Current comment. About the musical project "Neuromonk Feofan"

— How do people in small cities like Lipetsk perceive your music?

Feofan: That's the best! Just due to the fact that the city is provincial, usually companies come to performances in which everyone knows each other, so they behave more openly and relaxed. So often in small towns everything happens more energetically. There is a feeling of some kind of great community or something.

Lipetsk is already the fifth city in which you will present your new album. Did you remember anything from concerts in other cities?

Feofan: Every city has something different. In Voronezh, for example, there were double round dances. It was very crowded in Tula. There were a lot of people, but the site was not very big. There was a very frantic slam there. Everyone was jumping there, and it looked very epic.

Nicodemus: In Bryansk, for example, it was very family-like. It's a very low stage and the audience was actually right in front of us.

Feofan: We went to the gym there.

- Weren’t you afraid that you would be discovered?

Feofan: Oh well, people are still adequate. Nobody needs this.

I read that in Bryansk the concert was on the verge of failure due to calls from anonymous people who strongly recommended canceling it.

Feofan: I'll explain now. In fact, there was just a small problem with the organizers, and the concert was simply postponed to another day. But there were no such things there. We don’t have any offensive or provoking texts. Everything is very good.

In your interview with Yuri Dudu, you said that you respect the work of such a performer as Big Russian Boss. When he performed with us in Lipetsk, mostly schoolchildren came to the concert. Can you roughly outline the image of your fan?

Feofan: As for Big Russian Boss, we are for any creativity. We are for maximum diversity and lack of boundaries in creativity. The main thing is that Nikodim just sings less (laughs).

Nicodemus: I’m trying to sing, everything is torn from my soul.

Feofan: Once he starts singing, you can’t stop him. Well, I'm just kidding, of course. As for fans, there is a very wide spectrum. We had a woman, she was 62 years old, she danced in front of the stage the entire concert. I don't know where she gets so much strength. They came in three generations - grandson, mother and grandmother. Even small children like it, but they are unlikely to come to our performances. Shouldn’t they be transported in wheelchairs?!

- YoursDudu's interview will soon gain three million views . Do you somehow monitor comments on social networks, follow what fans write?

Feofan: I sometimes answer on VKontakte when people ask me something. Nikodim has his own official VKontakte page.

Nicodemus: People write, I try to answer everyone. Mostly they write about musical issues, there are a lot of reviews, everyone likes it. So add yourself and write.

- Won’t the Bear start a page?

Feofan: Yes, he’s a clubfoot.

Nicodemus: He ate the computer.

Surely, you have heard such groups as “Nevid”, “Arkona”, “Butterfly Temple”. Was there a desire to do something similar, to “heavier” your music?

Feofan: Well, it already exists, what's the point of doing something that already happened. We go our own way, our own way and develop in this. For example, we added the Bear.

Feofan: Now turn down the Bear.

Nicodemus: Add protein. You can also make a fish song. We will add animals.

- In your opinion, can folklore and traditional culture live in the postmodern era? And in what form?

Feofan: In the postmodern era, everything can live in any form. This is not the invention of something new, but a combination of the old, so anything can be born. And if you move into post-postmodernity, then there is even more variability and some things created at different poles.

There is a video of your clips being shown to foreigners. They are all delighted, everyone really likes it. Do you think that your work will take root in the minds of foreigners as a stereotype about Russian culture?

Feofan: They have such diversity there that it’s unlikely. There are, of course, groups that “beat” according to stereotypes. For example, Little Big. They are wonderful guys, we know them. They just have pure banter. The same "Arkona" is very popular abroad, for example. Due to the fact that there is such diversity, it is therefore unlikely that they will focus on one thing and build their opinion on the basis of the creativity of one group.

- Fans write that your new album is more serious.

Nicodemus: It's all because the Bear started singing.

Feofan: The album is called “Dance. Sing". That is, there is a more dancing part, and there is one where you can sing along a lot, there are a lot of words, they are very melodic. If you remove the second part, you will get a playful, dancing album; if you remove the first part, you will get a calm album. They could easily be divided into two.

Nicodemus: The main thing is not to mix up the parts and not sing dances or dance songs (laughs).

Feofan: In the future, we will probably release a heavier, tougher version of “Dance,” because within the framework of one album it would be strange for the parts to be very different. They follow a common pattern. So, perhaps, we will release dance songs separately, but with a heavier sound. We are working on this now.

You have probably heard about such a performer as Hieromonk Photius (winner of the show “The Voice”). By the way, he will come to us in a month with a concert. Have you often found yourself confused?

Feofan: Not so often, but more than I would like. Of course, we don’t intersect with him at all, absolutely. There are people who confuse them, but this is all because of the similarity in names only.

Nicodemus: It's probably just some kind of inattention.

