It’s not easy to find a good witch. In the old days, even the coals did not have time to cool down, as the venerable crowd dragged a fresh charmer, suspected of eating toad broth naked. The current “brides of the Devil” have been shredded, feminitives are used instead of spells, no less disgusting smoothies are used instead of fetid brew, and they create a sabbath without leaving their smartphone. And even the “groom” himself shuns them like incense, evil tongues say, hiding in the motley crowds of European parades so as not to be recognized.
Genuine witchcraft was and is being created in real art: Flannery O’Connor, after rereading Nikolai Vasilich Gogol, stood at the origins of the literary genre of “southern Gothic”, Joyce Carol Oates picked up the baton, and even more so in the music of witches: the most “black pearl” here, perhaps, is Billy Halliday, whose The songs are often filled with pain and midnight fears, as befits dark voodoo rituals. And these are some of the unique ingredients of the Vivita magic potion group. & The Sufferings (“Vivita and her Torments”), who lives in ancient Moscow, and on full moons in the ruins of Carcosa.
Alina “Vivita”, also a wonderful artist and a master of party dresses, weaves tapestries from her own poems on a canvas from her own music, accompanying herself on the banjo. The magic accomplices are: Konstantin Vasiliev – guitar (Charon’s paddle, equipped with strings); Roman Kovrikov – percussion (shamanic-infant rattles, bones, shards); Alexander Nocin – tuba (Jericho duda, replaces the bass).
The album “Seven Nails In The Coffin/Seven Nails in the Coffin” was released by Castle Of Dreams (COD) label on Samhain 2020, the macabre cover was made for the first time not by Alina, but by the equally remarkable artist Ivan Bobkov. There are mystically few songs on the record – seven, but in some social networks they are complemented by the six of the first mini-album “A Hex / Charms“, making up a sepulchral charming diptych and at the same time the number “13”, in this form we will use them this starless night.
Opening – Navka’s lonely voice, carried from the top of Bald Mountain by the chilly October wind. The crashing guitar overdub carries the smells of decay and despair. Where the earthly path ends for others, everything is just beginning for these guys. Dragging like a dead train crawling along abandoned rails, Dead Man really resembles Neil Young’s exercises for Jarmusch’s comedy of the same name. The trump card is the voice.
Romance balances harmony and arrangement on the edge of a gloomy cabaret and a Slavic lullaby. At a funeral, she will confuse any deceased person: whether to completely forget, or get up and waltz for the last time. Black-Winged is beautiful with an insinuating medieval look. The polyphony and leisurely pacing rhythm evoke images of a procession in the brain. The girls are being led. Under the crown, under the monastery, at the stake?..
The Ballad Of Accounting is broken down as much as the dark country style allows. The tuba is truly elephant-like, the vocals are childishly spontaneous. This is how the accountant of the Tombstone town bank can have fun, not yet suspecting that the Dalton gang chose this particular bank for today’s raid. “Romance” is the same “Romance” that was the third one from the beginning, only now in Russian. The ultimate Gogolism.
The End is a playfully laconic, goofy cowboy surf instrumental, the Daltons leave Tombstone tipsy and at the checkout.
A Hex is a touching folk song with a chorus of crickets, a gentle banjo and other nocturnal creatures. Pious Puritans do not sing in the woods at night. Dave “Diddley” Day’s Blue Moon Baby is known to aspiring grave diggers as performed by The Cramps. The arrangement of Vivita and Torment is more original and graveyardly tender.
I Know And Believe is a subtle ballad with the obligatory banjo and a part-time organ.Skyline is a road country, the same alternative as the 16 Horsepower, but the degree of hopelessness is lower.
Stormy Day is suitable for a trip across the Great Plains, where hurricanes steal houses and girls. Zebulon Whatley from the Texas gothic-country band Sons Of Perdition has the main vocals this time, echoed by Alina. An instrument called kazoo is playing solo, and something from Edgar Poe about the buried alive comes to mind – if each deceased person had a kazoo, perhaps such a theme for stories and fears would not have happened. Well, the situation in the churchyards of that time would have become much more lively …
The Swallow is once again a duet with Zebulon, a tragic waltz about swallows, bones and a damp earth. The ending is in the spirit of the unforgettable Alexander Vertinsky, a Russian Soviet gothic-country chansonnier.
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Chthonic agrarians, occult rural workers, urban libertarians and shoggots! A fair of witchcraft in your portable telecommunicators! Sound film from Vivita Minstrels & The Sufferings, lift my eyelids!
To summarize, it is worth noting that, with all the diversity of dark, alt, gothic, and other country-folk devilry, Vivita & The Sufferings is a truly distinctive phenomenon with excellent compositional and arranging solutions that are not obvious, but reveal themselves with each new listening. And it’s very good that it’s not Salem outside, the year is 1692 A.D. The candle has guttered down, taking the shape of a mushroom from Yuggoth, time for sweet nightmares, Moon Dogs …
