Akvarium has just completed a four-date tour of the west coast of the United States, is currently working on a new album, and has just re-released four old albums. On top of all that, the band plays its traditional St. Petersburg Christmas concert at the Lensoviet Palace of Culture this weekend.

"It went really well," said Grebenshchikov of the U.S. tour by telephone from London this week. "At the Lensoviet concert, we want to showcase stuff we don't normally play, and we had the opportunity to try it out on people in America."

The tour, called "Rosa i Inzhenery Khaosa" ("Rose and the Enginners of Chaos"), took in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, and was advertised as a farewell to "Sestra Khaos" ("Sister Chaos"), Akvarium's most recent album, released on Feb. 15.

"How long can you play the same album?" asked Grebenshchikov. "To play 'Sestra Khaos' and a set of old hits is just not interesting any more, so I think we'll revive a number of old, acoustic songs that people don't know we can play."

"We tried out a simple acoustic set in San Francisco, and it worked out amazingly well," he said. "We played a number of songs that even I didn't know I remembered."

Whereas audiences at Akvarium's U.S. concerts drew mainly Russian emigres, Grebenshchikov is soon going to be introduced to a broader American audience as a Russian singer-songwriter.

Leading budget classical-music label Naxos is planning to feature an album of Russian songs performed by Grebenshchikov as part of its Naxos World series early next year. Called "Russian Songwriter," the disc will include a couple of urban folk songs and covers of tracks by Alexander Vertinsky and Bulat Okudzhava alongside Grebenshchikov's own material.

"They're trying to show the Russian style of songwriting through my voice," said Grebenshchikov, who says that the label gave him almost total artistic control over the disc. "They put forward the cover design, which fits in with the rest of the series, and we searched the Internet together pretty intensively, so that the pictures would comply with what they want."

Grebenshchikov was in London to attend the world premiere of the Peter Jackson blockbuster "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," as well as to look for musicians to play on Akvarium's new album, which he described as "something big and strange, with the emphasis on [the word] strange."

"We started recording in [St. Petersburg], continued in Delhi, and will go on to Bombay," he said. "I'll need some Irish instruments as well, so I'll be talking about Irish instruments in London."

The recording sessions in Delhi took place in November, when Akvarium performed at the Russian Cultural Center there.

"We rented a studio there, and recorded some interesting stuff," said Grebenshchikov. "There were a lot of Indian musicians [on the recordings] - eight or 10, and there will be more. My old dream came true."

Although Grebenshchikov is slightly vague about the new material, he talks about it with noticeable enthusiasm.

"I'd keep it all to myself and not record it, with pleasure," he said. "I'd like to create absolutely perfect music. So far, it's turning out very well. We've never done anything like this before."

Meanwhile, four more Akvarium albums have been remastered and are due to be released soon locally as part of the 20-disc anthology being released by the band's current label, Soyuz, to coincide with the band's 30th anniversary. The final four albums are due in February or March.

As 2002 comes to an end, Grebenshchikov looks at the year ambivalently.

"I'm glad it's ending," he said. "The year was good, and we did a lot, but I'd like to write music, rather than perform. I don't like performing."

He also says that music around the world is "getting duller and duller."

"There were interesting parts but, this year, I haven't heard an [interesting] album yet," he said. "I just listened to the last album by [cult Icelandic group] Sigur Ros. It's very good, and it's terribly boring."

"I get the impression that people simply forget what life is," he said. "They start to think in terms of money."

Grebenshchikov admits that Akvarium plans to take a break after the Christmas concert.

"We'll play the concert and that will be that; we'll take a long break," he said. "We'll play some concerts across Russia ... but it will all be on a small scale."