Feofan: Well, that's good. This speaks of diversity and the fact that there are so many different groups and performers that there are even small overlaps.

- A post recently appeared on Pikabu about how a guy decided to please his believing parents and buy a ticket to Photius. But I made a mistake and bought a ticket to your concert. My father was delighted, but my mother didn’t really understand.

Feofan: So my father is a very modern person, he is ready for everything new, he is open, and my mother is also a great guy. She probably cooks delicious soup.

Would you like to record a song in Old Church Slavonic? In the comments on YouTube they write that you were offered this, but you seemed to refuse.

Feofan: Who writes? We have not received such offers. If you go out into the street and say: “Offer,” then people, of course, will begin to do it very actively. But we physically cannot do everything that is proposed. What we like is what we do. If we just sat in the studio all the time, then we would have so many options... But we don’t always sit in the studio, now there’s a concert, a tour. Then I don’t have enough strength for anything.

- You have a very busy schedule, many concerts as part of the tour. How do you cope with this, how do you rest?

Feofan: It’s not easy at all, there are constant regime failures, physically it’s hard. If we just stood on stage like statues, then that would be one thing, but we are moving actively. Physically it is not easy, you need to be prepared. We are constantly recuperating. We need to do everything in parallel.

Nicodemus: During the tour, everything happens.

Feofan: You should, for example, go for a massage or go to the sauna.

Nicodemus: Put the vertebrae in place after transport.

The next city on the tour is Kyiv. How are you feeling before this concert? Do you think that they will be able to calmly and adequately accept a group with such a traditional Russian orientation?

Feofan: I think it will be cool. All our friends who were there say that the audience there is very good, everyone is very cheerful. Of course, if someone wants to do something, to account for money, then there is nothing we can do about it. But I think that this is unlikely to happen. All people are adequate. This will be our first time in Kyiv. We were in Minsk, in Belarus, and it was generally very cool there. We were also near Minsk at a festival. By the way, there were Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians there. We performed there absolutely normally, despite the fact that there were Ukrainian nationalists there. That is, of course, there are some incidents. The people who come to our performances are all very reasonable and sensible; there are, of course, those who behave strangely, but there are only a few of them.

Your group is associated with Slavic, Old Russian culture. How interested are you in all of this in life? Or is this also just an image to a greater extent? Some groups playing in Slavic themes are, for example, directly connected with Rodnoverie and Slavic paganism in real life.

Feofan: This topic is interesting to me. If I didn't know anything about it, where would it come from?! I wonder what it looked like. We visited all the fortresses that exist in the Leningrad region. It’s interesting to delve into some beliefs. Don't even know. Maybe Nicodemus on the sly?!

Nicodemus: And I love all sorts of old instruments and music. Tunes, tunes. There are some very cool things about the art of music if you dig around.

Feofan: I'm crazy about choral singing. Especially “The Wide Steppe”, but not performed by Cossack choirs... This gives me goosebumps, at these moments I really want to sit there (shows the pose of a sage). And all the tunes, they are very nimble and fast, they also sound very cool.

The first interview in the history of the group takes place in St. Petersburg. Feofan is tall, thoughtful, with broad shoulders and a loud voice. His DJ Nikodim is shorter, more cheerful and talks with great pleasure about the practical aspects of the matter. Both have lush false beards on their faces, both order tea with thyme and separately honey (which after an hour and a half of conversation will remain almost untouched). With them is a bear, which was forbidden to be described in the material.

Feofan's Dictionary

Anonymity

A fundamental decision. The musicians do not show their faces or name names, so as not to distract listeners from their own music.

Asmodeus

An evil demon, patron of fornication, debauchery and revenge. It is first found in the Talmud, and subsequently in medieval and modern literature. Theophanes confronts the Asmodeus. “You see, this is a collective image. We don't point fingers at any specific things. Asmodeus are both people and phenomena. That is, everything is negative. If you listen to this song (“Asmodeev on a stake,” one of the main hits of “Neuromonk.” - Note ed.), then you will not find specific instructions there about who it is and what it is. In essence, this is what opposes light (see Light).”

Zelo

Very. “Let’s put this word in the dictionary. We use it in texts - people ask.”

Lapti

Shoes that are worth dancing to the old Russian dram. (Listen to the song “Break the bast shoes on the floor.” - Note ed.) Some concertgoers knew this and initially went to concerts in bast shoes - they ended up in the “Trample on the Field” video after the group contacted them on VKontakte.

False beards

One of the three things that Theophanes and Nicodemus do not discuss on principle. The other two are religion and politics.

Light

What Feofan brings with his creativity. “There are people who are positive. This is different. Positivity is specifically “ha-ha”. And light is filling with energy. Not to make you laugh, but to inspire and delight. This is both happiness and positivity, but light is a more capacious concept. And it absolutely does not mean “peace.” Light is movement."

