It was not easy to walk the path from the beginning to this day. And what should be considered this beginning? The desire to compose a new one in 2022? Or maybe it all started while I was writing soundtracks? Or even earlier – at the age of 16, among the first attempts to learn how to play the guitar and compose music? All this undoubtedly influenced Apostasy, but it is not the beginning.
I think the origins are not in the usual time and space. Not in “our” world, in which I feel like a stranger almost from birth, and which has never become my home, but only a refuge, a stop.
The search goes much further.
I would say that Apostasy, which is how the album title translates, came here like an echo from the deep shimmering abyss that weaved both me and my work.
The meaning and the beginning of Apostasy's music will be revealed more fully on the pages of the book that I am writing at the moment. In it, I will tell a story full of mysticism and mysteries that turned the lives of the main characters upside down, and maybe it will affect yours. The novel is written in about 2/3 and is nearing completion. The music directly intersects with the narrative, and by the will of Lokin, it is the first to appear in our world in the form of the 6th full-length album Ships Fly Up.
Below are my brief comments about each track:
1. Lokin
Lokin is someone who comes from the other side of reality. I first learned about him on the pages of my own book. The composition is permeated with mysticism and the otherworldly, which are the constant companions of my life. I made the first sketches back in 2022.
2. The Black Sun
Its poisonous shadow can become a refuge only for a select few. There is a lot of electronics in the composition, and one of the synthesizer melodies reminds me of the echo of a dying world. In the final version, I left the first chorus without rhythm guitars, so as not to forget my roots.
3. Apostate
When the sound engineer found out the name of the composition, he asked me: “Apostate from what?”. And I answered him without hesitation: “From the imposed destructive canons hidden under the guise of benefit.” I consider the guitar melodies from this composition to be one of the strongest in my work.
4. In the Woods
True magic lives under the bosom of the dark crowns. A rare composition where electronics sounds only in the final part is a fundamental move that emphasizes the originality of guitar motifs.
5. The Doomed City
The sounds of the damned and the rejected come through the old radio. The title echoes the Strugatsky brothers' book of the same name but the composition is still about something else.
It evokes thoughts of death and life at the same time.
6. Only Lovers Left
Others are not destined to contemplate the greatness of the collapsed world. A composition with notes of vampirism and gothic decor. The dynamic part shows that I'm also in love with metal.
7. The Shining Night
Its brilliance is akin to a diamond lying under the moonlight on the tombstone of eternity. I hid this song from the person who helped me by tirelessly listening to all the tracks many times from the moment they were created to being sent for release. He listened to all the tracks except this one. I wanted to give him a gift – the opportunity to hear "The Shining Night" for the first time on the shining night of the release of "Apostasy".
8. The Rain Began to Fall Again
Its scalding drops fall and fall endlessly. I usually don't like rain but in this composition it pours so sincerely and deeply that I have no choice but to stand under it with my arms outstretched and drink in the sacred waters of the collapsed heavens.
The melody on the piano came to me like a revelation and I played it and played it while the rain washed away all the sorrows of the dark heart.
9. Dawn of Sunset
It's the Beginning of the End. And a new world will be reborn from the ashes. In my entire life, until the moment of writing these lines, this is the most difficult composition to implement. Sleepless nights with short breaks followed one another. After months of work, and at the last moment, I canceled the release of this single, following an inner call.
At some point, I began to suspect that it was cursed and wanted to kill me. Then there were suspicions that the sound engineer would kill me from the number of corrections. However, he showed noble restraint, and the "Dawn of Sunset" took its place of honor in "Apostasy", bringing the listener to the Inevitable.
10. Fatum
The inevitability. The Wheel of Fortune. The darkness simultaneously thickens and opens up before Him. He is the darkness. It's the soundtrack to the events described on the torn pages of an old book. I want to believe that one day I will find them and find out His answer to the Apostate's question.
