Ilya Lagutenko about the songs of the new album

-Intro-
I wanted to make it pompous and thought that The Intro had to be
played by a symphony orchestra. And not just played as they usually do
but in some extraordinary way. Thus it occurred to me that children
should do it. Just ordinary kids who even in spite of their great
desire to play well and correctly anyway can`t do it yet. I asked the
MT-management to find any children`s orchestra so that it would be
exactly children for whom playing music would be just a hobby but not
a work yet. First I even was a bit upset at hearing how well they were
playing. They made the arrangement by themselves. We just gave them
the phonogram and decided not to interfere into that process. They
could do whatever they wanted. We didn`t want to address the
professionals purposely, because we needed the originality of
sensations. When the first variant was recorded I thought that that
would be enough! But the conductor insisted on five attempts more and
then we chose the most emotional variant. Of course you can notice
there slight divergences but they don`t make the matter worse and I
somehow don`t care much about it. The children had taken all that very
seriously. I saw that there was some emotional pressure, maybe also
because of me staying in the sound technician`s room. But it was
really astonishing to observe 9–12 year-old boys and girls taking all
pains to play what was named The Intro to the song of the band Mumiy
Troll. I realised that that could be one of the pictures of «merger
and acquisition» when the generation of your children plays music in a
style which you associate with the generation of your parents. So here
we have such a circulation which I wanted to preserve in everything
and I think we did it.

-Prosti, Kiska!- (Sorry, Kitty!)
This song was the final one during The Meamury tour. The only reason
why we hadn`t included it in the previous album was that the song had
absolutely different mood comparatively with other compositions. There
were a lot of experiments with that song: we recorded it in English,
in the concerts we played it in harder version. But when we started
recording I understood that humour had to dominate in that
composition. After long creative torments we finally got the
arrangement we aimed at. Instead of rumbling drums we used a
rhythm-box.

-Banzai-
The first lines of this song “I can see this land again■ came to my
mind when I was entering The Southampton Bay on a yacht. At that time
I was taking my exam of The Royal Yacht School (Great Britain). The
point of the exam is that during several days you have to show that
you can carry out the duties of any member of a crew: the ones of a
sea cadet, of a cook, of a steersman, of a navigator. So I had to take
the role of a steersman while entering The Southampton Bay. You just
imagine my condition at that moment! At dusk I had to dock the yacht
and watch so that not to crash into some liner or barge, not to get in
low water. And Southampton is one of the world`s biggest ports where
you may find vessels of any dimension from a small yacht to a
megaliner. It was a kind of emotional outburst for me. Here “Banzai■
is a feeling of victory for a certain way we`ve got over.

-Hischnik- (Beast of Prey)
After we had recorded this song the sound producer Oleg Baranov told
that when his dog entered the bedroom at the most undesirable moment
while he was staying with his wife he chucked it out shouting the
words from the song “Ukhodi, zver■ (“Go out, beast■). During the
recording process some pictures like from “western■ movie were coming
to our minds. Thus in the music there are certain sounds that evoke
those visions. But at the moment playing country-music is absolutely
alien thing to me, therefore this is a western-song.

-Strakhu net — (No Fear)
I had a perfect idea how the phrase “tebia vstavliaiet, ty
vstavliaieshsia■ (driven into ecstasies you go into ecstasies) would
sound being sung by me only and imagined what good deal of rumours
would appear. Therefore I thought we needed to soften that impression.
I asked the manager to find children who could sing that phrase.
Probably at that time the phrase of Pink Floyd “another brick in the
wall■ was running through my head. The most difficult thing was to
find such children who would imagine what sort of thing they had to
do, what and when exactly they should sing so that not to confuse the
words. So the results of the experiment say that the children under 9
can`t do that. All the voices in the track belong to the children of
our friends. Little boys began to cry staying in the recording studio.
Though running round the room and springing on beds all of them were
able to cope with the task. But as soon as it was required to stand in
front of the microphone and catch the rhythm the mission proved to be
impossible. So we thank everybody who has managed to do it.