Sergei Shnurov

The man whose post about Feofan on Instagram this summer received 20,000 likes and added to the group’s popularity. Here is the caption that accompanied it: “Finally, something worthy of attention has appeared. As relevant as laminate imitating wood, the musical project is “Neuromonk Feofan”. I see, I feel the potential of something unimaginably big. Like a nuclear mushroom grown on a garden plot in a risky farming zone by an amateur gardener, “Neuromonk”, I hope, will break through the greenhouse polyethylene of the present. Amen".

Vigor

Lifestyle. “It’s easier for us to show this at concerts, it’s more difficult to explain - the word is so capacious that you could write a scientific dissertation. Vigor is a state in which a person is overflowing with positive energy. Synonyms: enthusiasm, cheerfulness, agility. It can manifest itself in absolutely any matter.

Photo: Evgeny Petrushansky

• Do you have a legend?

Nicodemus: Eat. I can tell you about myself. Or rather, about Nicodemus. A city dweller who is tired of what is happening. He studied music for quite a long time and skillfully. But I got a little tired and decided to turn to nature. He went into the forest. I’m walking, and suddenly I hear wonderful music coming from me. The rhythm is such that the energy begins to ooze. It just pulls me there. I approached - and just met Feofan. And there the bear pulled up a little later. We sat and drank honey and tea. I listened to Feofanova’s songs, which he had already written by that time, suggested some of my ideas, contributed musical knowledge, and this is what happened, which is what we see at our first concerts.

• What is Feofan’s story? When did he get into the forest and how did he write songs there?

Feofan: The story of getting into the forest is a shrouded mystery. I don't tell anyone. But you can guess - separation from people in society, as it usually happens in life. I’m generally an unsociable person; there were periods when I didn’t see people for a long time. This does not mean that there was no communication at all - I adore the forest precisely because there is no one there, but communication still occurs. Each tree has its own relationship. It can give you something, it can make you feel bad. And there, in this silence, when there is no rush, when no one is rushing anywhere, one feels unity with the entire planet. Actually, this is how my idea was born. She would not have been born running. Because the fast urban rhythm requires something from you. And when they demand it from you, there is usually not much creativity. In a calm state, then, of course, it’s completely different.

Nicodemus: Nature inspires. You sit on a stump, looking at the sky. Suddenly, an idea came. And that's all, and how to explain it. There's probably no way to explain this. So there was no specific reason: just doing what has already been done is not interesting. We found a way out - to combine the balalaika and the drum. They are similar in energy. According to the message.

• Where exactly is the point of contact?

Feofan: A combination of beauty and energy. If it had been possible in ancient times to make such ragged loud beats, what we do would have appeared then. Then, of course, they didn’t count the rhythm, but there was little difference. Look at the drumstep dance. On YouTube they really like to put Russian folk dances on this music. An ignorant person may not immediately distinguish whether it is true or not. Everything originates from there. There is a balalaika - a string instrument, dynamic music is often played on it. Same thing with drum and bass. He carries simply colossal energy. If you try to stand next to the stage at our concert, you will feel...

Nicodemus: If you try to stand there, you won’t be able to stand there, that’s what I’ll say. Folk music has a lot of energy, it is very energetic in itself. And when this energy is enhanced by drum and bass, there are seven of me. At the first concert I tried to stand behind the DJ set, I couldn’t stand it, I broke into a dance, ran to the edge of the stage, and I’ve been doing that ever since. We can say that music initially controls everything - including us.

Russian folk drama in the only video of Neuromonk Feofan “Trample” at the moment

• In a sense, drum and bass is also folk music. Brings people in the room to a common denominator.

Feofan: There are people who hardly look at the stage at a concert, they just dance. And there are people for whom it is important to see what is happening there. Therefore, we try to saturate the musical and visual components in proportion. Many people perform against the backdrop of a banner, but we are trying to make it somehow more interesting. This is how we show our respect to our listeners. We understand that standing on stage with a microphone, motionless, against a dark background and just playing music is not enough in our case. Not taking the effort to convey the full power of an imagined image is disrespectful. That's why we try to capture all the senses at the concert.

Nicodemus: We have stained glass windows, dancing, visualizations, a staff with laser beams, and fellows with axes. Bear. Well done, by the way, they themselves came to us one day for a concert, and we took them. We are constantly improving our program and listening to the public very carefully. We sometimes walk around in the crowd before a concert without costumes - listening to who is saying what.

• You talk a lot about concerts, but you didn’t start with them. When did you first see the audience dancing to you?

Feofan: This year. Before that, I recorded songs myself, since 2009. About a year and a half ago, Nikodim wandered into the forest - we re-recorded all the old songs (the album consists almost entirely of them), and wrote several new ones. But then they started performing.

