Welcome to the official website of Shadegrown music project. It's not common probably, but here you will find... music (all songs downloadable in high quality format) and brief information about it.

The project started in 2002 by one man from Saint-Petersburg (Russia), who prefers to appear under the name of Shadegrown. From the very beginning, the project adopted the 'independent music' paradigm in the full sense of the word: independent from anything commercial, any listener expectations, subcultures or music schools. Broadly speaking, the author is guided by nothing except his own inner visions, bounded by nothing but his abilities. The DIY approach looks the most natural under these conditions (DIY - Do It Yourself). In music production it may stand for: compose yourself, perform yourself, record yourself, mix & master yourself, design yourself, distribute yourself. The digital music revolution made it all possible.

It has to be mentioned however that not only to create music this way is hard: it may be hard to listen to. If the listener gets accustomed to the commercial product, which is usually created by a group of professionals (each in one's own field), one may quickly become disappointed in independent music: the latter lacks those tinsel and polish. However, it still has important advantages, such as freedom of self-expression, sincerity and originality.

In August 2003, the first work of Shadegrown 'Forever Alone' was released. Listeners drew parallels between the music of the project (not quite ripe those times) and such bands as Autumnblaze, Empyrium, Tenhi, Sopor Aeternus and earlier Lacrimosa. The author describes his style as post-doom with elements of neofolk and darkwave. The basis of the album consists of synthesized drone guitar, sampled acoustic instruments and cold electronic sounds.

The next album 'Under the Banner of Emptiness' was released in 2005 to controversial reaction. The arrangement almost completely made of sampled orchestral instruments, easy tunes and rhythms which remind of reggae against a background of dark ironic lyrics praising the 'Emptiness ideology' just could not be easily perceived. Add to it the unusual cover of dark folk classic 'Media' by Sol Invictus (a band which greatly influenced Shadegrown) and vocals with noticable russian accent. Nevertheless, the album has found its listeners, becoming particularly known among russian audience thanks to the review by the popular gothic.ru webzine.

After controversial 'UTBOE' Shadegrown decides to record his early songs, composed even before the start of the project, and influenced by gothic metal/rock bands such as Sentenced, Katatonia, Tiamat, Cemetary and Anathema. Many things happened for the first time at the moment: for the first time a guest musician became involved - 'beautiful life' playing drums; for the first time live instruments were used - guitars in addition to drums. The album named 'Songs of Despair' and released in 2007 was published by a net-label Ekleipsi in addition to a usual digital self-release.

At present time Shadegrown is working on the fourth full-length album, whose working title is 'Stop the World'. The musician is going to continue to experiment with neofolk and post-doom, standing by his own visions and the course of three previous releases.