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The man who stands behind Moscow-based instrumental bands THE RE-STONED and RUSHUS is a composer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Ilya Lipkin whose interests, talents, experiences and crafts are manifold and diverse. He spent the early part of his career playing in various local bands including the legendary dark-folk act NEUTRAL and the defiant avant-core trio YARCHE-1000-SOLNTS, before forming his own acoustic neo-folk ensemble WALDSONNE in 2003. Three years later, he launched an experimental-fusion project RUSHUS that featured a former member of the Tuvinian groups BIOSYNTES and YAT-KHA Evgeniy Tkachev on acoustic percussions and congas, and a jazz-master Vladimir Nikulin on electric bass. Their intelligent and elegant electro-acoustic softness and trance-induced shamanism made them more popular among lovers of neo-psychedelic and cafe-shop lobbyists than jazz and rock purists.
In 2008, Ilya Lipkin and Vladimir Nikulin invited a drummer Andrei Pankratov to form a loud, fuzzy, aggressive and stomping hard-stoner-rock trio THE RE-STONED. It was, as Ilya said, "a re-turn to the music I've always listened to and loved to play". Despite the band is not traditionally fronted by a lead singer and follows the completely instrumental path, they are arguably the most welcomed and popular live act among the Russian classic rock revivalists.
The Re-Stoned / Revealed Gravitation (2010) / CD $11.00
"Keeping up the tradition of all-intrumental bands such as Karma To Burn, The Re-Stoned satisfy the listener with a ton of meaty stoner rock riffage, enough to appease your appetite until their next blue plate special is served." (by Reg Rykaczewski of Heavy Planet).
The Moscow-based instrumental power-trio THE RE-STONED is usually associated with the local “stoner rock” scene, not because their music can only be appreciated by inveterate weedeaters but because of its heavily fuzzed sound and reliance on muscular riffing in golden 70’s style. Ilya Lipkin (guitars), Vladimir Nikulin (bass) and Andrei Pankratov (drums) leans on a combination of bluesy guitar-drenched textures and spacy, almost psychedelic jam-meandering trips, but the most important thing is their great skill at creating melodies so that you get really caught without any vocal hooks. This one is a great thing, whether you are “stoned”, “re-stoned” or not. Riffing is the essential of each song, but the band are not shredders of the simple boogie rock power of raw. They care a lot about the arrangement and try to give individual flavor to each composition using voice-samples (like in an opener “Gravitation”), or acoustic percussion (jembe on “Oriental Doom”, “Eternal Search” and “Sleeping World” is played by Evgeny Tkachev of YAT-KHA), or keyboards (Hammond on “Moriarty’s Blues” is played by Pavel Panfilov), or acoustic guitar (“Eternal Search”). “Moriarty’s Blues” also features guest appearance of Sergey Hodnev, drummer of the early ARSENAL line-up). The album was mixed and mastered by Alisa Coral of PSI CORPS and SPACE MIRRORS. Classic rock, blues-rock, traditional doom and stoner enthusiasts, and everyone else who appreciates original and challenging hard-rock music will like THE RE-STONED offering. (11 tracks - 61 min.)
The Re-Stoned / Return to the reptiles (2009) / pro-duplicated CD-R $8.00
Recorded at the band’s rehearsal space, Return To The Reptiles is a debut EP by THE RE-STONED. It includes four instrumental tracks of which “Run” and “Return” are the EP exclusives while “Mountain Giant” and “Sleeping World” appear on the band’s debut full-length in completely re-arranged and re-recorded versions. The disc (4 tracks - 17 min.) comes inside a hand-numbered silkscreen (a white or green over black cardboard) folder. There were 100 copies manufactured.
Read about: The Obelisk (USA).
A Foggy Realm / Twilight (2010) / F R E E - T O - D O W N L O A D (zip-file w/ artwork)
An accomplished composer and musician, Ilya Lipkin set up his A FOGGY REALM in the end of 2009 to explore the mysterious realms of ambient-and-drone electroacoustics played live with an electric guitar and a bunch of effect pedals. "Twilight" EP is a debut release by this project. Recorded in January 2010, it features five relatively short pieces consisting of thick multi-layered guitar ambiances ranging from the obscured psyched-out to the threat-suffused and doom-riffed. Strong and weirdly fascinating performance. (40+ mb - 5 tracks - 28 min.) A FOGGY REALM MyspaceMusic Page
Read about: Recent Music Heroes (Estonia), Free Albums Galore (USA).
