L'ASCENSIONE

Did you ever happen to listen disc, which makes to remember King Crimson, Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, Gentle Giant, Rush, Russian folklore and Russian sacred music, contemporary avantgarde (from Olivier Messiaen to Sofiya Gubaydulina), something from Soviet "prog" soundtracks for films (including animated ones) and Soviet prog-rock bands, but, nevertheless, is unlike all the above? It is such music which is rare and fascinating, fragile by its nature, but extremely influential on attentive, erudite and open-minded listener that is represented by musicians from Saint-Petersburg on "L'Ascensione". Appallingly figurative, beautiful and melodic art-progressive- avantgarde-space-rock by Roz Vitalis is so visual that have provoked associations with would-be documentary film as if shooting in the Russian Museum (which is one of the main museums of Saint-Petersburg and Russia in general). Camera suddenly moves from brightly painted futuristic avantgarde kaleidoscope to as if shining canvas by Nesterov, from them to the universal mysteries by Roerich, and, finally, to the icons by Rublyov, madness by Vrubel, and at once to the epoch of palace revolutions - time of courteous and cynical conventionalities, devilish collage of refinement, enlightenment and mannered trample of the all sacred. and once again to the twentieth century, which is industrial and rusted throughout. The central motive of all excursion are the icons as a symbol of conscience and repentance. We come back to them in the end. "L'Ascensione" is, perhaps, the most Russian in itself album by Roz Vitalis (in spite of the fact that afterwards the band turned more evidently to folklore). In this album all history of Russia is as though an archive including everything from ancient manuscripts to contemporary films. In the first place it is history of the Russian spirituality, which since the Time of Troubles tries to get on with Western values, the Russian revolt with its senseless ruthlessness to the all (and most of all to the authors of itself), and, finally, the profound repentance, return to God. After all, I would like to say that, possibly, there are reasons for blaming the band (practically one-man-project by Ivan Rozmainsky who if he would live in France, Belgium or Switzerland, would be able easily to drive own project to the level of Art Zoyd and Univers Zero in a sense of both recording quality and acknowledgement) for "small- budget electronicity" of sound, lack of live instruments, but, after letting of "Ascension" into heart, I am under charms of true, sensitive, profound, "non-fictitious" art, which is experienced and heartfelt. Figurativeness and openness, complete absence of vanity of vanities of the moment, that is too much customary for the most contemporary bands of all styles and kinds, makes this marvelous, lofty and sublime music perfectly disarming.

Roz Vitalis is the creative vehicle of Russian composer Ivan Rozmainsky, hailing from Saint Petersburg.He named his project after the latin express Ros Vitalis (''Living dew''), intentionally remaking it to Roz Vitalis after his surname.The project started in 2001 with the first few demos being one-man attempts, before a first CDR appears under the title ''L'ascensione'' in 2002.Here Rozmainsky collaborates with female keyboardist Nadezhda Regentova, male keyboardist Vladimir Polyakov with Vassily Raskov and Ekaterina Sophronova helping with vocal parts in a couple of tracks.

While compositionally the album shows a potential and a mood for creating innovative and challenging music, the recording process and quality prevent the listener from actually enjoying it.''L'ascensione'' is entirely built on keyboards, pianos and synthesizers, having evident Classical Music, Avant-Garde and Soundtrack influences, that produce a cinematic, haunting and impressive atmosphere, filled with dissonance and grandieur.However the drum programming and sound effects really sound childish and annoying, like created by a computer of the lowest technology.The abscence of any kind of melody does not help either, but on the other hand the music remains constantly atmospheric all the way with marching symphonic moments followed by minimalistic soundscapes.The vocals fit well with the album's atmosphere, delivered in a very dark way, either in wordless or simply singing parts.Still the length of the album combined with the lack of musical diversity make the listening one-dimensional and, as a result, quite monotonous.