• How did you feel?

Theophanes and Nicodemus (simultaneously): We realized that we did everything right!

• Do people write to you? A lot of?

Nicodemus: People are asking for new songs.

Bear: There are a lot of unread messages, unfortunately, there is no way to answer them all. There are several tens of thousands hanging there. We decided to do the first concert only because people asked.

• It was important for you from the very beginning to remain incognito. Why is that?

Feofan: Because the main thing we convey is emotions and music. There is no point in personalizing these things. It's like in the poem, you know? “You shouldn’t get behind the scenery.” We really love what we do. And we see that people like it too. Sometimes, of course, they ask... but most don't need it. The point is not to let your attention wander. It is clear that if someone really wants it, they will find out more about us. But even if he finds out and writes on his page on a social network, again, the majority will not care. There is an image, people like it. It's like a complex poem written. Everyone reads and finds their own meaning. Why take away this meaning from the one who found it. We deliberately avoid specifics, because specifics are true for some and not for others. It confuses the true meaning. The general concept is the most correct.

At concerts, spectators dressed in folk shirts and wreaths dance to drum and bass, set to balalaika motifs.

• It's hard to remain anonymous when you become famous.

Feofan: Well, life, in principle, flows and changes all the time. We don't know how it will be there. We can only focus on the present. Today - anonymity. And in a year, you see, we’ll be running everywhere, giving interviews, taking pictures with everyone and kissing sugar on the lips.

• I can’t help but ask: how many concerts is one pair of bast shoes enough for?

Nicodemus: There are bast shoes from different manufactures!

Feofan: There are bast ones, there are birch bark ones. There were enough birch barks for eight concerts. And the bast ones are still alive today. We don’t buy props, we order from craftsmen.

• They haven’t sent them yet - as a souvenir?

Bear: Not. But they send Ivan tea. But buying bast shoes is a very big hassle. In Moscow and St. Petersburg we have already bought everything we found. There are very few masters. Now I'm getting bast shoes from Tomsk, a batch has been ordered. You know what's great? People started wearing bast shoes to concerts. In groups, the masters before the concert received a flurry of messages: “I’ll buy bast shoes.” Very high demand. I think this is a big problem for our listeners - it’s hard to get bast shoes.

• We need to arrange a rental of bast shoes.

Bear: Good idea.

In the spring, the first concerts of the group “PNEVMOSLON” were held in St. Petersburg and Moscow - this is a new project of the anonymous St. Petersburg musician Neuromonk Feofan, where he sings with obscenities about theft and domestic violence and shoots videos with rapper Pasha Technik.

Why does PNEUMOSLON share an audience with Sergei Shnurov, why should modern musicians make memes rather than songs, how do the members of the new group earn money, and what do they say about life in Kupchin? « » I talked with the band’s vocalists Lord Pneumoslon (aka Neuromonk Feofan) and Boris Butkeev (the pseudonym taken from Vysotsky’s song).

Boris Butkeev (left) and Lord Pneumoslon (right)

How did Pneumoslon appear in the life of Neuromonk Feofan?

Lord Pneumoslon: It is necessary to separate two different Air Elephants. The group "PNEUMOSLON" appeared quite recently, but under the pseudonym Lord Pneumoslon I have been writing songs for a long time - it appeared even before Neuromonk Feofan.

In 2008–2009, I tried to record something and sent sketches to Kremov and Khrustalev’s show on Radio Record in the “Farshmak” section - in it the presenters played a wide variety of music. Each time I signed with a new name, but then they began to recognize me by my voice and only call me Lord Pneumoslon.

I didn’t invent this name, but simply borrowed it from the stories of [journalist and writer] Dani Shepovalov - there was such a popular character at one time.

It so happened that at one fine moment I, like many young people, decided to delete my real page from VKontakte. Those were the times when you could change your name as many times as you wanted without any documents or confirmation. I erased all the data and just put "Lord Pneumoslon". I sat under it on VKontakte, listened to music and so on. That’s how it remained, because when I wanted to change my name back, I already had to tinker with the documents. And I scored.

What genre does what your band does fit into?

Boris Butkeev: It's a mixture of ska-punk and electronica. It so happens that Lord and I both like this kind of music.

LP: I wouldn't call it anything. If I say that this is a ska-punk band, then what, will I have to play only ska-punk all my life? For what?

In general, the original idea was different. I went to concerts of Russian bands quite a lot and every time I was simply furious at how crappy their live sound was. They play like they did 20 years ago and don’t take into account that acoustics have come a long way. Nowadays you can put such speakers in your car that you will rock, and they play as if everyone still listens to music only through ancient earbud headphones. Accordingly, I decided that it would be cool to do something with such a fat, fat sound.

