Sophia’s Library was founded by Sergei Shilov in 2008. Initially it was an electronic music project titled Mortal Passions. Sergei wished to be genre-free, but the first album was next to dark neoclassical. That’s why the title of the project was changed to Sophia’s Library: there may be books of any genre in a library, but the name Sophia says the music will make us think about eternity, the meaning of our life and so on.

The first album, Await, was released in 2009 at different pirate sites. It is free and  sounds awful so you can download it directly from our site but Sergei doesn’t recommend you to do this.

The second album, Artificial Life, was released in the end of 2010 and sounds more experimental and industrial. This is the only industrial album of Sophia’s Library, later Sergei founded Psychotic Dreams for such music, so unofficially Artificial Life is the first album of Psychotic Dreams.

Can’t Forget You has been released in the beginning of 2011 and was the first and last album of Sophia’s Library that got a lot of feedback from listeners.

Learn to Fly was released in 2012 and contains all tracks that have not been released before. The feedback was not so cheerful as in the case of the previous one.

Since 2011 Sergei worked on the next album titled “Lunveneno” (“The Lunar Poison”) based on the tragic story by Stanislav Rzhevsky with the same title. It was released recently in 2020 and we invite you to listen to it and read the story simultaneously.

Antaŭparolo

You can hear music and I see it. Every sound is like a sparkling drop, my imagination draws billions of colorful splashes. Every melody is a bright wonderful ornament for me. I can exactly match a tone of a sound with an area of spectrum or to define the color of a musical composition.

I thought that everyone has the same experience so I was surprised when met no understanding. Now I’m sure that subjective perception of every person differs so much that we hardly may understand even the closest people. And even now I’m not sure that you will fully understand this story. I’m not sure that I will be able to explain what I felt standing under the streams of lunar poison that cursed night.

Anyway, I will begin my story, because the melody of those days seems charming for me even now.

Printempo

I considered music an incomprehensible secret and never claimed to create or even reproduce it. Language sciences became my main occupation. I entered the faculty of philology and soon enrolled in a study group of Esperanto.

At these lessons I met a girl that gave me some happiness that turned into disaster. Though we both were rather unsociable, our relations evolved easily and naturally. One year later we became good friend but we never thought about spending our future together.

Firstly I was attracted to this girl because of her unusual name. Parents called her Dolores. I don’t know if they knew that this word means ‘sorrow’.

We never argued and she always was very benevolent with me. I never was shy to tell her about my experiences and she was very interested to know more about my color perception of music. We discussed this topic very often.

Just for fun we were talking different words that mean love in different languages: “dragoste”, “láska”, “meilės”, “liefde”… I felt the tint of each word and always found them beautiful.

But the main thing for me was that Dolores played keyboards. Since she was a little child she went to a musical school. She perfectly played the piano and I always paid tribute to her talent. Very often we were sitting in a park listening to our city radio and I told her the color of each track. Several times I saw she studying classical compositions but she never told that she is trying to write her own music.

Floroj

The disaster that interrupted our serene relations happened suddenly, soon after the birthday of Dolores. I saw nothing alarming on the holiday. Birthday girl seemed a bit tired but I thought that it was caused by preparing to this day.

Some days later I saw Dolores was not her own. Her eyes were not concentrated and she couldn’t give an adequate answer to any question of her classmates. When the lessons started she didn’t sit next to me that was also unusual. But whole the lesson she looked at me anxiously, and I also couldn’t take my eyes of her. At the break I hastened to step up to her, and she started her strange speech. Even now I can exactly reproduce her mad words:

“Do you remember my birthday? I received so many flowers! All they were standing at my room. Today I woke up and saw the light falls on them through red curtains. And at this moment I understood: these flowers are for my funeral! So I will lie in this room and curtains will repeat the color of my tomb…”

Litero malbenita

This day Dolores made a clear hint that we should stay alone in her apartment all night long. She asked me to come after 8 pm. This sharp turn of our relations shocked me, but I asked no questions. So all I need was to wait till the evening.

I was sitting on the edge of the sofa in a spacious room of her apartment when she asked me a fatal question: “How do you think, is it better to indulge your desires that goes against desires of other people? Should we stay our ground or is it better to give way? When somebody asks you to go away, should you go against your will or stay for spite?”

I said that everything is ambiguous in this life and we can’t know the ways that lead to our satisfaction. Sometimes even if you wish to stay you should go to achieve your aim finally. Anyway it is not a good idea to do something for spite.

