At first I thought of starting my report on the main Russian industrial festival with something poetic like that: "Young, handsome and aggressive - three of us - emerged out of the abysmal darkness of St. Petersburg night and street lights played in the silver buttons of our tunics. Since we stepped into Poltavskaya Street we could see a crowd of people at Red Club and…" Then I decided it to be a waste of time to dwell too much on introductions, as far as I was only one to wear a tunic and poetic style would go better for a conclusion. Now let us get down to our direct task and start from the very beginning.

Act i
Nick Soudnick and Alexander Lebedev-Frontov, patriarchs of Russian sound-making industry, in a nutshell, 'Vetrophonia' project, made the first appearance on the stage of Red Club. In a deliberate manner the musicians took their seats face to face, crowded with hand-made noise-producing constructions - various springs stretched over some metal frame, lists of metal with attached microphones and extravagant hybrid of grinding machine and record-player. Hardly a minute later the audience was being showered with a complicated 'multistructured' noise. Soudnick and Lebedev-Frontov, these gloomy gods of industrial euphoria, faithful knights of triumphant proletariat, swish noise into huge clashing cuts with their sure hand. The scorching noise avalanche brilliantly corresponds with the video background - the best one at the festival. The cult of labour which is "the main mechanism to come over the obstinate substance", according to Frontov, was reproduced on the screen most convincingly. Accompanied by the rhythmic noise of working machines the soot-faced Soviet Ubermenschen create their brave new world out of fire and iron. The performance by 'Vetrophonia' may be viewed as an acoustic sculpture of some Great Project designed to come over weak and mortal human nature through hardships of labour. Highly appreciated.

Act ii
'Stahlwerk 9' should have been the second turn on the program, however at the last moment it was replaced by the Austrian project 'Painslut'. Its leader and by the way its only member produced rather a curious impression. Rose-cheeked, somewhat plump burger, a long string of hair over his forehead, a spade-shaped beard, he wore a silver ring in his nose, glasses, military trousers and a khaki shirt. During the performance he seemed deeply absorbed in turning numerous knobs of the mixer totally oblivious to what was going on behind him on the screen: nude girls, with their arms tied, walking among black-white trees as if promising a heathen orgy and, naturally, BDSM-style performance. The air vibrated with harsh ascetic power-electronics, the author of the sound writhed in ecstatic convulsions, without much legitimate reason for ecstasy.
No orgy was ever shown.

Act iii
Painslut was succeeded by the duet 'Bearer of the Inmost Sun' - the dark horse of the festival. The performance is said to have been their second one. The team in white with drumsticks in hands played half-hour of rather nice military industrial. The only live sounds were the voice and drumsticks. It was something between Der Blutharsh and Blood Axis. The music was nicely calculated to melt harsh masculine hearts, tired in twilight of Kali Yuga. The singer was even impressive with his dark motionless eyes, tensed bird-like face and soft accurate gestures. Some technical flows however a bit spoiled the general impression, still the project deserves very attentive looks.

Act iv
Now it was turn for 'Legion Kondor/Rasthof Dahau'. The already-known nose-pierced fellow reappeared on the stage accompanied by a personality of exemplary Nordic appearance. The two of them with prize-worth assiduity started loading the ears of their audience with driving power-electronics performed in the best tradition of 'Anenezephalia' and 'Ex.Order'. The video comprised some disorderly-packed cuts of war chronicles, hot-spot reports and catastrophes. The two Austrians tore their microphones with cruel high-pitched proclamations, undoubtedly aimed against humanity. The rough sound of low frequency intensified the already apocalyptic atmosphere. Two much tension, however. Boyd Rice could be less wordy, still not less expressive in a similar case: "Do you want total war? Yes, you want total war!". Impressive.

Act v
The headliner of the festival, 'Allerseelen', were bold enough to use minus phonogram, one could enjoy only live drums and the singing of Adam Kadmon. He turned out to be a middle-height man of Mediterranean appearance with bright charismatic eyes. Black shirt and military trousers: who do we have to do with - Mussolini or Celentano? The melodic hypnotically monotonous composition by 'Allerseelen' was accentuated with sharp drums. Kadmon read his texts with his eyes looking somewhere above our heads. The music played tricks with us: the more you listened to it, the more involved you got into its joyful flapping energy. In comparison with the exaggerated cruelty of 'Legion Kondor/Rasthof Dahau'the apocalyptic-chanson by Kadmon had a most positive effect. However positive and remedial the effect might be, we expected more refinement and imagination.

All in all the fourth Heilige Feuer left a taste of some "slow-go-down". The controversial list of participants may be one of the reasons as well as the means some of the participants use to achieve their dubious musical aims. However the event which took place in SPb in the night in October, 19th was important for those who have eager hearts.

...
"We left the club and silence covered us with its heavy deafening breast. The sky cleared up and breathed with frosty hollowness. The mute stars bleaked in the remote space but their poor light sparkled as holy fire in our eyes.

And that was the story.

Text & translation : Asterius IN
Photos : Coroner

You will find the original report in Russian on the industrialmusic.ru site.
You will find more photos on the gothic.ru site.