BB: Our idea is for a person to get into a car, turn on our music, and from the first chord ********* [play] so that the hood shakes.

What about the texts? You simultaneously sing about domestic violence and theft and about “a princess in panties from AliExpress”, “waving ***** [penises] in an alcoholic pit” and “a hellish hell on the back and front”.

LP: I didn't have a general concept. It cannot be said that we sing about any one topic. Each song has its own creation story. It all happens very simply - I notice something in myself or other people that I can laugh at, and I sing about it.

For example, the song “If I could, then ****** [stole].” I wrote it when I noticed that many people who seem to be very good and against all kinds of theft themselves begin to steal and save money as soon as they have the opportunity.

When I worked in a construction company (Lord Pneumoslon, from the age of 13 to 18, he worked on a construction site every summer, then he was the commercial director of a construction company - approx. " Papers"), there were many similar people around me. I think that in other areas there is also a lot of this - people want, if not to steal, then to get something for free. Many will understand me.

Similar stories with all the other songs. In general, the group’s lyrics and, in principle, “PNEUMOSLON” are very different from Feofan. If there is a myth about ancient Russian drum’n’bass and immersion in some artificially created reality, then everything is different here. You listened, recognized yourself or other people in the song, laughed and moved on.

BB: We don’t have any mission or higher goal; we don’t want to impose our position on anyone or burden anyone with anything. Lord just calls me and says: “Let’s make a song about shit?” And I answer: “Hmm, interesting idea. Why not really make a song about shit.”

These are just little life stories that you can laugh at. For example, we have a new song “Cultural Workers,” which is about artists who on stage are all such professionals and love each other, but behind the scenes they drink, take drugs and ***** [hit] each other hard.

And there is an even more intelligent song called “Zhukhly”. It's just about a person who is a *******[bad person] and a ***** [total] ****** [fool].

Why are there so many swear words in the songs?

LP: Is there a lot of it? I do not think so. It seems to me that he is in the right place everywhere. Well, how, for example, can you replace the word ***** [complete failure] without losing meaning and capacity? Or ***** [stolen]. If you replace it with simply “stole” it won’t be the same at all.

BB: *** [male genital organ] and ****** [female genital organ] are not the main thing in the song. The main thing is the message and meaning. And you can convey it in any language. Someone sings in Chinese, someone in English, and we sing in Russian with obscenities.

Feofan said in an interview with Dudu that his wife helped a lot with this project and even danced on stage in a bear costume at first. Does it help with PNEUMOSLEON? Doesn't the songs bother her?

LP: Certainly. She is my first listener. Moreover, she doesn’t just say that everything is fine, but she can also criticize and give advice. Overall she likes what I do and helps a lot. And with songs, and with some kind of financial accounting, and with the development of concepts for shows and concerts. We are fine.

From the outside it seems that there is a kind and sweet Feofan, and there is an angry and foul-mouthed Lord Pneumoslon. Which one of them is like you in everyday life?

LP: It’s difficult to talk about this and even compare. Feofan is a completely fictitious story, and “PNEUMOSLON” does not need any myth around it at all. We just sing songs.

Of course, there is some percentage of me in the projects. We are somewhat similar, but not one hundred percent.

When Lord Pneumoslon had just appeared and there was no Feofan yet, did you try to fit your songs somewhere? Start performing?

LP: Of course not. Moreover, I have never tried to place my music anywhere. I didn’t want or dream of big venues. I don't want to become a fucking rock star. If it were up to me, I would perform twice a year and that’s it.

Why then did you form a group and start giving concerts, provided that you already have Feofan?

LP: We just at some point talked with Boris, who had liked this project of mine for a long time, and decided to try to do something with it.

BB: Outside of PNEUMOSLON, I organize concerts. From performances in small clubs to stadium tours. We met Lord through the Neuromonk Feofan project. Gradually they began to work together, and then they simply decided that his Lord Pneumoelephant could grow into a good project. It’s great when a hobby becomes something big, some serious, professional matter.

We immediately agreed that we would do it together: I used to play in several small punk bands. As a result, in 2017, two songs were recorded and released for testing. We saw how people would react to them. Everyone seemed to like it, and we decided to record a full-length album - it was released in 2018. We are currently writing new songs for the second part of the album. We make all recordings with our own money.

For me, the main motivation to engage in a group is the opportunity to earn money. This is a commercial project. This is not a hobby. Although, of course, I love the music and performances, the stage is a huge rush of adrenaline. Roughly speaking, this is work that brings pleasure.

LP: Partly, of course, this is done for the sake of making money. We are not 23 years old (both musicians are over 30 years old - approx. “ Papers") and we can't just play for ourselves. Of course we want to make money, but that doesn't mean we don't like the band.

