Home! (album "Elysium")

When the Elysium group recorded an English-language demo album in 1996 ... My Self-control , the majority of rock bands in Nizhny Novgorod were mostly metal performers, and the only representative of punk rock was the group "Black Cult Enlightenment". Elysium decided to pay more attention to the musical component and record the debut album in Russian, but at the same time in the style of pop punk that had not previously sounded in the band’s hometown. The first attempt turned out to be a failure: the sound producer at Sound Production, where the musicians turned, refused to work with them, telling the group “Come when you learn to play” ^{[1] [2]} . This did not stop the founder of Elysium Dmitry Kuznetsov, and between spring 1997 and summer 1998 the group recorded twelve songs of the planned album at another Nizhny Novgorod studio, Avalon ^{[3] [4] [5]} .

The recording included the songs “That's Me” and “Self-control” from the English-language demo ... My Self-control - already in Russian variations, titled “What a pity?” And “My self-control”, respectively ^[6] . “What a pity?” Was written by Dmitry Kuznetsov specifically for vocalist Yekaterina Zudin; he worked on the lyrics in the early hours of the morning, a few hours before the studio’s scheduled recording, and Zudin was present to approve the final version. The song "Not My Love" was also previously written in the English version, entitled "The Vengerful Invalid" - its concert performance of 1997 is present as a bonus track on the live album " Silly banter, pop music ... and no revolutions! ". There also appeared a demo of the song "Burn brightly" in 1997, which before that existed in English under the name "Flowers" ^[7] . Dmitry Spirin , vocalist of the punk rock group Cockroaches! ”And a close friend of Dmitry Kuznetsov, took part in the recording of the album, performing backing vocals in the songs“ I am going home ”and“ The whole year ” ^[5] .

Initially, the debut album "Elysium" was called "Not My Love." Dmitry Kuznetsov believed that such a name was “absolutely poppy ” and did not reflect the content of the album itself: “This name can be perceived only when a person is already holding a cassette in his hands.” Comparing the studio album with the previously released English-language demo ... My Self-control , Kuznetsov notes not only the Russian language of the songs, but also the changes in the style: the emphasis was now on the melody , starting from the “extreme” sound of the demo album with its heavy performance and vocals through distortion ^[8] . The author of the publication for the collection “Russian Rock Poetry” Denis Stupnikov described the style of the album “Not My Love” as “lyrical pop punk ” ^[7] .

Dmitry Kuznetsov outlined the lyrics of the album, citing Dmitry Spirin 's words about punk rock during a joint interview: “fast, short, concise, hard guitar songs with pop melodies and moronic, dumb lyrics”. As the main quote from the album, Kuznetsov cited the line of the opening track - “You all went, I'm going home” ^[8] . Denis Stupnikov spoke of the next song, “About the Helicopter” (in the early edition entitled “About the Helicopter (and its Pilot)”) as opening a series of future compositions of Elysium devoted to romantic professions. The plot of the song "Burn brightly" in which a guy comes to a girl with red roses and then kills her, Stupnikov revealed as the manic goal of the protagonist, disguised as loving feelings ^[7] . The song “What a pity?”, Following the depressive-lyrical ballad “Not My Love”, was written specifically for the vocalist and bears a feminist character ^[5] . The album contains a song in French “Mon amour, ma vie” ( “My love, my life” ) in the style of punk metal , as well as two cover versions - the song “The Green Parrot” from the movie “ About Little Red Riding Hood ” (with a fragment of the song “ Twist and Shout ” at the end) and the song “Wild Guitars” from the movie “ New Year's Adventures of Masha and Viti ” ^[5] .

For the first time, the debut album Elysium was released on audio tapes titled “Not My Love” in September 1998. From that moment until 1999, its label was published by the Moscow label “ Hobgoblin Records ”, known for curating such punk artists of Russia as Yegor Letov and the groups “ Survival Instructions ”, “ Cockroaches! "," The King and the Jester " ^{[2] [7] [9]} . The presentation of the album took place on December 12, 1998 in Nizhny Novgorod , in the cinema "October", simultaneously with the celebration of the 3rd anniversary of the group. More than five hundred people - listeners and journalists - who came to the presentation received a free copy of the album ^[4] . In the same place, part-time, the presentation of the next album of the friendly "Elysium" band " Cockroaches! ". The vocalist of “Tarakanov!” Dmitry Spirin and the leader of Elysium Dmitry Kuznetsov gave a joint interview about their music releases ^[8] .