''L'ascensione'' shouldn't be regarded as a great first step into the music bussiness for Roz Vitalis due to the low quality of the recording and the less than flexible style.Consider it as a work by an artist with potential and maybe you have a shot to enjoy it, especially if you are really into dark, Horror-like music.

I've been visiting their concerts for two years already and finally I'm able to listen to their early albums. I prepared for something awful since I knew the drums were programmed here. Well, they do sound programmed, less lively, but they are complex enough and provide enough drive when needed. I can even say that's the best drum programming I heard.

This is mostly a keyboards + drums work. The obvious highlights are the first lengthy part of "Repentance" which has enough might and drive to blow people away just like they can do at concerts, and main keyboard solos in "The unpurified substance of a soul" and "Ascension dream" which reward close attention with colorful mood. But there are some downsides here. Not enough instruments, may and will sound monotonous. The longer tracks, neither impresses me as a whole, probably because neither is "whole" enough. Heavy-to-mellow transitions are abrupt, mellow-to-heavy - can't remember any. Mellow parts sometimes develop with too subtle changes to keep me focused, i.e. the second part of "Repentance".

It would be very interesting to see this rerecorded or played live with their current rockier lineup though.

Ah, the beginning. A place where artists are naked and idealistic. They are willing to go anywhere they want and do exactly what they want. Well, independent artists, of course. Exactly is the case of ROZ VITALIS on the debut L'ASCENSIONE (Italian for 'The Ascension'). This is a concept album about spiritual ascension and an early glimpse of a love of Italian album titles! There are many Biblical themes such as track 2, "From Heaven And Earth from St Mark 9: 5-18 that tells the story of Jesus and his disciples after transfiguration and wends and winds its way to complete "Repetence" at the end. Personally i find this interesting music but lose the concept as it is almost entirely instrumental and has a clearly all-over-the-friggin-map type of approach of symphonic leaning prog that is simultaneously brilliant and a little lackluster. The band has come a long way since then but it began as the whim of main musical man Ivan Rozmainsky. He's even got 'main' in his name!!! Well, maybe not in the native Cyrillic alphabet.

If you like keyboards then this is keyboard heaven. This is a nascent album bringing ideas to fruition through the technology and means of the time and place. I would place this release more into a progressive electronic category than anything else. It sounds like it was totally recorded on synthesizers and according to the info about it, it was, so just don't expect a slick mature product resembling albums like "Lavoro D'Amore" on board. This is the primeval ooze of an artist's beginnings where things are messy, passionate and uncompromising. L'ASCENSIONE is just that. It may be very amateur in many ways but it definitely displays an artist and his passion to bring his musical ideas into the world.

The music at this stage is quite experimental. Although this is primarily an instrumental album, there are strange vocal accompaniments, weird synthetic sound parades and lots of outbursts of progressive elements such as time sigs gone wild and a dark ambient type of atmosphere that persist throughout the entire album. If you think it sounds homemade that is because it is. This St. Petersburg musical entity has managed to put its ideas into musical form and created an interesting collage of ideas and find themselves venturing all over the place. The one constant is that it has a classically induced melodic influence and lots of synthesized timbres and tones to interrupt any pre-conceived expectations.

Although this may only appeal to fans of the band (of which i am one) there are many cool things going on even on this debut that will hook and reel the listener into the ROZ VITALIS fan club. Despite the instrumentation on board being on a limited budget, the production is excellent. The main downfall is simply the lack of timbres and sounds on board as well as album flow of ideas and how to manage them. As a disparate flow of nascent origins, however, this is rather interesting for progressive listeners. It has a crapload of classical meanderings with electronic experimental procedures. Unfortunately there is really no rock here at all. This is simply ideas executed on synthesizers but those ideas are quite interesting if you have the ability to discern the offerings. Not as brilliant as later releases but a wonderful debut and output of idiosyncrasies.