I don’t understand at all why in Russia there is such an idea that musicians don’t need to be paid and only poor artists work. It seems to me that this is some kind of relic of the Soviet Union.

Music is hard work that needs to be paid. If this does not happen, everything will come to the state of a sluggish hobby.

- Why do you sing in a mask again in the group?

LP: For the same reasons as Feofan. I’m not singing about myself in this project.

BB: All other participants (at concerts there are six people in the group - approx. " Papers") also with substitutes. Either in masks or in makeup. This is more logical than if only the Lord was wearing a mask.

Why did you reveal that this is Feofan’s project?

Your album “Counter-evolution. Part 1" - are these old songs of Lord Pneumoelephant? Or was everything written specifically for the new project?

LP: These are songs that I have been slowly writing for years since 2014 in parallel with Feofan.

BB: New songs will be on the second album, which we want to release by the end of summer. The entire first one consists of reworkings of old Lorde songs. Once upon a time it was just a sketch, but now these are full-fledged songs with good sound. We worked on the sound for a very long time, about eight months. As a result, we came to the conclusion that the sound included winds - five pipes, drums and electronics.

At the beginning of May you had your first concerts. How did they go?

What kind of people came to the concerts?

BB: Partially those who listen to Feofan, but the majority are new listeners. It's actually difficult to say. An ordinary concert, ordinary people. Our audience is young people 25+ who get drunk at concerts. Great audience.

Who are you competing with for it? What groups does it overlap with?

BB: With Leningrad, of course. It's stupid to deny it.

LP: Perhaps with the audience of that old Leningrad, before the Louboutins. Maybe “PNEUMOSLON” appeared because something was missing when that “Leningrad” disappeared.

But I wouldn’t say that we compete with anyone. It doesn’t happen that people listen to “Leningrad” and that’s it. They can listen to both Leningrad and us.

BB: It seems to me that such comparisons should not exist. Yes, we also have pipes. Yes, we also have swear words. But based on this principle, we can say that all groups that use wind instruments copied it from Leningrad.

We want to experiment. On the new album the sound will be very different from what it was - there will be pump, and dubstep, and everything else.

Nowadays there is a popular opinion that young musicians, on the contrary, shoot without any resources or analysis. Only on social networks and YouTube. This is true?

BB: It is a myth. Nothing happens by chance. Most often, everything happens according to one scenario: they take some Western celebrity in a popular genre in the West, for example, cloud rap, and simply copy it.

Then you need a huge resource, including money, to promote this artist. So that the public and media write about him. Otherwise, no one will need the artist. Without money and connections, unfortunately, it’s unlikely that anything will work out.

Don’t you think that musicians now make memes, not songs, for the sake of popularity? Even Kirkorov with his “The color of mood is blue.”

LP: I've been watching football since childhood. And, naturally, I root for Zenit, because in St. Petersburg there is no one else to root for. I went to Petrovsky and was at Virazh.

I always liked the way the fans sing, how they support the team, how crazy they are, the performances they put on. And I had a dream to do a performance at “Virazh”.

BB: It so happens that I have been in football circles for a long time. I went to Virazh and knew many people from there. A couple of months ago, the leader of “Virazh” listened to our song “Domestic Violence” and suggested that we remake it together into “Peter, shizi on “Virazh””. To the same beat, just with words about Zenit and the fans. We, of course, agreed.

LP: Posted a song. The fans liked it and we were offered to do a performance at the match with SKA-Khabarovsk on May 13. We came to Virazh and together with the fans sang the song twice, stretched out in the stands

In 2009. The group's performances are stylized as Russian folk dances and songs with balalaika, but mixed with electronic rhythmic music in the drum-n-bass style. Initially, the project was perceived as a joke, and quickly spread across the Internet with hits about “Nuclearity is a way of life,” where Neuromonk, deliberately cursing, sings about the breadth of the Russian soul to a frantic party rhythm.

7 years have passed, and now Feofan is touring the cities of Russia, where he gathers fans. With him are DJ Nikodim and Bear. The team does not reveal their faces, believing that their images distract from the main thing - music and emotions.

Three people come to my office noisily, which is not surprising - where have you seen such characters not attract attention? Ahead of everyone is a Bear, with his belly sticking out, you want to touch him right away. The bear is warm - it’s very hot inside the suit. Clubfoot practically does not communicate with us, and what should we say to a forest animal? He sits next to him in his own mind, occasionally jokes and perks up only when it comes to talking about Chicoy pine nuts, which I promised to treat him to.

Nikodim strums the balalaika whatever comes into his head. He is the most fashionable in the team - he wears a blouse, a scraggly beard and trendy Ray Ban glasses. Feofan - will be taller than his friend, stately with a bass voice. His face is not visible behind the thick hood, only a lush beard peeks out from under the material. In the hands of the monk is a staff that he made himself at the beginning of his musical career. He said that he was luring suitors to the girls, and gave it to me to hold.

