I by Ноздри

"Ноздри" possess the energy and spontaneity that our punk scene has long lost by going too deep into "Russian rock" hole. They do not sweat over the arrangements and the sound, but they do not stamp albums by a proven commercial cliche. "Ноздри" belong to the category of musicians who think that music is fun. In each composition the enthusiasm is felt. It is this music that I want to call a real rock and roll - an uncompromising, albeit primitive sound, plus a lot of drive. Listening to "Ноздри" you want, like during childhood, jump on the skateboard and go around the neighborhood, stumbling over curbs. Or drive around in a car at full speed and smash mail boxes with a baseball bat! There is very little music like this left, especially in our country. Do not miss." - Rovesnik magazine.

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This record consists of songs I wrote when I was around 16-17, in my first year of university, where I was an outcast due to my young age and background. I would skip lectures, walk around the dirty, ugly city of Zhytomyr with headphones on, listening mostly to Fugazi, 5'nizza, Matisyahu and the "Into The Wild" soundtrack.

I had an idea to write punk songs that would speak about the hypocrisy of the ex-USSR punk scene (i.e people praising the nonconformity and progressive aspects of punk while blindly trying to recreate the US scene circa early 80s somewhere in Russia, instead of doing something new). Obviously, writing those songs in English would be in dissonance to the overall idea, so I started writing them in Russian, something that at the time was rare.

Ноздри started in January of 2010, when I approached my childhood friend, Pasha, to play together. Recently, the first rehearsal space to ever exist in the small town of Ozerne, where we lived, have opened. It was situated in a garage and was owned by Kolya, the bass player of my father's band, The Биты (I also played bass in The Биты In 2008, but had quit the band after a falling out with my father; Kolya joined them soon after). We didn't have to pay a lot for the rehearsals, but there was a small problem - we didn't have a drummer.
Sergey Suhanjuk was a kid from my and Pasha's neighborhood, much younger then us (he was 15 while we where 17 and 19). He also was, according to rumors, a nazi skinhead. After confronting Sergey about his views (he turned out to be ok - he just hung around with bad people because he basically had nothing else to do, which was typical for small town Ukraine back then - we didn't even have Internet connection at the time), we started playing together. The first song that we learned was "Holiday Song' by the Pixies. The original Ноздри lineup can be heard on ''Мосты'', which we recorded on the day of my 18th birthday a month after our first rehearsal.

After trying to record us multiple times using the equipment that we had, I was so dissatisfied with the results and the lack of control that I decided to record the first album alone, with the help of a DAW and some pirated plugins. I didn't know anything about recording and could not look up things online, so the process of producing this first record (and quite a few after that) was an experimental, hit and miss, but extremely joyous, process. When the time came to record vocals (the only thing that could not be done in my apartment), we all gathered in the garage and Pasha and Segey sung on some songs. All vocals were recorded in a single afternoon.

Ноздри broke up two times during the making of this record - the first time only temporarily; after the second break-up we started The Partyvans, and, sometime after, Phooey!

p.s. This is an abridged version of the album. The original is 18 tracks long, with a lot of experimental bullshit that is a slog to get through. In case you're interested in hearing it though, feel free to check it out here:
https://nostrils.bandcamp.com/album/i
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Tracklist

1.	Чужой танец	2:52

2.	Сегодня день	2:03

3.	Мосты	3:27

4.	Меньше, чем 15	3:11

5.	Равенства не будет	2:27

6.	Как победить депрессию, шаг II	2:26

7.	Кока-кола	2:06

8.	Посмотри правде в глаза	2:23

9.	40	2:06

10.	Лючио	1:37

11.	Такой, какая ты есть	2:45

12.	Мне не хватает слов	1:34

13.	Нет таких планет	2:02

14.	Подальше от огня	3:45

Credits

released September 11, 2011

artwork taken from Sun Liang's painting

written, performed and produced by Nikita Ogurtsov, except:
Sergey Suhanjuk - drums on track 3, backing vocals all over the album
Pavel Zaychenko - bass on track 3, backing vocals all over the album
Vanya Avramenko - acoustic guitar on track 3

License

CC BY-NC 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.