What Are You Listening To?

[Ruby]

Boris Grebenshikov – Соль (Salt) 2014



Quite a lot of hard work getting to listen to any of Akvarium or BG’s stuff as one has to rely quite heavily on Google translate in order to navigate reams of Cyrillic script … super confusing!! I don’t speak or read Russian but the amazing thing about Grebenshikov is that if you just get a kernel of what he’s on about – the title of a song, for example, the music almost speaks for itself. Worth the trouble IMHO.

Lots of copy and paste has dredged up some interesting info regarding this album; having opted to translate one page, I found that the “Ingredients” (which is how Google translate chooses to interpret 'Personnel', how lovely is that?), comprise none other than Richard Thompson, David Hidalgo, Brian Finnegan, Mel Collins, Ian Anderson and Andrew Bird! Well … they are the Solo Ingredients, at any rate, lol!!

The full album, which is unfortunately interrupted now and then by ads, but I couldn’t find another link … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHx9qVHGfGg

The quite gorgeous “Dove’s Word”/”Holubyne Word”/”Pigeon Word” (depending on who’s translating) … guest ingredient, Brian Finnegan on the flute … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ7FK-iTqDU

Painted branches of lilac;
Written leaves the skin;
The most his last breath
I say: My God, my love, thank you ...
For the fact that I was honored to see
How do you burn in the fire of sunset,
Never to return,
Because you're not going anywhere;

Just one more will have nowhere to go,
More one hand and to the garden over the river,
Where to go on the wings of the cherubim,
Because they were never given a name -
So, all in silence ...

And tomorrow will be what it was before;
Sacred union of heaven and earth;
If you are lucky, you will catch a bullet teeth,
Alone beauty mows without mercy;
Because she holds court in the heart,
Because it keeps the path to the north,
Where neither the time nor the explanations
One only snow to the horizon.

So, even before one will open the sky
With shining eyes from happiness,
Thy works, O Lord, are immortal
And your ways are inscrutable
And one way ...

Write the word on the rock,
Paint it the aurora borealis,
Fill pigeon blood
And forget all that it means;
Pigeons take it to the sky,
So high that it no longer visible,
And the heaven will split apart,
But no one will know about it;

And we will burn in the flames of sunset,
To stay permanently in the garden over the river,
Because it is our lips
You once said, once and for all
Holubyne word ...

Mel Collin’s bass clarinet on “Ветка” (“Branch”) …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihgoFsNzHa0

With Ian Anderson’s heavy metal instrument … “Love in a time of War” … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTi4IqCPHKc

And another, this time with Andrew Bird’s violin … “No Such One” (I think! :confused

I know a song, flying without touching the ground.
Summer will not burn it, January is not cool.
Do you want to scold her, you want praise,
But there was such and will not be.

I know one song, taste like fire,
Try again forget.
Enough only used force to return the gift.
There was such and will not be.

And in the dark alleys of the angels tat
And all my words washed away by rain.
And echoing in the silence barely -
My beloved, samples.

So be it, yes means yes,
From going to the bottom do not lose anything.
And in the sky above me all the same star.
There was another and will not.

[video=youtube;ORrzn7AhwgA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORrzn7AhwgA[/video]