Alyans

Alyans

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Posted on September 26, 2020 by Blake Leath

Filed under “News You Didn’t Know You Needed,” Alyans (“Alliance”) is far and away Dawn’s and my favorite Soviet synth-pop band of all time 🙂.
Their performance at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology brought the house down.
Let’s give it up for Igor Zhuravlev (vocals, guitar), Oleg Parastaev (keys), Andrey Tumanov (bass), and Konstantin Gavrilov (keys, programming).
Here are the lyrics to their biggest hit, “На заре,” written by Oleg (the big, chill, unassuming dude with super-cool specs):
Ровный бег
Моей судьбы
Ночь, печаль
И блеск души
Лунный свет
И майский дождь
В небесах
Долгий век
Моей звезды
Сонный блеск
Земной росы
Громкий смех
И райский мёд
В небесах
На заре
Голоса зовут меня
На заре
Голоса зовут меня
Солнца свет
И сердца звук
Робкий взгляд
И сила рук
Звёздный час
Моей мечты
В небесах
Oh, “At Dawn” in English:
Solemn pace of my long haul
Night and grief of my tired soul
Moonlight gleam and twilight call
In the skies
My star dies and burns anew
Weary gloss of earthen dew
Children’s laugh and heaven’s pew
In the skies
At the dawn
Voices are calling me
At the dawn
Voices are calling me
The sun it shines, the heart it beats
The glance it’s shy, the hand it greets
It’s the time to send my dreams
In the skies
At the dawn
Voices are calling me
At the dawn
Voices are calling me
At the dawn
Voices are calling me
At the dawn
Skies are calling me
At the dawn
Pretty great, right?
Add’l band miscellany:
An original 1987 video:
Another from ‘87, featuring “Sleepy Igor”:
2019, Igor hits the studio solo:
A sad footnote to report...
6/20/2020, 8:09:19 AM
Source: Teller Report
The author of the hit "At Dawn," Oleg Parastaev, has passed away:
“Russian musician and composer Oleg Parastaev (1958-2020) has died. He is best known as the former keyboardist of the Alliance band and the author of the song Dawn. Russian performers repeatedly made covers of this hit, which in 2019 again found itself in the wake of popularity after the publication of the original video filmed in 1987 on the network.”
And as reported by Andrei Martyanov, Sunday, June 21, 2020:
“It Is Really A Heartbreak...
USSR, 1987 Alliance band and Oleg Parastaev's Magnum Opus At the Dawn (Na Zare). Oleg died yesterday at 61. He simply collapsed in a front of his wife at his dacha in the morning. ‘At the dawn voices call me...’ Oleg became a global meme of the guy who traveled from the 31st (or was it 34th?) Century back to 1987 USSR to play one of the most haunting songs in synth-pop.... He is back to 31st Century. RIP, cool 31st Century Man..... Look at people's faces in the studio—no earthly civilization.”
One of Oleg’s final interviews:
Pretty in-depth (if poorly translated) interview with Alliance lead singer Igor Zhuravlev following Oleg’s death:
And finally, as one observer writes (summarizing it all far better than I ever could):
“The vocalist is fantastic, the guy with the mustache steers, and the kid behind the Yamaha looks like he is passionate about Depeche Mode. A keyboard player with a mustache and sunglasses is the coolest guy on the planet.”
Rock on!
Long live Alyans.