Raining December



There are at least two bands named Stillife: 1) A Russian darkwave band formed in 1998. 2) A dark ambient band that was active in the late 70s and early 80's. 1) Life frozen in an instant, or just a life long instant... In late December 1998 Stan_I. and M.S. got an idea of the project's foundation. Two winters had passed and at the end of the year 2000 the idea found its embodiment in the recording of Raining December debut album. Eternal themes of love, loneliness and human tragedy exposed in the album present the pattern of true darkwave, one of the few Russian albums, which hardly complies to Western colleagues. On the 4th of November 2001, STILLIFE took part in the Edge of the Night IV festival, sharing the stage with PURPLE FOG SIDE (Russia) and ENDRAUM (Germany). In November 2001 top Russian label Irond Ltd. presented the CD release of STILLIFE's debut album Raining December, which also included couple of bonus tracks. The Western gothic community cordially estimated it. Resistance! Radio from Germany even claimed this disc as the album of the month. On the 3rd of November 2002 the regular gothic Halloween party Edge of the Night V was held at Tochka club in Moscow. This time STILLIFE played together with DIARY OF DREAMS. The show almost concurred with the release date of Only Silence mCD. The title track from this disc hit Russian independent radio-charts, sharing the leading positions with such well-known projects as t.A.T.u. and Bi-2. The year 2003 saw the collaboration of STILLIFE with German project ENDRAUM. STILLIFE made the version of ENDRAUM's title track Traumstaub, that featured on ENDRAUM's new album bearing the same name. The result of ENDRAUM's work was the remix Es ist die Stille (Endraum's vision), included in the third album of STILLIFE entitled Remembrance, which was released by Irond Ltd. in November 2003. On November 15, a presentation concert took place in R-club in Moscow. On the 5th of December STILLIFE took part in an international gothic festival Radio Inferno II, held in St.Petersburg. According to the poll results on the www.gothic.ru for the year 2003, STILLIFE was once again recognized as the best Russian band of the year and the best Russian band of all times. In March 2004 the band was on tour with solo-concerts in St.Petersburg (Molokoclub) and Moscow (Tochkaclub). The story was continued in 2005 with the album Memories. This album was in fact an international collaboration which consisted of new compositions, remixes and collaboration tracks from such artists as ENDRAUM, IN MY ROSARY (Germany), Robert Davis/BUTTERFLY MESSIAH (U.S.A.), Mark Thornton (United Kingdom) and Russian bands BLEEDING NATURE, THEODOR BASTARD, REUTOFF/DAS REUT, PURPLE FOG SIDE. In July 2007 the Argentinean label Twilight Records released the special double-CD edition of Remembrance & Memories! Besides the original material of both albums STILLIFE recorded some exclusive bonus tracks for this release! New album Destiny will be mixed and mastered in Germany at M'Attic Studio by Ralf Jesek (IN MY ROSARY, DERRIERE LE MIROIR, MARY'S COMIC etc.). The album is planned to be released this year by Irond Ltd. 2) Stillife is (and always was) Michael Jon Fink and Mike V. Bennett (aka leDonne-Bhennet). Chas Smith was a member & performer and the Engineer of the first recording. The three of us have performed together for many years, under numerous names. Stillife coalesced into Michael & myself, Rick Cox, Read Miller, and Pat Bagacina, with Jim Fox being a frequent guest. You can download their music for free on bandcamp Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.