Rushus / Nine (2008) / CD $11.00
The trio’s debut-set of nine tracks is a subtle, textured instrumental album that relies much on ambient music and improvisations. It unfolds slowly but logically, and displays a lot of inner heat with engaging and graceful guitar work, hypnotic and fluid synthesizer passes, shamanic djembe beat, and bass forging the bridge between rhythm and melody. Nine has a wonderful fluid meditative feel, and appeals to anyone interested in melodic improvisation and composition. Some tracks includes textures created by Jhonnie of KRATONG. The album was mixed and mastered by Alisa Coral of SPACE MIRRORS. Comes with artwork printed on various colored-papers (green, blue, red, yellow, etc.). (9 tracks - 68 min.)
PRESS CLIPS
"Searching for their own inner mounting flame they have opted for a glowing warmth and humaness in their sound, which sometimes evolves into a true burning fire. They never fall out of a basic melodiousness and their contrapoints and disharmonies never fall out of place. Whatever they do, they seem to have a certain plan and they follow it down... Currently I am fascinated by Rushus mainly because of their choice of percussion instruments, because Tkachev plays the congas. I haven’t heard a record where congas played an important role in a music that was progressive and forward bound in quite some time. Tkachev plays them like a half devil most of the time. Especially on the track 'sky horse' he makes the mentioned horses come alive by emulating a driving beat of a horse galopping in full force. A physical achievement in itself, it also sets an intriguing fundament for the screeching guitar sounds of Lipkin and the fleeting bass noises of Nikulin. Very important in this respect, to me at least, is to mention, that inspite of the congas they never once touch into the field that is generally described as ethno or world music... As any good prog-rock or fusion jazz band will, they want to show off as much of their music as possible, therefore they have filled this CD to the brim with 68 minutes of music. But the album stands its own time, does not get boring and if you let yourself fall into it, then you will welcome the evolvement of these nine lengthy as space to roam in freely." – by Georg Gartlgruber of Monochrom-Cracked (Austria) (March 2009).
"Nine is a richly layered and subtle foray that bends together elements of ambient, fusion, and world music with a slight nod towards the avant-garde. Tkachev's work on acoustic percussion and congas gives each of these nine compositions their warm organic feel as Lipkin weaves both his myriad of synthetic sounding space effects and carefully thought out, multi-textured solos. While Nikulin's bass work sounds distinctly absent from the first couple of numbers, his thick & meaty sound finally appears on 'View From Within' as he lays down a nice foundation for Lipkin's jazz tinged guitar work. Cohesiveness is the key word in describing Nine as each composition flows seamlessly into the next so the listener can revel in fully absorbing these trance inducing meditations from beginning to end. Nine comes across as completely natural and organic and Rushus have definitely delivered an impressive debut record, one that sees them already firmly in control of their musical vision. (Score: 4/5)" – by Ryan Sparks of Sea Of Tranquility (USA) (April 2009).
The album was also reviewed at: Sulatron (Austria), MADZ-zine (Russia), DisAgreement (Luxembourg), Progwereld (The Netherlands), Progressive Area (France), Rate Your Music (USA), DPRP (UK), Psychotropic Zone (Finland), MerlinProg (Norway).
Rushus / Stories (2008) / F R E E - T O - D O W N L O A D (zip-file w/ artwork) / CD-R $7.00
Performed by Ilya Lipkin (guitars), Evgeniy Tkachev (percussion) and Vladimir Nikulin (bass). Tracks 1, 2, 3 were recorded at the Rushus Studio by the band; mixed and mastered by Alisa Coral at the KZI Studios (Moscow, Autumn 2008). Tracks 4, 5 were recorded live at the Kostarev studios; mixed and mastered by Alexander Kostarev. "Stories" includes previously unpublished tracks. Original artwork by Ilya Lipkin. (48+ mb - 5 tracks - 26 min.). The album is also available as a pro-duplicated CD-R in slim-case w/ booklet.
Read about: FarFromMoscow (USA), Free Albums Galore (USA).
| Artist/Title | Media | Price |
| CD | $11.00 | |
| EP-CDR | $7.00 or free download | |
| EP-CDR | $8.00 | |
| EP-mp3 | free download | |
| CD | $11.00 |
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