After these words she asked me to wait and went to the next room. Through the closed door I heard the sound of her falling dress. A few minutes passed but she didn’t return. I started to walk around the room and suddenly saw a paper on the table. During the examination of this paper I firstly felt shock and then horror.

In front of me I saw an accurate fake. Somebody simulated my handwriting diligently. Author of this fake reproduces some of its traits very well, but I understood that is was not my hand immediately. I have a very intricate handwriting as a result of passion for linguistics. But at this paper I saw only a miserable parody of my style. Sure that the most similar words were copied from some sample of my manuscript. Soon I guessed that it was my notebook that Dolores took some days ago.

The content of this note was terrible itself. I don’t want to reproduce it: no normal human can write this. Madness and unlimited vulgarity – this is the main idea of the message that was signed by my name.

I barely had time to comprehend what I read when the noise came from the next room. Some items fell to the floor, and the last of them broke with a crystal tinkle. Waiting not a minute more, I opened the door and entered her bedroom. The scene I saw there was really breathtaking.

Dolores

In front of me I saw Dolores undressed in the room filled by the moonlight. Her hands were put on the piano cover next to the transparent dishes including some stemware. One of the glasses were on the floor broken to the plenty of sparkling shards. Each of them reflected a flare of the moonlight.

She sat to the piano and said me to listen to the melody she wrote.

I’ve closed my eyes and let the music to fill my mind. As usual I felt it in the deepest parts of my perception but this time my I’ve got another experience. Instead of a common abstraction a horrible reality expanded in front of my mental eyes. The music was flowing in the waves of a miraculous melody that I can’t even reproduce now. It seemed to be created specially for me and I captured something subtle behind this wonderful harmonics. With the development of the melody the image I saw became more and more distinct: it was a huge Moon hanging upon our heads, vague shadows ran on her surface so her face were constantly darkened by the spots of gloomy colors. An ethereal abyss was divided me from the celestial body but it seemed to me that we are close as never. I reached out to the Moon and she answered me: a fluorescent fluid started to trickle from her surface in front of the dark starless sky. The fluid seemed to be phantom and absolutely weightless; however, soon it reached our heads. After that I saw a tall crystal glass filled with the green radiance. At this moment I thought I could understand the meaning of the ancient word ‘magic’. No witchcraft, no devilry. Magic is our love, it is the music that takes our minds to unknown worlds, and whole life is full of magic that we don’t notice.

I don’t know how long was that miracle but the music faded out and I opened my eyes in the hope to return to reality. In front of me I saw a maiden with a crystal glass filled with the green fluid. She drank a half and put the glass on the piano. I drank the remain with no doubt that I must do it.

Agonio

I remember neither the taste nor my first experience. The next half an hour was erased from my memory also. But the miracle vanished soon and the horrible reality returned. The maid fell first and I no longer realized what happens. I felt the unbearable dizziness, myriads of colorful sparks flared in front of my eyes and I’ve lost my vision after that. Losing my mind I vaguely understood that we were poisoned. Then I was plunged into the abyss of toxicological delirium. Again and again I went through the reading of the horrible letter, the musical hallucinations and drinking the poison. I knew that the disaster happened but could do nothing. Sometimes I saw dreams where I try to call Dolores by phone and dissuade her but every time my voice broke down treacherously. Even in dreams a hope to justify myself to a person with a misery that nobody knew about eluded me. The night gave way to a day but there were too much poison in my blood. Sometimes my blurred mind broke free from the dark for a few seconds; I saw her motionless body and dropped back to the oblivion.

Only the persistent ring broke the delirium. Moving along the wall I hardly reached the hall. Obviously, it took too much time so the door was opened from the outside and I saw the parents of Dolores. I can imagine what they could think and can’t judge them for all the things they said about me.

Now I know the truth about what happened that night. It would be desperate to try to compare real facts with hallucinations in the search of analogies. For those who found us everything seemed like a planned double suicide. I vainly tried to explain that there was no suicide and told about the Moon that bleed the green poison. Finally, I was considered mad and left alone so no more attempts to investigate who was the dominant in this game were made.

Agnosia

Now I slowly return to life that will never be so colorful for me as before. I’ve started to avoid music and afraid that soon it will become excruciating for me. The maiden that gave birth from the fit of madness to the most wonderful melody I ever heard is still in the hospital and I’m not allowed to visit her. But even if the peace of mind would return to her I can’t imagine what we will speak about.

Does it make sense to begin once again or this is the time to do the first virile decision in my life – to disappear in order to stay?