Ivan Kaif

The song "Stirlitz" belonged to the group "Ivan Kaif" was written in the 90's - but did not get a huge success. Today the famous film director Sergei Solovyov took this for the main theme of his new film "Classmates". Despite the fact that the song is about the soviet heroes Stirlitz  and his beloved radio operator Kate, it surprisingly turned out to be a theme correlated with moderm generation: "At the fourth month Radistka Kate wants some relations but there was no".

ivan_kayf_-_shtirlic.mp3

Galya Chikiss

(text from last.fm, photo afisha.ru)

Chikiss has formed in the Summer of 2005 in a quiet resort town of Primorsk. It’s near the Finnish border, on the coast of Gulf of Finland. Against the background of beautiful nature two Sashas - band’s guitarist and drummer - have for ten years been recording their sound waves. The band has taken a certain shape in St. Petersburg at the home studio of keyboard player and singer Galya Chikiss who had first appeared in Primorsk in January 2005 to meet some like-minded people. Thus a new period in the life of all three has started. First they jammed at a historical early 20th century Lutheran church right on the Gulf’s shore; the rehearsal studio was right under the spire. Then they moved to St. Petersburg. The joint creative process has led to the creation of Chikiss band and provided a lot of fresh ideas to the legendary Primorsk-based experimental band 188910 (named after the town’s postcode) with which it shares members.

Chikiss is a colourful, beautiful and lively phenomenon in the Russian music scene. Not quite standard yet rather minimal lineup (voice, keyboards, rhythm section, guitar, reverberators), electronically specific sound of live instruments; varied scope of sounds - noise and ambient sketches alternate with dance rhythms and soul-warming outer space love lyrics. If comparisons are to be drawn, then the likes of Scala, Lali Puna, or Broadcast could be mentioned.



Vesennyaya (Spring) 2009.zip

Autumn gold 2009.zip

My opinion: the music is "interesting" art object much more than "music". Enjoy experiments.

Mumiy Troll

it's not a frequent situation when russian artist releases album for export.
we remember pop-stars like Valeria, Alsou, Dima Bilan -- none of them has succeed on foreign scene.

I suppose Mumiy Troll would get the same result despite of his album is very interesting. It represents the style (and also lyrics) of one of the most popular rock bands in modern Russia.

Taste it.



Paradise Ahead EP (2009).rar

Cabaret of Pierrot Insane

When my friend and singer Sergey Vasilyev told me about his plans of creating cabaret "Pierrot Le Fou" (or "Piero Insane"), I was sceptically oriented thinking it's just a fun for some time.

But I've mistaken: suddenly Cabaret became more popular in area of Moscow clubs than most of promoted new bands.

Sergey, the singer of Cabaret, is a "man with beautiful voice and big heart" as his website says. he created and proposed a travel into the world of his favorite music - the fierce romance, gramophone plates and illegal recordings... You can meet him in Moscow in the beginning of 20 century, in Buenos Aires of 30s, in snow-covered backyards and in prisons. His songs are used to be soundtracks for your love affairs and broken hearts. For the auditory of posh restaurants and degraded people.

These songs were created by different people: Vertinsky, Izabella Yurieva, Carlos Gardel, Petr Leschenko, Arcadiy Severny etc. So the artist can turn into hero or clown or fool for you.

"This music makes you swallow alcohol with tears, to laugh, to fall in love, to regret. What was the secret?"


For sure, Pierrot Insane's music is not a fake after the great singers. He follows the tradition and his cabaret is more than just atmosphere of modern clubs. He penetrates into the tradition of lost theatre: Meyerhold, Brecht, Blok. So every perfomance turns to a cultural phenomenon more than a concert.