By 2001, the Elysium group was preparing a re-release of the album “Not My Love”, changing its name to “Home!” And planning to include a number of bonus tracks ^[7] . On September 29, 2003, the album Home! Was released under the label AIB Records , both on audio tapes and for the first time on CDs . This release was aimed mainly for fans of the group - little-known and not recommended to ordinary listeners, as the debut album had little in common with the work of Elysium of that time (the albums “ All Islands! ” And “ Cosmos ”). The “Home!” Album on CDs includes ten concert bonus tracks recorded at the performance of “Elysium” in Nizhny Novgorod in 2000 (most of the studio versions of these songs later composed the album “All Islands!” In 2002) ^{[5 ] [10] [11]} . Earlier, Dmitry Kuznetsov planned to additionally record the song “I came home” as a direct continuation of the song “I am going home”, but it was first released only in 2004 on the album “ Rock planet! ”, Which also includes new versions of several songs from the album“ Home! ” ^[7] .

Dmitry Spirin , vocalist of the punk rock group Cockroaches! ", After the joint presentation of their new album and the album" Home! "(" Not My Love ") said that with this debut work, Elysium has every chance of becoming a well-known punk band in Russia. “There are songs very good in melody, in arrangement, played smoothly. There is a little water, very little. And a couple of numbers ... well, not really bullshit, but so ... Sometimes uneven singing. Sometimes it can be seen from the record that it was recorded cheaply, but it does not shine ” ^[8] . As it turned out, after the release of their debut album, the Elysium group gained fame outside of their native Nizhny Novgorod and began to actively perform in Moscow clubs ^[2] . In 2001, music journalist Denis Stupnikov took the lyrics of Elysium, including the album Not My Love, as the theme of his publication for Russian Rock Poetry: Text and Context. As for the album itself, Stupnikov noted: “The main advantage of this work is the“ unpredictable ”distribution of vocal parts between the soloist and two soloists. Due to this technique, a number of meanings are “highlighted” that are not actualized in the “monological” execution ” ^[7] .

The very first vocalist and guitarist of "Elysium" Alexander Repyev, who left the group in 1996, adhered to his opinion about the debut album ^[1] :

The list is based on the CD version of the 2003 reissue of the album, which differs somewhat in the order of the songs from re-release on cassettes. The song “Never Again!” And the bonus tracks “Green Parrot” and “Wild Guitars” on the master disk are presented in a single track lasting 10:23 min .; their separate duration is indicated in accordance with the MP3 version of the album on the official site of the Elysium group. The list also includes an early version of the song “All year round - no worries”, which is a bonus track on the album “ Silly banter, pop music ... and no revolutions!” »2000 ^[12] .

Performers ^[13]

• Dmitry "Dracol" Kuznetsov - bass ;
• Ekaterina "Katish" Zudina - rhythm guitar , vocals ;
• Dmitry “Rotten” Danilin - vocals ;
• Alexander "Propeller" Telekhov - vocals ;
• Mikhail Egorychev - solo guitar ;
• Igor Tarasov - drums .

Session Participants ^{[13] [3]}

• Dmitry "Sid" Spirin - backing vocals (tracks 1, 8) ;
• Sergey Sukhonin - solo guitar (tracks 2, 4, Wild Guitars) .

Production ^[13]

• Sound engineer - A. Barinov;
• Information - Dmitry Beltyukov, Dmitry Kuznetsov;
• Remastering - A. Aydakin;
• Cover - D. Kulikov (design), Roman Dokukin, Nata Sazhina;
• Photos - D. Sokolov, Yu. Yusupov.

Concert in Nizhny Novgorod, 2000 ^[3]

• Dmitry "Dracol" Kuznetsov - bass ;
• Alexander "Propeller" Telekhov - vocals ;
• Igor Tarasov - drums ;
• Sergey Sukhonin - guitar ;
• Sergey Tremasov - trombone .

The video clip for the French-language song "Mon amour, ma vie" was shot in the spring of 1997, at the beginning of the recording of the debut album. This was the first clip of the Elysium band; his operator and video editor was Alexander Maysa. Initially, the video clip was a chronicle of the First Chechen War , shot by the soldiers of the Nizhny Novgorod SOBR . Since “Mon amour, ma vie” was recorded before the release of the album “Home!”, A year later Alexander Maysa added concert inserts to the clip, where the group already included vocalist Alexander Telekhov, who did not take part in recording the song itself ^{[14] [ 4]} .

Several times the video clip was shown on the Nizhny Novgorod Volga channel, announced by the Pilot youth program, but afterwards it was considered lost, since not a single copy of it was preserved even among the participants of Elysium. Only sixteen years later, one of the friends of the musicians accidentally found a betacam- cassette with a video clip, after which it was finally published on the Internet on October 16, 2013 ^[14] .

• Interview with Dmitry Spirin and Dmitry Kuznetsov on the fan site of the Cockroaches!
• Elysium - “Home!”: Interesting facts on the website “School of Rock”.