Music composed by Egor Fedotov
Mixing & Mastering by Maxim Larikov
Apostasy
Album, 2024/05/31
Single, 2024/04/26
"Apostate" is a single included in the album "Apostasy"
Single, 2024/03/29
"Only Lovers Left" is a single included in the album "Apostasy"
Only Lovers Left
Single, 2023/12/22
"Dawn of Sunset" is a single included in the album "Apostasy"
Dawn of Sunset
Maxi-Single, 2023/04/18
Genesis
In the maxi-single "Genesis" you can hear two remixes of "Catch the Moment" and "Los Oceangeles". I didn't choose these tracks by chance for my experiment, in a sense. I wanted to create something out of the usual compositions that they seemed to gravitate towards themselves.
Synthwave has become the main genre, however, as those who have been familiar with Ships Fly Up for several days probably know, I rarely limit myself to one direction. I like to enrich rock with electronics - it gives it a special charm, in my opinion. And often I add a kind of "trailer" or "soundtrack". Probably, it affects the fact that in many ways my formation as a composer was influenced by the activity of writing music for games, which I sometimes still do, although noticeably less often.
In Genesis, I left the main motifs of the tracks and instead of the "usual" rock arrangement, I added noticeably more synthetic instruments, including electronic drums. All this helped to create an atmosphere of cyberpunk, and perhaps the distant future, in my opinion. At the same time, it is not devoid of mysticism and an "alarmingly determined mood," as one of the respected listeners on YouTube noted. I think he hit the nail on the head. It turned out to be a kind of dark synthwave with a touch of epicness and cyberpunk. Anyway, in any case, behind this music is exactly what I wanted to convey to you with the help of all these composer's "bells and whistles". I hope I succeeded.
There are a few oddities. On April 18, the day of the release of Genesis, I turned on the sequel to Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu audiobook, which I stopped at, namely the third chapter of Madness from the Depths of the Sea. By a strange coincidence, it turned out that it mentioned an article from the Sydney Herald newspaper dated April 18, 1925. It is also known from the book that when the Great Cthulhu awoke, some figures of various arts unknowingly began to create strange and sometimes terrifying works - this was a kind of harbinger. I think the compositions from the single could convey the disturbing atmosphere of the book at some points, but I hope that I did not reflect the genesis of the Great Ancients in them, and all this is just a coincidence.
Album, 2022/10/07
Rivers Without Time is a new old album from the past. Like everyone else, he was born somewhere far away from here, very far away. And I've been looking for this place all my life. The journey to Radukan continues. On the way, I met someone who literally makes his dreams come true, and he told me that I could do the same, and I, in turn, told you about it. Then a Ghostly Kingdom opened up in front of my eyes.
The one who is dear to me remained in it, but the road does not stop there, and after leaving this gloomy place, the Great Ocean showed me two main things - Love and Freedom, and so that I would not forget about them, he introduced me to another wanderer who, through cosmic interference, still managed to manifest himself in my reality. And we realized that we were actually trying to get home by deciphering 14 clues. And the rivers that have been flowing for ages and carry Sacred Waters have become a part of them. Rivers without time.
"Flying over planet 14, they saw its greatness and, hoping that this was the same House, dived into its mystical expanses..."
Single, 2022/04/22
14
Ships fly up. But what's up there? After all, where are they going? I think I've learned one of the directions. Ships fly home.
Single, 2022/04/13
Ships Fly Home
Single, 2021/10/15
M.I.L.Y.
M. I. L. Y. is the single of Ships Fly Up, which was released on my birthday. By the time I was 34, I had written a lot of music (although everything is relative), and much of what I composed remained almost unheard by anyone. You write, write, write... And, it would seem, why? One day, when I was about 16, I got my hands on a guitar. It was my father's guitar. And the magic began, which I still comprehend to this day. That's when I realized I had to write music. It's like I've always known this, although I can't say that the world around me took it as a great joy, though...
But anyway, I've been composing and composing. It's been a long journey. Although what is 10-15 years on the scale of eternity? While I was going this way, releasing little-known tracks, I could feel a strong apathy bordering on depression. I asked myself, my soul, heaven, earth, God, and even the Devil - why all this? For what? Why am I doing this? What does it bring me? What does it bring to people? There were tears and joy. And there were also sadness and despair when I didn't know if I could pay for my apartment.
