Zemfira just released her first album after a sabbatical 8-year long silence. The album is a revelation, and, to me, it comes out as a heart-breaking acknowledgement that an artist can only write genuine masterpieces while in pain or after having gone through bottomless sadness.

One might argue that happiness can inspire hits, compelling and commercial products for today’s generation only. To put it in simple words – happiness is something that any talent can build on. The genius, though, is beyond the borderline, somewhere beyond agony. It’s where poems like the ones Zemfira wrote for this album are born. It’s what is created for the future to inherit from us.

I reckon mixed feelings overwhelm the space the first time anyone listens to this long overdue release. There is a daunting sense of death being imminent in almost any of the 12 songs. There is also compassion and empathy for any person who ever lived through that much sorrow. Last but not least, there are encrypted messages – to some extent, political – conveyed via different vocal techniques, combined with electric instruments, acoustics, live percussions and electronic twists.

I believe it is easier to listen to the album for the second time. Once magic is accepted and wholeheartedly admitted, there is nothing left, but the liberation, most of the times, in form of tears. 2020 gave us enough food for thought. Zemfira’s new album is just adding up to that, topping the philosophical context with questions we are supposed to think about in the new normal.

See, the ripples

In the waters

These are signs

Come on

This is us

Everywhere

In a million of stitched wounds

It’s not hell

Nor is it really heaven

Come on

Here I am on the edge

Next, there’re just the stars and oceans

Come on

I’m facing the stars and oceans

Facing the stars and oceans…

I tried to translate several lines into English making sure they match the music rhythm and the original Russian lines length.

The most beautiful track of the album, in my humble opinion, is The Coat. This song is so personal and so autobiographical. This song most definitely happened to Zemfira as it happened to me too and as it happened to anyone who ever lost someone dear.

Today’s the perfect day

To go to the riverbank

While walking, hand in hand

Climb up to the bridge

And read some poems there

Even if they are not that good

I’ll smile at you

Quite charmingly

And you will wistfully

Be looking at me

As I will be leaving, I will be leaving, will be leaving.

It’s amazing how artists can find ways to be vocal, regardless of the countries they are in. The Noise of Times about the life of Shostakovich came to my mind when listening to Zemfira’s song where the Crimean cities area code for landlines was cited.

I’m not going to stay with you

Not even in your craziest dreams

Even if out of the blue

No one would be around but you

Even reaching the bottom line

Even losing the count of time!

There is nothing you really miss…

You’re a good friend

Just because my number is 36

And because there are so many people around

So many people are around

So many friends are around…

Not only the dialogue between the two geopolitical entities is a superb literature finding and an encrypted message from the artist. The way she plays with the word Abuse in another song, repeating it and uniting it in a loop up until the string illusion makes a new word, a jargon, is such an exquisite protest against swearing being made illegal in Zemfira’s home country – a country in which domestic violence is not a criminal act.

The album is bumpy, difficult, painful, but, at the same time, it’s a healing relief in an attempt to answer some open questions. It might come from a fortunate combination of tunes and images that equals to a mystic end result. It’s not a secret Zemfira is beautifully mastering this kind of magic.

The previous albums of the artist were poetry. This recent one is philosophy. There is a widely accepted view that Zemfira is a Russian rock icon, a musician, a songwriter. As far as I am concerned, Zemfira is a poet, a philosopher, a genius. And I so very much hope she can stay with us a little longer and, eight years from now, she can introduce a new, yet more glorious masterpiece, to the world.

Up until then, listen to the new album by Земфира HERE