost”, as stated in the last song of his last album. The understandable youthful obsession with Letov, as it turned out, is capable of his cyclic continuation, this music seems to have the ability to grow with you, gradually turning from Blessed into blessed. This happens at all levels - both within the framework of individual and public experience. So, for example, his muscodramas still potentially fit into almost all modern political scenes - they try to write Sumy in their right and left, and liberals, and everyone, in general, has some reason for this, and everyone strives to sing “everything is going according to plan” from the first person, forgetting that it is essentially a genre sketch and allegory.

The end of the 1980s-the beginning of the 1990s. Photo: Dmitry Konradt

On the one hand, he owes his glory to the fact that he generously spoke obvious things, built a new impassable sound and violated a number of prohibitions, that is, he seemed to simplify and highlighted everything. On the other hand, his fiction, let’s say, turned out to be wider than the plan itself. Behind the figures of his speeches and screams, as it turned out over the years, the exorbitant field of dreams, hallucinations, fantasies and hoaxes, and the meaning of the “civil defense” in this elusiveness, in the mismatch, in the deception of the context - as the difference between the name Igor and the name Yegor. What was mistaken for domestic sincerity and working edity was a higher order phenomenon.

“Defense” was a kind of hyperbole reality - as if in daylight they also turned on electric lighting. Julian Barnes recently wrote that the color of Van Gogh performs the function of noise. In this sense, Letovian noise and gam are colored. Letov spoke the truth in an invented language, played in an invented sound and exhorted the invented intonation in impossible interiors. At the same time, despite the fact that he always knew how to slam the door to the beat of the era, from the very beginning he was inherent in the aesthetics of Guilty Pleasure, a certain inappropriateness and non -involvement - so, in the eighties he was protected from universally veneration of a conditionally ejected punk aura, and in the nineties - political games. His albums resemble ideal shelters, where, however, there is always a depressurization that he conjures with his urban laughter, smoothing the differences between depression and euphoria (it would be nice to remember the replica of the Thomannovsky feature - “the fact of vitality, my friend, and all the distinction between illness and health”).

Apartian at a “citizen” in St. Petersburg, 1991. Photo: Dmitry Konradt

In a strange way, a great sense of the future has always come from the “defense”-with all its orientation towards some California archival rock and other sound recovery of heredity. And Letov himself made the impression of a man who was waiting and a punitive. He loved to talk about different evolutionary cycles, in which sometimes it is necessary to just hide and wait, but for some reason I didn’t get out of my head, one of his phrases are much more simple-minded. One morning we stood with him on the balcony in a rented apartment at the airport, drank beer and stared into the yard. From the entrance, some girl led out to walk unearthly chau-chau sizes. I told him something like: "Look out, what a bear." And he went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, and Letov remained to see the bear’s eyes. After some time, I called him out, they say, everything will cool down, why aren't you going? Letov explained: "Yes, I understand, I’m waiting for the bear back." His songs are just filled with the expectation of various bears - probably, therefore, the process of listening is more or less endless.

Civil Defense Coffin Yegor Letov Letov Music punk rock rock music