The VKontakte community "OBLACHNY KRAY: Vsyo putyom!" published themed notes by one author — not a musician of the band but an enthusiastic listener — and thematic selections (compilations) of songs. The author's name is not given on the saved pages. Below is a retelling of the main ideas with short quotations; all the assessments are the author's, not the site's.
The "diamond" year 1982
The author starts from the point that in 1982 "a company of yesterday's schoolboys" recorded three albums which, by an assessment he quotes, "surpass most of the foreign hard rock of their time and anticipate analogues that appeared 5–10 years later". The most astonishing he finds "Selkhozrok" — "literally kissed by a god, an ancient Slavic god": here, in his view, instead of songs there are chants, recitatives, cries and laughter, and the music is never mere accompaniment. "Velikaya Garmoniya", by his description, is closer to the traditional heavy-rock texture and devoted to the "industrial-urban" and socio-political environment, i.e. a transition to the following albums. And "Tayny lesa" is a transition from "Made in Vaneeva" (the album of Myortvye Ushi) already at an "impeccable performing level": the vocals, "for all their amateurishness", are not "howling", and in the music the author hears a level of composition in the spirit of Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. He also reminds us how few listeners know these recordings and is glad that the first two albums were put online in full, first from a reel-to-reel, then from a cassette recorder.
The riddle of "Russkaya narodnaya"
In a separate note the author discusses "Russkaya narodnaya" from "Kh-Ya Samodeyatelnost" (1983): "a bright melody, a bright instrumental contrast of a Russian galloping on a nag and the storms of national history crashing down on him". The 1990 version ("Svobody zakhoteli?") he finds more "lightweight", "glossy-cartoonish", though supported by the album's context.
Then comes the "eternal riddle": by the author's observation the song's signature figure repeats, within ten notes, a phrase from Johann Sebastian Bach's Organ Concerto No. 2 in A minor (BWV 593, first movement), itself an arrangement of Vivaldi's concerto for two violins (RV 522). Whether Sergey Bogaev or any of his associates knew this the author does not claim: "the answer may some day emerge from the depths of history, though most likely it never will" — but he finds the very fact of a "mysterious touch of a giant with giants" amazing. He does not call it plagiarism and in general thinks there is no plagiarism in the band's work: because of the non-commercial nature of its activity, its "pathos of originality" and the complexity of the music. There he also lists quotations in the band's songs: "Sobachy vals" in "Chleny kollektsii" ("Kh-Ya Samodeyatelnost"), "Tsyplyonok zharenyy" in "Zhertva demokratii" ("Vershina idiotizma", 1984) and a sound collage at the very beginning of "Velikaya Garmoniya" — sped-up VIA couplets against guitar scrapes, ending in the chimes of the Kremlin clock.
Politics, love and space
In the series "Politinformatsiya" the author argues that Soviet rock went through two stages of protest: the stagnation years with "digs" at the order and the perestroika years with denunciation. Oblachny Kray, in his view, was "brightly anti-Soviet" precisely "in the stale night" — when for many bands the "first intelligible words" came only in 1985–1986 — while in the years of perestroika frenzy it was restrained. Other notes are built around two eternal themes — love ("Tunnel lyubvi": behind the "love lyrics" the author sees the image of Bogaev, and love in the songs is "shaded by death") and space: he sees the cosmic on the cover of one of the albums of the "golden triad" of 1982 and on the cover of the band's last album, and in cosmism itself a continuation of the Russian religious-philosophical tradition, "Tsiolkovsky — Korolyov — Gagarin".
Another note ("Red Forge") rests on the idea that the best part of Oblachny Kray's work belongs to the "red", Soviet time: the band grew "in spite of" the barrier against the West, provincialism and the modest means of the members' families, and it was this environment, the author thinks, that "shaped" the band "in relief" and "is embodied in its work to the full".
Compilations
The notes came with fans' selections of songs by theme: "OK SPEED" (2019, about 50 minutes: "Vperyod!", "Parnokopytnye", "Shire krug", "Soyuz kompozitorov", "Ya stoyu na mramornom balkone", "Nasha obshchaya legavaya", "Tunnel lyubvi", "Ubluzhya dolya", "Super-chukcha" and others), "Oblachny Kray. Tunnel lyubvi" (2016–2018) and "Politinformatsiya III. Russkaya narodnaya (…ideya)" (2016, 35 minutes: "Russkaya narodnaya", "U obryva", "Zazdravnaya", "Tolko starshy brat pomozhet", "Podymaysya, narod…", "Mat poryadka", "Final"). These are amateur playlists made from the band's recordings; they do not replace official releases.
Source: the notes of the community "OBLACHNY KRAY: Vsyo putyom!" (VKontakte), 2016–2020; a retelling and short quotations, the assessments are the author's.
