Henri Alf (Andrey Karpenko): life and work

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Andrey Karpenko is the brightest representative of Soviet independent music of the late eighties and early nineties. Despite his low fame and a small number of songs, Andrei became a cult figure in the history of Soviet and Russian rock music, influencing many representatives of the genre. Andrey's songs were distinguished by a deep philosophical meaning, vivid images and a tragic atmosphere, which at that time was an innovation in Russian music.

Biography

Andrey Karpenko was born on March 1, 1973 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. There is almost no reliable information about his family. It is only known that the future musician grew up in extremely difficult conditions and already in high school he had to look for small part-time jobs after school to help support his family.

Early years

The early years of Andrey Karpenko's life are also a little-lit period of hisbiographies. It is only known that he studied well at school, graduated with a silver medal. After the ninth grade, he worked as a laborer, a loader in the port, and a cleaner. Two years later, he decided to enter one of the technical schools in St. Petersburg, where he moved in the early nineties. The scholarship allowed the young creator not to look for any part-time jobs, and he had time for personal creativity, creating his own author's world and lyrical concept.

Solo work

Studying was easy for Andrey thanks to his experience in the technical field. The young man quickly understood the material being studied, in his free time he composed his first author's songs. Very soon, Andrei was invited to a local creative party, but at first, due to his character, he was embarrassed to perform his works in public. At meetings, he either sang songs by famous musicians at that time, or was silent and listened to other performers, often accompanying those who did not know the instrument on the guitar.

The first songs of Andrey Karpenko (Henri Alpha) were distinguished by their vivid imagery, lyricism and great semantic load, combined with a rich melodic structure.

Home recordings

The first recordings were made by Andrey on the initiative of his friend and classmate Valentin Bonch. Young people gathered after classes in Valentine's room and performed various songs of the Aquarium, Kino and Agatha Christie groups that were popular at that time. On one of these evenings, succumbing to the persuasion of fellow students, Andrei Karpenko performedseveral of his songs, among which were "Leave Me", "Eternal High" and "Icing of the Soul". The compositions immediately gained success with Andrey's friends, and soon Valentin was recording various versions of these songs on a cassette right in the hostel room. The record becomes popular among Andrey's classmates, and Karpenko gradually becomes a prominent figure in the local underground, despite the small number of songs and rare performances.

Tian Shan

A year later, in his second year of study, Andrey Karpenko (Henri Alf) meets the local punk band Tien Shan. Its participants were pioneers of "free sounding", actively improvised and experimented with various household items, using them as musical instruments. Karpenko joins the band and participates in recording sessions. After several rehearsals, it was decided to overlay Andrey's vocals on the noise wave of the band's sound. The result of this experiment was a joint cassette recording, on which, in addition to recordings of Andrei Karpenko's cries to the discordant sound of instruments, Henri's solo acoustic performances in the dorm room were also recorded.

After this recording, the collaboration between Anri Alpha and the Tien Shan group ceased due to creative differences, since Andrey saw the group's concept in creating lyrical works, and the group wanted to continue psychedelic experiments with sound, more and more moving away from melodic patterns to chaotic improvisations.

Picnic

Andrey found full understanding and support for his creative concept and author's vision in the person of Edmund Shklyarsky, the leader of the Piknik group, whom he met in March 1995. By that time, Henri had already gained some fame in alternative Soviet music circles, and the young band was interested in collaborating with him.

The acquaintance and the first experimental rehearsal took place in the hostel with the assistance of Valentin Bonch.

It was Edmund Shklyarsky who became Karpenko's first producer, persuading him to record three original songs for the group's forthcoming album "Piknik". Shklyarsky believed that the gloomy romance and poignant emptiness of Henri Alpha's songs would be an ideal addition to the material already written for the album.

At the beginning of 1995, in the branch of the Melodiya studio, located in St. Petersburg, several songs by Andrey were recorded, accompanied by musicians from the Piknik group.

Ultimately, three works by Andrey were included in the album: “Hysterics”, “One, two …”, as well as the ballad “Helicopter” in two parts.

Immediately after the recording of the album, a concert was held in support of it, in which Andrey also took part. Recordings from this concert were posted by Edmund Shklyarsky on the Internet in early 2010.

Henri Alfa's song "Helicopter" gained great popularity, despite the impressive timing of almost nine minutes.

Leaving music

After the studio recording as part of the Picnic groupAndrew was in a difficult position. Education at the institute was coming to an end, the performer had a choice - to start an active creative career or get a job in his speci alty. Being a modest person by nature, Andrei decides that he will not be able to achieve great success in music, since such creativity has already become irrelevant and could not bring at least a minimal income. In 1996, Karpenko makes the final decision to end his creative activity, which he announces at the next student meeting, performing his songs publicly for the last time.

Present

Currently, the fate of Karpenko (Henri Alpha) is unknown. It is only known that he works in his speci alty at one of the enterprises of his native city - Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Despite numerous requests from fans, Andrey does not give interviews, does not perform at concerts and does not agree to make at least a few studio recordings. Since 2012, communities of fans of Karpenko's work began to appear on social networks, in which his fans exchanged archival audio recordings, photos and shared memories.

Discography

Unfortunately, Henri Alpha's songs were never compiled into a full-fledged music album. Andrei did not think about a professional career as a musician, so a small part of his work has survived to this day, represented by several studio works with famous bands, as well as home tape recordings.

If you restorechronological order, a dated list of Henri Alpha's entries would look like this:

• 1990 - First dorm tape recording;
• 1991 - concert at Kolomtsy farm;
• 1993 - concert in Vizinga, Komi ASSR;
• 1994 - second cassette recording in the hostel together with the Tien Shan group;
• 1995 - "Vampire Songs" (together with the group "Picnic").

There are also several unknown recordings from the period 1990-1994, for which there is no information regarding the place and date.