Cabaret_de_Pierrot_le_Fou_Soundtrack1 // bezpiero.ru

Zhenya Borzykh

She's is unknown and popular as well. The secret is in quantity of her projects - actually I don't know which are serious and which are just her jokes. "Dsh!Dsh!", "ProgoninPesnyu", "ProgonimPlyasku", "Massa Kryma" (Mass of Crimea), "Band of vegetables", "Blue-eyed Japan" et cetera. Too many projects for one singer you'd say. NO. Zhenya is multi-talented and has the most original female voice I've heard for years. But... if you haven't pioneer background behind, it would hardly be recognized.

"Banish the Song" is a project full of naive art but charged with childish optimism mixed with adult sides of life. Better I'd offer to check out this line:

...but we need to go to disco hurry up
why are you muddling we can't be late
the main thing is not to be drunk
because my mommy would begin to slang

7 songs 17.67 mb

Tanya Zykina

Tanya Zykina became famous without any traditional promotion (no musicvideos, no concerts, no millions of youtube clicks, no scandals, no tabloids). Typical story for end of 2000th (end? did I say it?) but untypical for his sort of music.
OF COURSE everyone has lazyness and compares TZ with Zemfira that is another FAMOUS russian pop-rock star. But actually Tanya is absolutely another product.
Her songs have unique easy melodies and refined poems - more refined that Zemfira's because of her brutal manner. Sometimes she sings about nice nonsences. Her songs don't contain thick layer of ideological mass.

And... you can't imagine: she sings also about happiness. And her voice is shrill and fascinating.



Born in Izhevsk, she worked at local radiostation as DJ then moved to Moscow several years ago.


124 mb of songs on narod.ru .rar


tanyazykina.ru

Alina Orlova

Alina Orlova - Laukinis šuo dingo (2008).rar

Peter Nalitch

Turned to be miracle from youtube.com with his fantastic "Gitarrr" Peter Nalitch used to establish new hero: macho from Balkans dashigly singing gypsy romances (those are not gypsy at all), tender romances (those are not romances at all) and some allusions to soviet bards (those are probably not). For several weeks russian clerks had no opportunity to see Nalitch somewhere except youtube window. Most of people thought of him as new star of gypsy punk but....
Actually Peter Nalitch is 25-year old divorced moscow citizen with 1/4 part ob bosnian blood. His granfather from Bosnia was an opera singer.
Peter Nalitch never goes far than his countryhouse ('dacha') and even doesn't have foreign passport. He used to study im Moscow Academie of Architecture famous for its musical traditions.
peternalitch.ru
GItarrr.mp3
Давай разведемся.mp3

Alla Pugacheva

Alla Pugacheva's second name is "Primadonna". Media call her by this theatrical name not only because of her songs but because of her status in soviet and post-soviet showbiz.


Bio

She was born in 1949 and was called after two great soviet actresses: Alla Tarasova and Alla Larionova. USSR was waking up after the ordeal of war, great housing and feeding problems. Soviet stars of war life (Lubov Orlova that was russian Merilin Monroe; Lydia Ruslanova, folk-singer; Valentina Serova, heroin if main poem of war time "Wait for me" written by Constantin Simonov) were on soviet Olympus. All these stars were loved by people. Then generation of 60th created their own stars ("bards" and sort of singers looked like foreign such as Editha Pieha).

Pugacheva's way for second name was long. She began to sing very early. The song "Robot" was created specially for radio program "Good morning" (you should see, in that time in USSR you couldn't find many radiostations). Only in 1966-67 she went on tour with propaganda brigade from radiostation "Yunost" ("Youth"). They visited Tyumen, old russian town in Siberia. Before Alla started solo career she worked with many ensembles and combos ("New Electron" (1969), "Moscow Sitizens" (1971), the Oleg Lundstrem Orchestra (1972-1973), "Happy Guys" (1974-1975). "Rythm" (1977-1980), "Recital" (since 1980)). She played in some movies ("Woman That Sings"). She was not only singer but composer but she hadn't put her name in final cue: she was there under name "Boris Gorbonos").
She won prize "Gold Orpheus" in 1975 with song "Arlekino".