I've never had a so-called "normal" life. Since childhood, detachment from the world, from the necessities imposed by society. Since childhood, the tendency to find out who I am. Sometimes I thought that my birth here was a mistake. A mistake that cannot live like all "normal" people. And sometimes I thought that my ship, which was flying past this world, for some unknown reason, suddenly flew home without me. Without me... I remember looking out of the window of the house at the sky, and tears welled up. A strong longing for home, to which I have been looking for a way all these years.
I know what loneliness is. I've been single for many years. It's like in the track You Can Change Everything - "I know you feel lonely... Even when you're not alone..." And I fell in love with loneliness. It has been with me for a very long time. There have been many oddities in my life that I cannot give an objective interpretation to. And it's all around music.
The music that I'm still carrying and that's still playing on your phones. But I feel tired of the life I've lived. There was so much and so little in it. So little happiness. But the happiness that I managed to catch, I tried to put into creativity.
M. I. L. Y. - this is the imprint of happiness in my life. The imprint of happiness in the form of a mysterious face on the cover and in my soul. A face that is imprinted in every cell of my body. I do not exclude that someone may say that the composition is quite sad. Well, maybe I have learned to be happy from sadness after all? Who knows.
Альбом, 2020/08/20
Love and Freedom of the Great Ocean
One day I despaired. Why, one day. This has happened more than once. At such moments, it is sometimes unclear whether you are testing your Path for strength and truth, or whether it is he who is testing you. Or maybe both. And if the intention is strong, then at such moments something opens up, and it's like you're moving to the next level. You understand that it was necessary. And the answer comes. It has to come. Even if it's worth inventing it yourself. The answer to the call is not a dogma read in a smart book.
The answer to the call comes from the very depths of our "I". And at that moment, that answer was the Love and Freedom of the Great Ocean - the fourth album of Ships Fly Up.
Album, 2019/03/15
Ghost Kingdom
There are 9 tracks in the album. Or even stories. What are they about? To answer this question, perhaps it is worth telling a little about yourself. My faithful companions are loneliness and my favorite thing is writing music. I've been writing it since I was 16 or 17, probably. Then I was a terribly gloomy young man with long black hair, a short jacket, a passion for heavy metal, constant depression and... a dream.
Over the years, my image has transformed, depression has receded, but I decided not to part with my dream, so I'm going to her now. On the way to it, I do what I think I do best — write music. Perhaps this is almost the only thing that I can do.
My journey has not always been accompanied by pleasantries. Sometimes it was hard, even very hard. I was trying to find meaning in my life, in my stay here. I wanted to understand what I was living for. And so, continuing to follow my heart step by step, a couple of years ago, from somewhere in the depths of the universe or my own microcosm, I came up with the idea of "Ships Fly Up". I plunged into this project with my head, because I finally found myself in it. In this music, I feel my native energy and real freedom. It was a breath of fresh air.
When I create and listen to what happens, I am in a state of flow that captures me and allows me to feel like who I really am, who we are (all or not, I don't know) — eternally living particles of the Universe, able to travel through endless worlds and get new experiences and impressions. But if I forget about this, then the magic of this world can disappear, and gray hopelessness begins to feel with its monotonous everyday life and dark entities eager to profit from the life force and lead away from the Path.
The new album is about that too...
"Ghost Kingdom" for me is a new exciting journey based on freedom, in which there is pain and despair, love and hope, mysticism and connection with the otherworldly, as well as something else that I simply cannot describe in words, since it is at the level of feelings.
Some tracks opened and showed me such worlds that can inspire fear and horror, bordering on delight at the scale and enchanting nature of their existence, while others showed the brightest creative light in the universe.
In the album "Ghost Kingdom" I expressed what had been wanting to be heard in me for years, but could not find a way out. Perhaps it expresses a significant part of my journey that I have managed to go through to this point. I do not know what the album will be for you and what it will show you.