I don't know where the passion for Italian titles is from. "L'Ascensione" (the Ascension) is the debut album of Ivan Rozmainsky's creature "Roz VITALIS". Listening to the band's more recent output many wonder about why they are placed into the RIO/Avant subgenre. I wasn't around when the band was debated and added, but this album is very experimental even if not too far from the soundscapes of King Crimson and Gentle Giant. The first track changes mood several times and the russian sung final reminding of a horthodox mass with a Vangelis like background belongs to the genre.

Many people thinks that Avant rock is made of free jazzy improvisations, noise and unpredictable sequences of notes and chords. Well, it's also this, but this is not the case of Roz Vitalis, whose tracks have a well defined structure and don't leave much room to improvisations. "From Heaven Th Earth" is an organ base with a classical mood counterbalanced by a drone percussion riff. Very unusual. Later the organ fades out leaving it to electronics and percussion. more or less in the half of the 11 minutes of this track, there are some passages when the percussion stop for a while leaving harpsichord and xylophone the duty of the base. Signature changes, dissonances, electronic noises don't destroy the various melodies in the background. I think it can be called a Crimsonian track with the structure of a nightmare: starting from a quite regular piece of music and ending into a very dark ambience.

"The Unpurified Substance Of A Soul" starts not too differently. It's a good follower of the previous one, but turns immediately into a Gentle Giant like track. The style of percusssion programming is similar to that often done by Senmuth. Also this track has very dark moments. It closes with a short part of organ and Nadezhda Regentova's vocals.

"Through a spiral...." is again a dark mixture of drone percussion and keyboards, but I hear a classical music influence. Debussy comes to mind.

The mood doesn't change much with "Dreamy Memories" A strange section of vocals and "doohs" can be called contemprary classical in the vein of Giorgy Ligeti. I think it's similar to the instrumental things of Nichelodeon.

The longest track "Ascension Dream" is more melodic. It's a hint of the future tendencies of the band which will later abandon the experimental side and will concentrate more on the melodies. With the many changes and the strange "mass like" vocals it's like watching a movie or reading a book. You don't know what will follow but it's everything very consistent. The melodic piano base comes and go throughout the whole track. Desscribing it further is useless, also because it changes a lot of times. It has to be listened to, and it's a good listen.

A short interlude of one minute and half full of bells leads to the last track: "L'Ascensione 2". As often in the prog world, the last track closes the circle with the first, so it's church organ again, but it's more dreamy and a bit psychedelic, too. This is an album that requires headphones and the right environment and mood. An excellent debut by a band which has released and still releases a huge quantity of material, and honestly I haven't listened to their whole output, but up to now I haven't found anything bad.

Mainly (this album) for who likes Gentle Giant and King Crimson.

This is not the latest release from one of my favourite Russian bands, Roz Vitalis, but is actually their debut from all the way back in 2002. I think it was their fifth album where I first became aware of them, and although I have gone back to one of the earlier ones since then, this is the first time I have come across this one. Unlike the later albums where it is a proper band, this has much more of a solo feeling about it, and I was somewhat surprised to see that Ivan Rozmainsky (keyboards, programming, soprano recorder) actually brought in two other keyboard players in Nadezhda Regentova and Vladimir Polyakov while there are also some vocals here and there.

Here we have a musician who has been influenced not only by the keyboard players from the past, but from classical as well. He has then brought that together in this album where keyboards (including a nice harpsichord sound) are by far the dominant sound. Being more than 20 years old, one of the major issues is the lack of a real drummer and the sounds being deployed to fill that hole, while some of the keyboards themselves have sounds being deployed which lack real depth. In many ways it sounds like it is, an album where the artist is starting to find his way, and I know that if I had not seen the cover I would not have said it was Ivan, as since this release he has grown hugely as a composer and musician. This is an album I have enjoyed, but it does feel pretty much on one level and there is little to demonstrate what he would be delivering in the future. Mind you, the same is true for many bands, and if I compare Big Big Train's debut to their more recent works then again one would not imagine it was the same outfit. Consequently, this is one I have enjoyed playing and hearing, but not one to which I will be often returning.