Music (from intelligent easy listening and romances to songs for masses)

Some of Alla Pugacheva's songs became hits. Each postsoviet knows by heart her main songs (from cinema, tv or radio). Some of her songs disappeared without fame. It is normal way for every singer which had a long interesting way of climbing a showbiz ladder and sliding down. But Alla had never slid down: she WAS and IS main person on tv. It seems she have attacked all media like Lenin in 1917.
But that time (in 70th and beginning of 80th) she only was seeking for her way. I can refer her early songs to easy listening style. They are full of tenderness and melodic voice. Its content is often melancholic but melody is stylish and original. Of course it's about woman's destiny in the world with man's power and rules. "Lonely but not weak" is the motto of these songs.

In 90th Alla Pugacheva had metamorphosed to "virago". Her image and style (in looking and music) became rough. Pompous marriage, divorce, relationships in family made her favourite herion of tabloids. Alla is very strong and energetic. Now she has power like men.

Enjoy her early easy listening songs. No doubt she would never repeat them.

Alla Pugacheva Pesenka pro menya (Song About Me)
Alla Pugacheva Zvezdnoe leto (Starry Summer)
Alla Pugacheva Derzhi menya, solominka (Hold me, straw)

Pervoklassniki.avi

Snowshow Video

I received many letters about Slava Snowshow.
Now ou have a chance to download video. 2 shots were made in 80th on soviet tv. But internet made them international -)

link is here

Natalia Medvedeva

Natalia Medvedeva was an actor, a model, a writer and a singer who performed with punk bands like "Tribunal", "Korrozia Metalla" and "Hyj Zabej". In 16 she moved to America after her first husband and began her career singing romances in the bars of Sunset Beach. Unlike most people who supported punk ideology, she took serious lessons of singing in New York conservatory. Then she married Eduard Limonov, a marginal anti soviet writer and a radical politician, who set in prison for some years because of his books and social activity. Together they moved to France, where Natalia wrote articles for french magazines which spotted and mocked bohemian traits of life. When she came back to Russia, she felt a cultural shock meeting true soviet people and this resulted in her songs. Medvedeva was well read and highly intellectual, that's why her lyrics (as well as her books) criticize stereotypes, primitive desires and ways of thinking in a sincere, decadent and sometimes ironical way and praise true love which is not easy to find among of this all. In 1994 she recorded her most famous and radical album "Tribunal" by Natalia Medvedeva (the title speaks for itself). Natalia was one of the brightest stars on russian female underground stage. Maybe she can be compared to Lydia Lynch.

Her songs make me start thinking of the meaning of life. Tragic frustrated melancholy tones of her voice drive me into sad and philosophical mood. Sometimes I feel like it's my elder sister talking to me.

(written by new ex-soviet music editor Panda_on_Snow)

I can add that I made Medvedeva's acquaintance in the end of 90th with her book "And they had passion.." (text in russian).

Book described relationship between young woman and writer (prototypes are certainly Natalia and Eduard Limonov). That times I was shocked with some cruelty and radicalism of this woman: it seemed she lived in revolution every day. And maybe it was. Limonov in one of his book said that Natalia's death was something like regularity: she died in the of 44 in quiet dream. In February 3, 2003.
And revolution was over.

I suppose punk wasn't best music style for Medvedeva's charisma and voice that were optimally for chanson songs. But punk was in her soul like protest against soviet life. She tried to get rid of soviet rules and lifestyle all her life.

by terless
К сорока годам у Барби | By 40 Barbie has.mp3 (poem in rus)

Пара гнедых | Couple of bay horses.mp3 (romance)
Singapur.mp3 (romance)
more music

Mary Poppins | Natalia Andreychenko

Mary Poppins is the central character in a series of children's books written by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard, which were subsequently adapted for film and for the stage.
In russian version ("Mary Poppins, Goodbye" 1983 (sic! year om my birth:) english nanny Mary Poppins was positioned as Lady Perfection. That was true. Miss Poppins weared only high-quality clothes, had stylish hats, spoke without ugly words - she was reaaly perfect.
Mary wasn't first role of young actress Natalia Andreychenko. She was rather famous in Soviet Union (after "Siberiada" by Andron Konchalovsky for example) but "Mary..." made her heroin of all soviet and post-soviet children.
Soundtrack for "Mary Poppins, Goodbye" was created by Natalia Andreychenko's husband, composer Maxim Dunaevskiy. Some traditions of musical mixed with some soviet melodies fixed on funny and smart texts. Soundtrack became Mister Perfection in this story.