— How did you meet Medved and Nikodim, how did you decide to create a team?

- There is a legend about this, we all met in our native forest. But the story of getting into the forest is a mystery. This is where creativity comes from, where we draw inspiration from the depths. Nature itself gives ideas that you want to convey. Nikodim, in the forest, learned to play the balalaika.

— Why did you use a word in the name of the group that is similar to the rank of an Orthodox priest? What does it mean?

— The prefix “neuro” indicates a connection with the nervous system, that is, with the senses. And a monk, first of all, is a hermit. I think you can understand when you listen to our songs, there is no need to explain it specifically.

— What do you want to convey to the listener?

— The main thing we are trying to convey to our listeners is rhythmic music and bright emotions in it. Nothing more. That’s why we don’t show our faces—attention should not be distracted.

— For listeners, your image is rather a joke. Is laughter combined with the bright message you carry?

- It goes together great! At first we didn’t take it seriously ourselves, we just did what we wanted. And we didn’t think that everything would go on like this, people would start responding, we’d start touring. Last year we took a bus to Irkutsk. It hasn't worked out yet before Chita. We got there for the first time.

So far we like it, there are great positive people here. People are generally welcoming everywhere. Before arriving in a new city, we carefully study its history, its features, and dialect. For example, we already know about your local history museum, the Church of the Decembrists, buuzy, datsan. We even know how high Chita is above the sea.

- Which one?

— Somewhere around 670 meters.

- For this is the Old Russian Dram, revived from the depths of centuries. The balalaika and the drum are generally very similar in energy, so why not combine them.

— You didn’t immediately start performing; you first gained fame on the Internet. How did you decide to give concerts? Wasn't it scary?

— We decided easily, it wasn’t scary! Each time it becomes more and more interesting to perform, our concerts are not just a performance on stage, but something similar to a show. We take with us a lot of costumes, equipment, various objects, and a video is projected behind us on the stage. We want the more the better. I have a staff with laser beams - I made it from a tree that dried up near my house back in 2009.

— Do you know about beatmaker Oligarkh (reads prayers to a rhythmic melody - I.Kh.)? Have you thought about working with him or with someone else who promotes the idea of ​​the breadth of the Russian soul?

- We rarely think about this at all. Our focus is different, so it’s unlikely to work. Although time will tell.

— What does the word vigor, found in the title of one of your first hits, mean?

- This is a way of life! A state of enthusiasm when energy bursts over the edge. It can manifest itself in everything, in dancing, for example.

- And it is secured securely. (lets you touch with your hand how the hood is held on to something like a hat)

In 2015, a video clip for the song “Trample” spread across the Internet. Its performer was a certain Neuromonk Feofan. "Who is this really?" - netizens asked each other. However, there was no accompanying information. Two years have passed, and the musical project is still continuing its work. Who is Neuromonk Feofan really and what is he famous for?

Compound

It is known that behind the pseudonym there is not one, but at least two people. This is the soloist and DJ Nikodim. The first is a tall guy with a fake beard. In public, he always appears in a robe resembling a schema, with patterns along the edging and in bast shoes. His face is hidden by a hood, and in his hands he usually holds a staff in which a laser pointer is hidden. Neuromonk Feofan sings songs with a characteristic voice and the use of Slavic words and outdated words. The musical project comes from St. Petersburg.

Story

Who is this really - Neuromonk Feofan? The group still maintains anonymity from the intrusive media. But, despite this, the Afisha magazine managed to lift the veil a little and interview DJ Nikodim, the second member of the group. He talked about himself and the history of the creation of the group. Nicodemus has a higher education. For a long time he studied music professionally. And when he met Feofan (who is a self-taught musician), he told him many interesting things. The guys became friends based on common interests.

Feofan was actively recording songs even before the formation of the group (since about 2008). The idea to join forces into an original musical project arose during a walk in the forest.

Style

The uniqueness of the new group's style was not only in its stylization of Russian folk festivals, but also in the combination of the balalaika with drum and bass (electronic music). The lyrics of the songs of the group “Neuromonk Feofan” depict the life of Ancient Rus', Russian nature and peasant labor, and they are not without irony. This makes the perception of creativity easy and interesting.

Criticism

Who is this really - Neuromonk Feofan? Critics of the group's work puzzled their brains for a long time and painfully. But they were not interested in the true names of the participants, but in what they wanted to say with their songs. So, he called the guys “Orthodox atheists” and “believing Komsomol members.” But it was a positive assessment. The leader of the Leningrad group approved the style and creativity in general of the newly minted artists, as well as their active activities on social networks.

