Christian Kiefer
Czar Nicholas Is Dead
Camera Obscura 2006
01. Yurovsky's Lament
02. Koptyaki Road, Night
03. 15 Degrees
04. Kalmykov (Poppies)
05. On Suffering Grief
06. July 21: Ipatiev Returns Home
07. Dubinushka
08. The Firing Squad
09. The Politburo Dreams of the Urals
10. Troika
...And when from the night's darkness, gliding silently along deserted streets, something unprecedented starts to spread out, those grayest of shadows; when melancholy echoes from the sudden understanding of the fact that beauty and spaciousness have as source a certain indeterminate, inexpressible nothingness, struck by the distant stillness in which they disappear incessantly, second by second...
So you might wonder who C. Kiefer is and why did he decide to musically record what actually took place some 90 years ago during the Bolshevik Revolution, and later in the scaffold. Well to start with, Czar Nicholas Is Dead is his 5th album, while already having finished a new common project dedicated to each president of the U.S. (see/listen here). Also, he writes frequently for "Sacramento News & Review", covering everything from indie rock to avant-garde, to DJ Shadow and Lyrics Born (here). Also, he's gotten out a poetry book, 'Feeding into Winter' (here). Also, he's received a Ph. D in American Literature at UC-Davis (now you see his Solesides link)...
"An essentially ambient project with minimal instrumentation, Czar Nicholas Is Dead captures Russia as a fever dream, a strange and disorienting place that lay on no map, but rather resides entirely in the author's imagination". If you listen without reading, then you probably wouldn't tell, but in fact some tracks do designate Russian historical figures. Kiefer is an amateur of cultural, identitary context, and it's certainly laudable that he has managed without any deliberate 'horror scenes', going further down to the evoking of 'vague' atmospheres into narrative structures. Several tracks use field recordings which give authenticity, seemingly tying music to the concrete scene of action. Birds, crickets, barking dogs - Kiefer has 'guessed' the feel of provincial Russia with it houses, trees and rivers... And of course, the inexpressible, resounding emptiness inside. Don't ask me why he chose to reference Stalin too. Or why the 9th track features Gorbachov's voice. Perhaps "another story".
>> mihd (68mb) (d-_-b)So you might wonder who C. Kiefer is and why did he decide to musically record what actually took place some 90 years ago during the Bolshevik Revolution, and later in the scaffold. Well to start with, Czar Nicholas Is Dead is his 5th album, while already having finished a new common project dedicated to each president of the U.S. (see/listen here). Also, he writes frequently for "Sacramento News & Review", covering everything from indie rock to avant-garde, to DJ Shadow and Lyrics Born (here). Also, he's gotten out a poetry book, 'Feeding into Winter' (here). Also, he's received a Ph. D in American Literature at UC-Davis (now you see his Solesides link)...
"An essentially ambient project with minimal instrumentation, Czar Nicholas Is Dead captures Russia as a fever dream, a strange and disorienting place that lay on no map, but rather resides entirely in the author's imagination". If you listen without reading, then you probably wouldn't tell, but in fact some tracks do designate Russian historical figures. Kiefer is an amateur of cultural, identitary context, and it's certainly laudable that he has managed without any deliberate 'horror scenes', going further down to the evoking of 'vague' atmospheres into narrative structures. Several tracks use field recordings which give authenticity, seemingly tying music to the concrete scene of action. Birds, crickets, barking dogs - Kiefer has 'guessed' the feel of provincial Russia with it houses, trees and rivers... And of course, the inexpressible, resounding emptiness inside. Don't ask me why he chose to reference Stalin too. Or why the 9th track features Gorbachov's voice. Perhaps "another story".
>> love it, buy it (CD Baby)
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