Schweinemaschinen

With their new releases, three young bands from Estonia and the Russian capital evoke the sound of a UK postpunk heritage - in various ways. Twenty years after the fact, however, what relevance can that tradition have for another time and place?

Schweinemaschinen are from St Petersburg; their name, which would logically be translated as "Pigmachines," might suggest a combination of antique, schoolboy adventures from WWII and some ill-conceived science fiction. And indeed, the band's PR work positions them somewhere similar, between an i...