-Korally- (Corals)
This song is my present to all my friends-ichthyologists who are
concerned somehow or other with sea and sea sports. The idea of it
arose in my mind during the voyage to Cambodia. It is an entirely sea
composition which was written between The Bay of Peter the Great (in
the Pacific Ocean), the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. In
Dominican Republic the song got its final shape and became a pirate
sea song for me in particular.

-Privatizatsyia- (Privatization)
This is the only song the lyrics of which can be applicable to the
title of the album “Sliyanie i Pogloschenie■ (Merger and Acquisition).
In fact this is an ordinary song about love, just told in certain
economic terms which I know only by hearsay. I wanted to make some
intrigue that`s why the song ends with a word “strana■ (land). It`s up
to you to decide whether this song is about native land or whether it
says that love for a person is as big as love to a land and vice
versa.

-Takbyvaietnesluchaino- (Itsnoaccident)
I had been trying to work with the words of this song even before
Mumiy Troll recorded the album Morskaya (Sea), but however according
to the agreement among the members of Mumiy Troll it was too early yet
to make such a song. But this song has stood the test of time: there
were some ideas concerning what the song should look like, but the
final its “appearance■ has become clear only now. The song consists of
two parts: the first is a hard-dancing one, the second is a
dance-lyrical one which I dreamt. Once I had a dream in which we were
sitting by the hotel on the seashore: white curtains, blue sky and
sea. Ivan Farmakovsky was at the piano and the rest was around him. I
wasn`t lazy to get up and record that dream on a tape (not to forget
that sensation). Then I invented a tune with the help of my guitar and
was surprised that by the morning I still remembered it. And finally
everything was ready: old lyrics, that tune and the rhythm. This is a
puzzle-song which had been gathering for a long time.

-Yantar- (Amber)
Yantar is one of those songs that come into being at one stroke
including lyrics and music. And then it is not comfortable to work at
because you can neither add something nor take away. The recording was
difficult but when we just began playing in a simple way everything
took proper shape.

-Iris- (Iris)
There were several equally good variants of this song. The lyrics tell
us about that joy of life that can be found anywhere and sometimes
even in unpleasant situations.

-Nepokoy- (Disquiet)
Once I was offered to be brought to London by a casual airplane. When
we took off it turned out that first the airplane had to land in Paris
on some business affair. I had nothing to do but roaming around Paris
half a day. I was just wandering around the city walking near Louvre
and D`Orsay Museum, taking the fresh autumn air, enjoying the last beams of
the sunset and thinking about what I was doing there. Alone? In
another city? that had never been waiting for me and didn`t wait for
me then? In D`Orsay Museum I bought a bookmark with a lot of
white space and a pencil. Then I came back to the airplane and wrote
that song. By the arrival to London the song was ready. It proved to
be rather sensible. Foreseeing all possible questions about the sighs
in the song I confess that I don`t know that girl and I have never
seen her. You may not believe me, but that`s true. Moreover, the sound
producer Oleg Baranov who integrated those sounds into the song
explains the same to his girlfriend. That matter was near to cause
little conflicts in our families: where did we take those sighs if
nobody knew the girl who had produced them?… Here`s the explanation.
About 10 years ago when samplers just appeared a young musician Oleg
Baranov decided to make his own collection of natural sounds that
could be used in the future: sound of waves, voices of birds… Thus
we fished out those sighs rummaging in his computer. After a little
investigation we found out that the sighs belonged to a certain Maria
Fernandes. We were reflecting for a long time whether to inform her
about it and agreed not even give her the CD because she also could
have some problems being asked where she had taken those sighs. So
let`s consider all the above-mentioned to be a kind of joke!

-Zdravstvuydosvidaniya — (Hellogoodbye)
The last song in the album was written the last chronologically. It
seemed to me that this song had to be concerned with some farewell.
Saying good bye to your friends it`s difficult to define what these
words mean: whether that you will see each other next morning or maybe
you don`t leave them at all but just wish them good luck… Every final
is a kind of question mark for me. And this song is a kind of question
mark to everything what we have made and written. Each final is a
start.

Translated by Inna Yakovleva