Antillectual

With a new album come new streams! On August 23 we will release our new album “Perspectives & Objectives”. Until that date we will stream new songs from the album every Monday.

We have had the privilege to travel the world and play our music all over the place. Our new album will be released in most of those territories, including Brazil, Russia and North America. The stream of “Mother Inferior” was hosted by our Brazilian friends of Daily Hardcore. Today’s guest entry comes from our friend Aleksey who releases our albums in Russia through Angry Chuck Records. A little peek inside Russia, how we have toured over there, and how our album is released:

“Despite the fact that I live in St. Petersburg with another 5 million people (the entire population of Finland or 1/3 of Netherlands), I usually see about 50-100 people at shows, with or without local bands playing. And it’s sad, not so much people love and listen to this music and even less people visit shows. Organizing booking agencies lose money, bands don’t see much support from people. But even in such deplorable situation bands from abroad want to visit Russia. When you tour in Europe or the USA you rent a van and drive between cities. Here, in Russia, it’s little bit harder to play shows:

– Russian roads, oh.. hell yeah! Like on the Moon! And distances between towns are really huge. Do you want to spend 12-14 hours on the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg in winter when you don’t see anything except snow (Hello, dudes from ASTPAI & ARTERIES)? Come on!

– Vague expectations. You don’t know a lot about Russia, you don’t know how many people know you. So you can end up playing for 15 people.

– You need invitations to apply for visas. Sometimes you just can’t make them in time.

And if you ask me about why bands come here? I don’t have an answer for you. But I call them heroes. If they come back again – I can call them idiots, haha. Maybe it’s like a small exotic adventure: it’s interesting to see another country that lives by other “rules”, to see how people live here, to take photos with bears with balalaikas and ushanka at the Red Square in Moscow, to drink vodka? In general to have fun! Even if you don’t get much money from the shows – you will have some good memories about this place and some stories to tell your friends.

Running a DIY label/distro/mailorder in Russia is just wasting your money / time, don’t even try! But I think a lot of people from small DIY labels may say the same. Anyway I’ll tell you some peculiarities:

We don’t have a pressing plant for vinyl, so we must order records in other countries. Hello to additional shipping costs. Hello to customs and slowest Russian post (please, burn in hell). If you don’t wait for your package with records less than 60 days – you don’t know anything about this life! Your package can be lost or damaged (yeah, I know it can happen to everyone, but I have some things to compare with). The same problem with orders from other labels from abroad. Prices for shipping within Russia aren’t so good, it’s more expensive than in EU / USA I think. And shipping time is… ooh, god damn, fuck Russian post again and again! I think I can talk about such problems forever.

But anyway I like to run DIY label / distro / mailorder! Now I know so much great people in Europe and USA. It’s a really great choice to meet new friends over the world, to listen to new great bands, to make your life more interesting.”

– Aleksey / Angry Chuck Records

Pre-order “Perspectives & Objectives”, or a package including it and receive a stream right after. After this, 1 more song to go! Next week another song about family. Not about a mother, but a father.

Mother Inferior

Mother married the minister, she got divorced because of the abuse
Sold her body to the businessman, as before, the kids got bruised

Mother’s task, to look after us, disregarded by her taste in men
Best for all would be to stress: please, be a single mom again

We, the kids, file for divorce
We, the kids, had it with these conflicts of interest
Keep in mind the welfare of us all
Keep your eyes focused on the ball

Liner notes:

The separation of church and state has gained ground since the 19th century. Well, kind of. Governments are supposed to be autonomous in their actions, independent of whatever external institution and should only represent the people that give them sovereignty. However, since the 1990s governments seem to have lost their autonomy and have become more and more intertwined with and dependent of economic forces. No longer the church, nor The People are the ones pulling the strings. CEOs, lobbyists and the fear for economic despair seem to be in charge. Instead of becoming a modern, independent, single mom, our governments have sold themselves to the highest bidder, without taking their kids’ interest at heart.