The Crematorium group is intriguing: jazz, country and ballet

After forty years of rock career, the leader of the Crematorium group, Armen Grigoryan, is still a source of surprises. The band’s new album is already their third release in a fairly short time, and all the new releases from the legends of Russian rock clearly go beyond the boundaries of their genre. At the same time, they leave no doubt that Armen Grigoryan has everything in order with his imagination and sense of humor.

“I’ve always been curious about what I haven’t done yet,” says Armen at a small presentation of his musical works. And we must admit that curiosity has recently taken the musician quite far. The new album “Sweet Elvis” is more reminiscent of a musical elective by the leader of a popularly beloved team, but it is much closer to “Crematorium” than the previously released collection The Big One with versions of the group’s hits in English, Spanish, Italian, French and Chinese, or the ballet “ Animal Farm Dreams” based on the famous novel by George Orwell.

On the cover of “Sweet Elvis” the band’s name is indicated as “Crematorium+”, which apparently hints at the experimental nature of the album. In fact, this is a joint album between Armen Grigoryan and Olga Zubkova, producer and multi-instrumentalist. In addition to the main lineup, three more musicians participated in the recording, who seem to have shouldered the entire instrumental of the record.

Olga’s method can hardly be called revolutionary, but in the context of “Crematorium” the new songs sound very unusual. The sound was a very relaxed swim between jazz and country, ending in something reminiscent of a decadent cabaret. As a compliment to Ms. Zubkova, it can be noted that she did not engage in experimentation for the sake of experimentation. Brass, violin, double bass, percussion are perfect for Armen Grigoryan’s new songs. And he sings again about love and difficult gender relations. Moreover, he views romance and the inevitable pain from it not from the bell tower of a retired playboy, but from the status of a person whose eyes certainly still sparkle.

Grigoryan’s signature timbre adds a fair share of bitter smile to all experiences, but it has taken root well among the new sound. Any innovations for a band with a forty-year history can probably be potentially dangerous, but in the history of “Crematorium” there are many recording adventures, so the group does not fight with new scenery, rather sees them as a manifestation of self-irony. And, as you know, people who show signs of life are ironic.

If “Sweet Elvis” resembles a thirst for musical adventure, then the recent collection The Big One is a series of sophisticated jokes. Fifteen songs, including classics like “Garbage Wind” and “Ugly Elsa” without words and phrases that pinch fan souls. How could such a thing come to mind?

Those who have been observing Armen Grigoryan’s activities for several years will, of course, say that the musician has never given the impression of a person who intends to achieve his goals at any cost. “All our achievements happened when some door opened in front of us, and we simply took advantage of this opportunity,” notes Armen in support of the image of a relaxed creator.

The “door” that led to The Big One was a request from American publishers to record an English version of one of the songs from the album “Hunter” (2021). Several studio experiments convinced Armen Grigoryan that he was not very interested in singing in English, so they decided to take what may be a long but sure path. First, we made a clear translation, then found a performer among native speakers.

Translating the works of our rockers is a somewhat destructive undertaking. The text, that is, the sacred cow of Russian rock, is sacrificed. Almost all local luminaries of the genre suffer from literary centricity, so the music and text in their works turn into something indivisible. However, Grigoryan’s irony apparently extends to the “sacred cows.” The process of creating an English-language remake fascinated our rockers so much that they decided to make a whole album.

New voices were found on different American coasts, in Italy, Germany, Colombia and even Madagascar. As a result, “Garbage Wind” turned into an Italian aria, “The Judge” sounds like vicious German hard rock, “Kathmandu” and “America” became cowboy anthems, “Chinese Tank” can be called a rock trip to the Middle Kingdom. It’s all very unexpected and in some places too funny to be true. One can only take seriously the assumption that Grigoryan’s music could have a monetary destiny.

Composing and recording academic music is perhaps the most desperate whim of a rock musician. Most of his audience is guaranteed to remain out of business, but the implementation of the creative concept is of course more important. The ballet “Animal Farm Dreams” was an amazing consequence of the “Crematorium” concert with the “Globalis” orchestra. A somewhat routine event for all serious rockers unexpectedly resulted in the desire of Armen Grigoryan and the members of Globalis to do something unusual together.

Armen wrote the music and libretto based on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (although the politicized apocalyptic plot was modernized into a love triangle: the boar dictator, his antagonist Snowball and the horse Molly), musicians from Globalis recorded the work in the studio with local choir singers Vienna Opera prima Beatriz de Sousa joined. The very fact that a very significant lady in the opera world was persuaded to take part in the symphonic-rocker venture can be called the luck of newcomers, but Beatriz’s voice did not deteriorate from this.

For now, the fruits of their joint labors exist in CD form and are presented on streaming. Staging a full-fledged ballet in the fog (this is really difficult to imagine), but there is quite serious talk about a short film with choreographic numbers. And if everything works out, then Armen Grigoryan’s desire to explore new horizons without losing self-irony will reach some transcendental level. Let’s hope that it’s at least not boring there behind the clouds.