February 2010: Album #4 "The Musical"

Liner notes from the 2010 album:

“The Dyatlov Pass Incident Demos”

An attempt to get down all of the melodies and songs for a two-hour musical based on the mysterious events known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident.

Act One

The stage is split similar to Cyprus – actually exactly like Cyprus with Kyrenia in the North and Limassol in the South – except that unlike Cyprus, this stage is a stage and is split down the middle. On stage left, Yuri Yudin sits at a pub drinking vodka; on stage right, the town of Vizhai and the Mountain of the Dead loom. Yuri tells the barkeep again about the day his friends and he left for the Dyatlov Pass. The action is simultaneous, the past literally playing out during Yuri’s recollection in jagged countermelody. The orchestra should be small and out of tune, sounding more cluttered than composed. The violins should creak more than comfort; the guitar stagger more than strum. Obviously, any timpani would be ideal.

Timpany not included on the “The Dyatlov Incident Demos.”

The Songs:

“Nine Friends”
Igor Dyatlov leaves his house and rounds up the characters for his hiking trip by telling them about an apocalyptic adventure full of danger and terror.

“Chocolate”
Lyudmila Dubinina is comforted and romanced by Alexander Zolotarev when they meet at the base of the Mountain of the Dead.

“One Foot Follows The Other”
A marching song livens the spirits of the group as the climb becomes difficult.

“Tell Me of Strong Men in Brooklyn”
Rustem Slobodin, now out of earshot of Vizhai, tries to rally anti-Soviet sentiment and entertains his comrades with ridiculous stories about how wondrous life is in New York City, USA.

“The Restaurant With No Name”
As a tangent of what it was like to leave his friends, Yuri tells of a girl that left him heartbroken. But like the girl, the melody of the song has been lost to time, and its performance packs no emotional value other than confusion.

“Angels”
As heavy snow falls and the campers prepare to sleep through the night, Igor sings his friends a lullaby.

“Snow Falls”
Angels, unholy things with tarry feathers and beak-like overbites, watch over the campers with black unfocused eyes and sing as the snow envelopes the tents and the stage fades to dark.

End of Act One

Act Two

Opens with Yuri still at the bar. The camper’s tents are already ripped open and destroyed, four bodies visible, frozen beneath a tree and others strewn around the theater, bodied and dead. As the act begins, Yuri is approached by Lev Ivanov, a short government agent with a suitcase stuffed full of files.

“The Bawdy Myth of Lev Ivanov”
Lev tells Yuri a crude joke, or reveals classified information about corrupt politics, in a misguided effort to cheer him up.

“Finding Bodies”
Lev reads details from when the bodies of Yuri’s friends were found. And Yuri imagines first the search party then his friends dying in slow motion, moving backward.

“Unknown Compelling Force”
Once they’re moved all the way backward, Yuri’s friends explode from their tents and die in real time, as if in front of his very eyes.

“Disappear”
Yuri laments that the worst thing about not knowing what happened to his friends is that he can’t blame it on anyone and wishes that he wasn’t around to try to figure it out for himself.

“One Foot Follows the Other” (reprise – Not included on the Dyatlov Incident Demos)
An old flame, hearing of the disaster finds Yuri and attempts to comfort him when asked how he’s been, he responds with the old marching song.

“Mountain Top”
Yuri sings about how time has passed him by and makes his decision to return to Dyatlov Pass to try to lose the ghosts of the past.

“Nine Friends” (reprise – Not included on the Dyatlov Incident Demos)
The monument is unveiled and the town of Vizhai sings about the place that all illicit adventures end.

“Ain’t Nothin'”
This song has no relationship with the plot at all. I apparently recorded it one night this month at 1:23 AM after drinking wine with friends.

The Dyatlov Pass Incidentals (not included in demo album)
Four instrumentals to be played during scene changes, as the director sees fit.