However, I know that whatever it is, one of the main tasks of all the music of "Ships Fly Up" is a reminder that the world is far from limited by the framework in which we arrive. It, like ourselves, is much, much deeper, more diverse, more mysterious, more colorful than we used to think.
Ghost Kingdom is the darkest and most depressing of all albums. And the hardest one, both in terms of sound and work on it in general, and psychologically. Perhaps it's a real test.
Few people know, but this album, after being officially sent for release, was removed from digital platforms at my request, since at some point I realized that something was wrong with the sound,
although I listened to it many times while working.
ЯI've re-recorded it several times, trying to find the sound that would convey its nature as much as possible. I remember that as an obsessive, having not slept for a long time, I tried to catch the right mastering option, but the album did not give in. There was a moment when, in the middle of the night, sitting in front of the monitor screen, I put my hands on my face, realizing that I had reached a dead end and did not see a way out.
The albums that I release are dear to me, and the release is like a new birth, a new stage, therefore, an appropriate internal attitude. Maybe the album itself did not allow me to choose the wrong option.
And I did not stop, trusting in my gut and the power that hovered in space with heavy flaps of dark wings, hanging like a heavy shadow over the Ghostly Kingdom that was almost born.
The desired option appeared as if by itself, forced, but at the same time natural, as if all this "bloodletting" was supposed to be a payment for the opportunity to release these nine tracks. The release took place on time - March 15, 2019.
And on that very day, my father passed away. Perhaps the Ghost Kingdom that I described with the help of music without words turned out to be the place where he went after leaving.
Also, few people know, but this album, according to one of the key ideas, was supposed to be called Anomaly, and the track with that name was supposed to be placed not in the ninth final place, as it is now, but in the first.
However, everything happened as it happened, and the composition became the end of the story, and not its beginning, which turned out to be the track Ghost Kingdom. So, the Ghost Kingdom, I dare say, is only the beginning of life, and not its end, which we used to call death.
Album, 2018/06/20
Dream Maker
"I am the one who loves. I'm the one who dreams. I will have love, but dreams inspire me. There is no more sadness, but only eternity, in which the Dreamer has found his place."
Album, 2017/03/29
Journey to Ranucan
The album, which I have the honor to present to your attention, is for me like a book, on the pages of which I described my amazing journey to places that are not on any map.
I even feel a little like a writer, even though my strange manuscript turned out to be without words except for one chapter,
but even that was written without ink and pen.
I invite you to make a journey into mysterious worlds that can change and appear in a new light every time. They are incomprehensible, and their number is probably infinite. Let the music be the guide.
If you trust her and let her lead you at least for a short time, letting go of the gravity of the earth, then the journey can become truly unforgettable, as it was with me.
Music is a bridge that connects not only worlds but also our hearts. Perhaps they have been waiting for you behind this bridge for a long time, but you still do not dare to step on it. Be brave. Follow your heart, which is the music that sounds inside each of us and everyone has their own, but together with the rest it forms a grand orchestra of the Universe. If you haven't started your journey yet, then probably the best moment is now. It's worth it. Good luck on the Way.
Apostate
Rivers Without Time
Music
The Solemn Descent Helilont
Maxi-single, 2025/10/31
The Solemn Descent Helilont is a maxi-single, the 14th release, consisting of Three Tracks. It tells of a Solemn Descent into a Shimmering Abyss — the very abyss from which my wings grow, my thoughts emerge, and my deliverance arises.
The Solemn Descent .1
The beginning of the Descent. A leap into the Abyss.
I decided to create this track in the spirit of the trailer music.
I love the timeless motifs leading up to the final scene.
Helilont .2
The second track is the leader of the Trinity.
When the Abyss fills the entire space, it is he who sounds from its shimmering walls.
Helilont (Light Version) .3
The light version of the Helilont track.
The metal part has been removed in order to ease the fate of the repentant and demonstrate the generosity of the Abyss.
Music composed by Egor Fedotov
Mixing & Mastering by Maxim Larikov