Петербургский ансамбль Кубикмагги утверждает, что "наш коллектив затрудняется назвать даты и не дружит с хронологией..." Как существует такой романтизм во время кирзиса? // The St Petersburg outfit Kubikmaggi are famous for their intricate games with classical, free jazz, and rock traditions. Has such artful whimsy been affected by the crude concerns of Russia's economic downturn?
"Grandmother's Red-Flag Division" (aka КДИМБ) have been called the "most impractical, chaotic, and happy" band in Moscow. We decided to find out why. // Олег Нестеров считает Краснознаменную Дивизию имени моей бабушки «самим непрактичным, бесшабашным, и веселым объединением» в России. Интересно, почему...?
On occasion, especially on major holidays, it can seem today as if Russian television is overrun with nostalgia - and the songs thereof. The scale of this phenomenon is not difficult to explain. The juggernaut of nationwide media before the 1990s was able to unify multiple time zones with the same...
When grumpy individuals in Russia bemoan the lowly standards of songwriting today, their primary target is often a combination of money and morality. Put simply: two decades of profiteering since 1991 have encouraged a shameful avoidance of ethical norms. Cash has ruined a noble tradition. What ex...
Two days ago in Lithuania, singer-songwriter Alina Orlova released her second album, "Mutabor." Supposedly the recording is scheduled for a September launch in Russia, which makes yesterday's speedy reaction from Moscow magazine "Afisha" especially praiseworthy. Once step ahead of the Vilnius PR m...
At a time when Russian music is increasingly divorced from hard media and instead floats aimlessly through the ether - to scant financial benefit - some performers still insist upon tying their work to vinyl or CDs. The former practice persists, for understandable reasons, in the realm of dance...
Three months ago, the image above appeared online from DIY outfit Pes i Gruppa. Next to the mock-confrontational air of this photograph was an equally playful promo-text. "We're a group from Saint Petersburg and Krasnoiarsk. We sing about boys from Michigan, dogs in the morning... and so forth....
Until this week, the female duet known as Lemonday had existed in a rather haphazard fashion. Virtually all of their work was in visual forms, uploaded to various corners of YouTube. The films recorded profoundly amateur events, marked by a radical lack of talent or a wealth of witty cynicism, d...
The first time we investigated the work of Kharkov's Pur:Pur was just over a year ago. Most of what the trio had to say for themselves at that time contextualized both their acoustic minimalism and a related decision to sing in English. The tiny scale of the band's songs - made of one petite voi...
The first two syllables of "Tinavie" can be explained immediately: they constitute the Christian name of frontwoman, Tina, shown above. Lacking a surname, she makes up for an absent family with a handful of gifted colleagues, including three "Dmitriis": Zil'pert (guitar), Losev (keyboards), an...