Other music critics also noted the freshness and originality of the combination of Russian folk motifs and electronic dance music. They compared the St. Petersburg musical project with the already widely known “MC Vspyshkin” and “Ivan Kupala”. According to experts, the group focuses on the visual component, and the musical part is unpretentious, too simple.

Journalist of the Zvuki.ru portal Victoria Bazoeva dedicated a short article to the group, where she positively assessed the level of stylization of the group. However, she expressed doubts about the mixing of modern words and historicisms and the good perception of this by connoisseurs of historical reconstruction.

On the question of who it really is, “Neuromonk Feofan,” many agreed that the group represents the direction of conceptual postmodernism. Although her work is in many ways opposed to the activities of apologists of modern art, for example, Vladimir Sorokin.

Albums

The group has three albums in total. The first “There is drama in the soul, and bright Rus' in the heart” was presented in 2015. According to the musicians themselves, it was the first attempt to combine Russian song, balalaika, the breadth of the Russian soul and the direction of drum and bass. The experiment was a success. The album consisted of 17 tracks, which were positively assessed by music observer Alexey Mazhaev (InterMedia). The word "dram" was often used in the lyrics. However, this did not stop the critic from defining the group's style as electropop with folk elements. The album clearly conveys the propaganda of cultural revival and the accompanying irony about it. The original themes of the compositions about the Old Russian Olympic Games and open airs do not let you get bored.

The second collection, “Great are the forces of good,” was released in 2016. No less success awaited him. Within two weeks, the album entered the iTunes chart as one of the most frequently listened to. Neuromonk Feofan did not change his sound. However, some critics did not appreciate such dedication to style. For example, Stanislav Sorochinsky, a REF News blogger, called the sound of the new record predictable and monotonous. And Alexey Mazhaev, in a review of the album, expressed the opinion that the performer becomes hostage to one image, which has no development. In addition, some tracks (for example, “I’m dancing everywhere”), in their sound, are closer not to drum and bass, but to Soviet music. Critics also noted the lack of a clear style of the collection. Every now and then you can feel the influence of Russian rock and folk.

The second album included 9 compositions. The last of them - “Stepson of the Rules” - is reminiscent in style of the work of the “Technology” group.

At the beginning of 2017, Neuromonk Feofan released his third album “Dance. Sing,” which was immediately highlighted by Stanislav Sorochinsky. According to him, the collection “sounds like one big song.” Although the team’s task now is not to surprise listeners (“the bicycle has already been invented by them”), but to entertain people working hard in stuffy offices.

Six compositions became the group's singles. From the last album, this list included the tracks “And Now the Bear Sings” and “Old Russian Soul”.

Video clips

The group has only shot two videos so far. The first one, for the song “Trample,” received almost seven million views on the YouTube channel. The second video clip, “The hut is shaking,” is less popular. Today it has only collected about two million views.

In the videos, the musician traditionally, as on stage, appears in his stage schema. Who he really is, Neuromonk Feofan, and what his name is in everyday life, is impossible to understand. And comments from fans and simply curious users remain unanswered.

When asked why he doesn’t reveal himself, the musician himself answers simply. Neuromonk Feofan is the image with which the style and creativity of the group is associated. Its acceptance and approval should not be associated with the identity of the true performer.

Concerts

The beginning of 2015 was significant for the group. After all, her debut album was released then. A concert tour was dedicated to this event. The tour took place in cities of Russia and Belarus. The program had the original name “Yadren Zador”, and the collection entered the “golden ten” of iTunes.

Also, the group “Neuromonk Feofan” took part in the festivals “Kubana”, “Invasion”, VK Fest, “Wild Mint” and “Epic Coast”.

Today, musicians often perform in joint concerts with other stars: Basta, Marcel, Noize MC, etc.

• The wife of Neuromonk Feofan danced in a bear costume in the video “The Hut Is Shaking.” Her name is unknown.
• In 2016, a musical project from St. Petersburg received the status of a popular Internet meme.
• A year after the release of his debut album, the Yandex. Music service recognized Neuromonk Feofan as an independent artist of the year.
• At a concert in Moscow, one of the fans apparently decided to reveal to everyone who he really is - Neuromonk Feofan. During the mass dancing and fun, he reached out to the musician and wanted to pull off his hood. However, he was stopped in time.
• On September 19, 2017, the mysterious performer of the group gave an interview to Yuri Dudu. The conversation turned out to be very frank for the artist. He talked about how his work began. How did the idea of ​​combining balalaika and drum and bass come about? But, most importantly, the artist answered the question that torments all his fans: “Who is he really - Neuromonk Feofan, what’s his name?” The musician called the name “Oleg” without any hesitation. He also said that he is 30 years old, he grew up in Kupchino (St. Petersburg) and graduated from the State University of Aerospace Instrumentation with honors.