The band's materials call the album "the only and unrepeatable": after fourteen years Autodafe finally recorded its first disc. It came out in 1998 at the studio "AnTrop" (St Petersburg), where Sergey Bogaev and Andrey Tropillo helped the project. The lyrics are not given here; below are the line-up, the track list and two texts of that time.
Who played and where it was recorded
By the album's credits: Alexey Bulygin — guitar, piano, bass; Dmitry Leontiev — vocals, drums, guitar, bass, keyboards ("and glass bottles" on one of the songs); Andrey Korelsky — orchestra. Special guests: Igor Koshkin (a solo on one song), Sergey Bogaev (a solo on "Day mne krylya" and "laughter" on "Druzyam i sebe"), Max Dyuryagin (saxophone), a choir of I. Koshkin, A. Oshlakov and Pyotr. The sound engineer was S. Bogaev. It was recorded at the studio "AnTrop" in Petersburg in 1997–1998; the music was written by A. Bulygin, D. Leontiev, A. Korelsky and Mikhail Miloslavtsev, the words by A. Bulygin, D. Leontiev, S. Bogaev and M. Miloslavtsev. Design: Tanya Burushkina, Dima Prasolov, Peter Brueghel (the Younger), Slava Galanov. The thanks include "special thanks for help with the project to Sergey Bogaev and Andrey Tropillo".
The work was hard: "we recorded at night, slept in the day… drank little, ate even less. And so for almost a year". What kept them going, as the archive puts it, were rare letters from home, endless short phone calls and unexpected visits of fellow countrymen.
The track list
The main disc: "More Beloe", "Vesna", "Gipsovaya baba", "Plastilinovaya golova", "Siluet", "Saga o propavshem koroley", "Den rozhdeniya", "S Severa" (a song by Mikhail Miloslavtsev, the leader of the band Chorny Angel), "Tikhy omut", "Alyona", "Day mne krylya", "Druzyam i sebe", "Na beregu reki Agdam". The reissue adds bonus tracks: "Razmenyay", an instrumental, "Day mne krylya" (1987), "Vesna" (1988), "Plastilinovaya golova" (1987), "Novy god" (1987), "Begi, Ivan!" (1988) and "Kholodnoe pivo" in two versions — by Chorny Angel (M. Miloslavtsev) and by Ko-Ko-Bu (Korelsky — Koshkin — Bulygin).
What Sergey Bogaev did on the album
- sound engineer of all the songs of the album;
- the guitar solo in song no. 11, "Dai mne krylya" ("Give Me Wings");
- the author of the words of song no. 12, "Tomatny sok" ("Tomato Juice"; its second title is "Druzyam i sebe");
- the "idiotic laugh" in song no. 12.
Listen
The album's recordings (without the song "More Beloe", which is not in the archive) and three bonus tracks; the sound is compressed to 128 kbit/s.
- Vesna
- Gipsovaya baba
- Plastilinovaya golova
- Siluet
- Saga o propavshem koroley
- Den rozhdeniya
- S Severa (a song by Mikhail Miloslavtsev)
- Tikhy omut
- Alyona
- Day mne krylya
- Druzyam i sebe ("Tomatny sok")
- Na beregu reki Agdam
Bonus tracks
- Novy god (1987)
- Vesna (1988)
- Begi, Ivan! (1988)
"Glintveyn 14-letney vyderzhki" (M. Andreev, 1998)
Mikhail Andreev's article was written for the release of the album. It reports that in its fourteenth year Autodafe — "almost the last of the surviving Mohicans of Arkhangelsk hard rock" — recorded its first album, and that the vocalist and drummer Dmitry Leontiev "had returned from Piter" with the news. Rumours that the band had sat down in a studio appeared as early as 1992, but then it did not get past rough "blanks", "and evil tongues began to say that Autodafe did not exist in nature". The decision to finish the recording, the author says, was prompted by the joint work with Bogaev the year before. The title "Na beregu reki Agdam" was born at Tropillo's studio in Petersburg and is tied to the brand of a "once people's drink" — the port wine "Agdam".
The basis of the album, Andreev writes, was songs of the mid-1980s; in addition Dmitry sang a cover of a song by Mikhail Miloslavtsev, the leader of the oldest and now almost forgotten Arkhangelsk band Chorny Angel. The last two-month session "thoroughly exhausted" Leontiev ("a very nervous business, I had to suffer a lot over the sound"); his plans for the near future are to rest, to look after his family and then, perhaps, to play a presentation of the album — "a big session".
"Just believe in your work" (an interview, January 1998)
On 21 January 1998 the newspaper "Arkhangelsk" printed S. Drinker's conversation with Dmitry Leontiev about a "solo album" of ten compositions recorded at Tropillo's studio in Petersburg. Some of the songs it names ("Day mne krylya", "Druzyam i sebe") coincide with "Agdam".
- How the idea arose. He wanted to realise his own musical ideas. Bogaev invited him to work on new Oblachny Kray material at Tropillo's studio, and he went without hesitation; when free time turned up, he "tried to record something for myself, for friends". "Song by song, brick by brick, the album built up."
- The words. Four texts were written by Alexey Bulygin, the others were given by Bogaev and Slava Zaderiy (the founder of Alisa): Leontiev knew him from the Berdyansk festival, while he was finishing the music for his project "Magna Mater"; two texts Zaderiy "gave straight out of his head", the third he picked from drafts.
- Who played. He played all the parts himself except Bogaev's solo in "Day mne krylya": "Let me play it" — Bogaev "did not let me spoil the song". "I am not a guitarist," says Leontiev, and if Bogaev had played solos everywhere, "the sound would have come out just like Oblachny Kray".
- How it was recorded. First the guitar to a metronome, then drums, bass, keyboards, vocals — on 16 channels; "like a painter's work: first a sketch, then the colours are picked". There was not enough time "to get to grips with the guitar processor and find my own sound". That "Razmenyay" and "General Pobeda" are too close to Oblachny Kray he explains both by lack of time and by Bogaev's production: "we grew up on the same music". The order of the songs on the album was suggested by Bogaev.
- About Autodafe. "The band has existed for some 14 years and not one decent recording. Well, that is a sore subject." He wants to believe "we will still fight, what are our years": "Just believe in your work and everything will work out". At the end — thanks to the management of the Arkhangelsk wine plant and personally to O. G. Smirnov for financial support.
More about Autodafe: Autodafe: sworn brothers of Oblachny Kray, the V rock festival of 1987, Arkhangelsk rock around Oblachny Kray.
The chronicle of the band's concerts is in the article Autodafe: line-up and a chronicle of concerts, 1984–1999.
Where this comes from: the archive materials of the band Autodafe (2011): the description of the album and the credits; M. Andreev, "Glintveyn 14-letney vyderzhki" (1998); S. Drinker, "Just believe in your work", the newspaper "Arkhangelsk", 21 January 1998. The lyrics are not given.