Mary Poppins, Goodbye! (1983) OST

Olga Rozhdestvenskaya & Moscow Grooves Institute

Olga is heroin of my coincidences.
First time I heard her voice some years ago but didn't know whose voice it was. It was stylish, romantic but modern and smart. I thought: maybe it was Irina Bogushevskaya? No!
Some days ago I had a big scandal with production department and producer gave me Olga's songs to hear - "Wow" - I said - "I know her and... don't know her".
Then I told to my friend: "You know the song I'm humming?" - "Your murmurs are not like melody, you see" - he answered. "It's Olga Rozhdestvenskaya, so you know?" - "I know. Once I fell from stairs with her"...
I found picture that made me envy: Olga has beautiful voice and she's very beautiful herself.

Чрезвычайно изобретательный электронный саунд легко оплетает небесный голос, поющий до боли знакомые слова «На заре ты ее не буди…», «Где же ты моя Сулико…»." -- i can't translate this extraordinary phrase. Let it be magic secret for foreigners.

(my english is bad, bad, bad...)


Les chrysanthemes [ 2002 mix ] .mp3 | "Na zare" whole album

Valery Zubkov

Movie "Tsygan" ("Gipsy") was created in 1979. Actress Clara Lutchko was popular in Soviet Union but after "Tsygan" release she became the most popular actress in USSR.

Music for this film wrote Valery Zubkov. I haven't found any information about this talented composer. I'll describe track: this is lyric composition made in soviet soundtrack tradition. It makes heart ache and tears closer. It's romantic. And if you don't know "Tsygan"'s fabula you'll see "meeting" anyway.

Valery Zubkov - Vstrecha (Meeting).mp3

Lyudmila Senchina

Name of Lyudmila Senchina wasn't among first names of soviet showbusiness. But her name was always in warm aura that was in all her songs.
Some country themes, some simple melodies, some ordinary objects created very emotional feelings of warmness and lyrics. Her songs were not glamour like Edita Pieha's. They were not simple and funny like Aida Vedischeva's songs. Senchina found her own way to show song: she tried to sing melodie more than text (as it seems to me) that wasn't in russian music tradition at all.

It is real easy listening from Soviet Union.

Polevie tsvety.mp3

Katya Chilly

The nonconformist of the Ukrainian music, the singer destroying all of representation about a format. A voice of the siren is forcing to forget about all things, unique beautiful face, the fantastic character and child's frankness. All this about Katya Chilly. Katya is one of the brightest phenomena of the Ukrainian music. Arguments in favour of this statement? First, originality of a genre in which the singer works. Her scenic image and vocal talant as well give us total rights to consider unprecedented phenomenon in Ukrainian music and World music.
It is impossible to compare Katya Chilly with other singers.. she is unique.
This music is "world" but not only: her songs are beyond any directions. Like mantras with electronic style.
In the summer of 2005 Katya and Ukranian records have released a single «Півні». Russian and Ukrainian DJs worked with Katya: Tka4 (Kiev), Evgenie Arsentyev (Moscow), DJ Lemon (Kiev), Professor Moriarti (Moscow), LP (Kaliningrad) (I wrote about LP by the way).
Restoring an archaic ethnic material, Katya Chilly gives it(him) unique modern interpretation. So finds a new embodiment a musical soul of people.

