Overcamps are a young Moscow duo who declare their membership "within the capital's underground scene." For various reasons, that sense of dignified retreat proves widely appealing.
As magazines and festivals seek to promote young musicians, they speak of great promise and flourishing local scenes. The performers themselves are less sure.
As musicians from Murmansk and Moscow online encounter rudeness, disdain, or indifference, an alternative is needed to actuality. A reconsideration of '70s psychedelia does the job very nicely.
A handful of new rock recordings include overlapping issues of isolation, impending poverty, and grim destiny. Considerable effort is needed in order to erase those feelings of diminished agency.
Young bands around Russia see little financial promise in their craft. Local reality does much to frustrate a material view of songwriting - yet an admission of those woes brings other issues to the fore.
January LPs from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg show some general tendencies in how Russian rock sees itself today. Grand civic themes of prior decades are now absent.
As mainstream media offers young Russian bands little support, a couple of responses emerge among amateur ensembles. Romantic views of both solitude and friendship transpire.
A lyrical strain runs through some Russian rock releases this week. It begins with wistful dreams of leaving home - and moves with increasing satisfaction to distant planets or a bottomless ocean.
A new compilation from Moscow's "Colta" magazine brings together fifteen young performers and projects from across Russia. Together they define the nature of private and professional novelty.
As a couple of Slavic rock bands admit a fondness for Bristolian trip-hop, the value of introspection is discussed elsewhere. It transpires that the same hushed lyricism - made public - still matters.