Я - молодая | i am young.mp3
Крашен вечер | beautiful evening.mp3

beginning of 90th

Beginning of 90th in ex-soviet countries was full of music.
Combinacia with songs about American boy, Accountant and 2 pieces of wurst lie on your table.Bogdan Titomir with his "Sex machine" and "Do like me". "Do like me" - it was actual appeal for perplexed soviet people especially young. They were ready to go by Titomir's slogan.

Also Car-Man London, goodbye...
...Also Cabaret-Duet Academia Za pivom - music not for youth but for typical adults.

Russian pop music of that time was comic a bit. On one hand it tried to copy modern american and european style, on other hand there were a lot of themes to be sing about: "American boy, i'll go with you", "2 pieces of wurst lie on table, you told me fairy-tales but I didn't believe you". The texts described rich world and ordinary soviet boys and girls had to choose: to be rich and illegal or to be poor and patriotic.

"I love military men, handsome and big, and also like cool ones and other businesslike guys..." - in all aspects she loved bandits.


Sergey Lemokh | Car-Man

Bulat Okudzhava

Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author's song" (avtorskaya pesnya). He was born in Moscow and died in Paris. He was the creator of about 200 songs, set to his own poetry. His songs are a mixture of Russian poetic and folksong tradition and the French chansonnier style represented by such contemporaries of Okudzhava as Georges Brassens. Though his songs were never overtly political (in contrast to those of some of his fellow "bards"), the freshness and independence of Okudzhava's artistic voice presented a subtle challenge to Soviet cultural authorities, who were thus hesitant for many years to give official sanction to Okudzhava as a singer-songwriter.

Bulat Okudzhava was born in Moscow on 9 May 1924 into a family of communists who had come from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, for study and work connected with the Communist Party. Son of a Georgian father and an Armenian mother, Bulat Okudzhava spoke and wrote only in Russian. This was because his mother, who spoke Georgian, Azeri, and of course Armenian, had always requested that everyone who came to visit her house "Please, speak the language of Lenin - Russian". His father, a high Communist Party member from Georgia, was arrested in 1937 during the Great Purge and executed as a German spy on the basis of a false accusation. His mother was also arrested and spent 18 years in the prison camps of the Gulag (1937-1955). Bulat Okudzhava returned to Tbilisi and lived there with relatives.

In 1941, at the age of 17, one year before his scheduled school graduation, he volunteered for the Red Army infantry and from 1942 participated in the war with Germany. With the end of the Second World War, after his discharge from the service in 1945, he returned to Tbilisi where he passed his high school graduation tests and enrolled in Tbilisi State University, graduating in 1950. After graduating the university he worked as a teacher - first in a rural school in the village of Shamordino in Kaluga district, later in the city of Kaluga itself.

In 1956, after the death of Stalin, Okudzhava returned to Moscow, where he worked first as an editor in the publishing house Molodaya Gvardiya ("Young Guard"), and later as the head of the poetry division at the most prominent national literary weekly in the former USSR, Literaturnaya Gazeta ("Literary Gazette"). It was then, in the middle of the 1950s, that he began to compose songs and to perform them, accompanying himself on the guitar.

Soon he was giving concerts. He only employed a few chords and had no formal training in music, but he possessed an exceptional melodic gift, and the intelligent lyrics of his songs blended perfectly with his music and his voice. His songs were praised by his friends and amateur recordings were made. These unofficial recordings were widely copied and spread across the country, where other young people picked up guitars and started singing the songs for themselves. In 1969 his lyrics appeared in the classic Soviet film "White Sun of the Desert".

Though Okudzhava's songs were not published by any official media organization until the late 1970s, they quickly achieved enormous popularity (especially among the intelligentsia) - mainly in the USSR at first, but soon among Russian-speakers in other countries as well. Vladimir Nabokov, for example, cited his Sentimental March in the novel Ada or Ardor.

Okudzhava, however, regarded himself primarily as a poet and treated his musical recordings as insignificant. During the 1980s, he also published much prose (his novel The Show is Over won him the Russian Booker Prize in 1994 ). By the 1980s, recordings of Okudzhava performing his songs finally began to be officially released in the Soviet Union, and many volumes of his poetry appeared separately. In 1991, he was awarded the USSR State Prize.

Okudzhava died in Paris on 12 June 1997, and is buried in the Vagankovo Cemetery in Moscow. A monument marks the building at 43 Arbat Street where he lived. His dacha in Peredelkino is open to the public as a museum.

Pesenka ob Arbate.mp3
Chasovie lubvi.mp3

Georgian Legend (Erisioni)

I found "Gandagana"-song occasionally but the magic music impressed me very much. "Georgian Legend" is modern export version of georgian folk music. Music is set on producing platform with some reasons: to keep and promote georgian culture, to earn money and to show the world former soviets can make cool show.
From the site:
"1999. During a performance in Tbilisi, Georgia by the Georgian National Ensemble "Erisioni", Jim Lowe and Pascal Jourdan discover a country, a soul, and a culture enriched by centuries of history. Amazed by the immense talent of these dancers, singers and musicians, they decide to introduce this jewel to the world.

2000. The first version of the show, then called "The Legend of Tamar," tours in the United States. American critics hail the production as "sensational" (The Los Angeles Times), "spectacular" (The New York Times), and "a feast of riches for eye and ear" (The New York Post).

2001-2002. GEORGIAN LEGEND debuts in Europe, with acclaimed performances in legendary Parisian venues such as the Palais des Sports and the Palais des Congres and a tour through France, Switzerland and Belgium in April 2002. With an audience of 150,000 and 100,000 CDs sold in few months, the success of Georgian Legend is only beginning.

2003. GEORGIAN LEGEND is the meeting between the Georgian people and the Western world. Consummate production values of technique, sound, light and staging showcase the performers.

GEORGIAN LEGEND is composed of breathtaking Georgian artists -- men, women and children (between 8 and 11 years old) -- who collaborated with four European musicians for a mixing of cultures and musical influences. It is also breathtaking jumps, saber fights, dizzying waltz, technical prowess, moving choirs, and stirring musical composition and conduction.

GEORGIAN LEGEND is about love and work, about invasions, wars and victories, about the pride and courage of a proud people of the Caucasus who, throughout centuries, have retained their own identity. The dancers are terpsichorean athletes, the only dancers in the world able to dance on toepoint while wearing supple leather ballet slippers. The height of their jumps, the variety, the rapidity and the synchronism of their movements are an astonishment of power and precision. The gracious and courteous ballerinas seem to glide on the stage, smiling and diaphanous. Despite their youth, the children have reached an impressive level of artistic rigor and maturity.

All the legends from Georgia come together in a performance that you and your family will never forget."

True.

Gandagana.mp3

Dina Vyerny (Verni)

Real name is something like "Vernikova" (as says Miroslav Nemirov in his article). She was born in 1919 and left Motherland with parend while social war. In 15 y.o. she met Aristid Maillol, French Catalan sculptor and painter. Maillol was 73. Dina became his young nimphet muse. She was acquainted with Matisse and Picasso.
After Maillol's death she turned his alone heiress - he bequeathed her all his collections, gallery and so on.
Dina Verni's songs appeared in 70th in USSR. Of course it was illegal.
Nobody knows why Dina decided to sing thieves' slang songs - songs of Goulag she had never been in. Many russian fans think she sang her own experience but it's mistake.
Dina appeared in Moscow only in 1959. Stalin was dead but USSR was still a very strong communistic country. Many creative people came back from Goulag camps. Yuz Aleshkovskiy wrote song "Okurochek" ("cigarette butt")... There were Alexander Galich and Bulath Ocudzhava...
Moscow impressed Dina Verni very much. But her imressions were negative. She got used to chic french salons. No liberty, no official art - she decided not to come back in USSR.
But sh decided to create new collection - collection of russian chanson songs. Afraid of KGB she had to learn all the songs by heart. And she did it: 24 songs were got abroad.
When we met
Don't wait for me mama
The new suit