This is one of my most favorite records ever. All the recordings are the lowest of lofi. Totally raw, completely distinct sounding and aggressive punk in the Soviet style. The story behind the fruition of this record is amazing as well as explained on the TAM89 website...
"Mail contacts in 1998 with Edgars Embergs in Latvia and Syeva Oplachko in Omsk, Siberia, established from our temporary base in Northern Uganda ended up in a package of 3 Kazakhstan tapes arriving in our Kitgum post office box. Bands play different styles of punk, from fast Soviet style to garage surf to folk and industrial-influenced. Discover the Central Asian underground! The record covers the period from late 80's to mid-90's."
Here's my play-by-play of the record....
01. Добровольцы Поневоле "Волга! Волга!"
First track is totally raw and wild, completely uncontrollable. The keyboard breakdowns are insane and add to the disjointedness.
02. 12 Подвигов Нуркена "Странный Пьяный Мальчик" = Strange Drunken Boy
The second track sounds like classic Siberian soviet punk to me, super catchy with a fuzzy and blown out guitar. And the classic to-pa-to-pa beat, really a perfect punk song!
03. Немцов И Немцы "Охота На Сайгаков" = The Hunting For The Saїgaks
Next is a great instrumental song. Totally love the atmosphere.
04. Фима И Мифические ДБ "Збезда" = The Star
First song on side B. Completely wild folk punk in the typical Soviet style. Super raw and blown out.
05. Алдар Косе И Надувные Баурсаки "Kad Mirciai Niekas Netiketu"
Totally crazy atmosphere on this track, very distant sounding and menacing.
06. Бьрнай Карабасов И Самозванцы "Апачи (Гаражнае)" = Apachi (Garage Version)
Great raw Soviet punk version of the classic instrumental song written by Jerry Lordan and originally performed by the british band The Shadows.
The only unfortunate thing is that there are no more recordings readily available from any of the bands. I've started searching a little into trying to track down the records as explained in the notes about each band in the sleeve...
Recently I contacted someone in Omsk, Siberia. Still haven't heard back but hopefully soon they can get me in contact with an old member or something. If anyone has any leads they can give to me, that would be much appreciated!
ПОЖАЛУЙСТА ПОМОГИ. Если вы знаете кого-нибудь, кто играл в этих полосах частот, пожалуйста, свяжитесь со мной. Я хотел бы услышать больше музыки и записи, которые сделали эти полосы. Спасибо.
dl link...
Steppe-Punks!
Second post in rapid succession!
This time its the second of four Rebel Planet tapes ROMANIA UNDERGROUND, hopefully in the coming weeks I'll have the Hongkong Underground tape that I can post. Very excited to hear the bands on that tape!
This tape, like the Makarene Underground cassette, was compiled by Lük Haas and features 6 underground thrash metal bands. Very killer stuff, super raw and lots of spirit. If you're already a fan of the old Quebecois or South American thrash metal acts like Soothsayer, Voor, or Reencarnacion, etc. you'll definitely dig this material, which is all live recordings. Very cool.
And a quick search on metal archives shows that only one of the bands, Tectonic, has a page. Which in my minds means that the other bands are insanely obscure. That website is known to have literally everything documented as far as metal goes.
The stand out band is Roata, who play a pop punk song and a new wavy song. Very strange to have those tracks put right in the middle of thrash metal bands. The new wavy song is very good.
dl link...
Romania Underground!
First post of a new blog that I've been planning on doing, or has been in the back of my head, for quite some time now. And with the purchase of an RCA to USB adapter recently, I finally have a means to share all the music that I love with the world. Hopefully I'll be able to track down more music of artists that I only have a few songs from. Please check out the WANT/WISH list to the right and contact me if you have any of those bands' music.
And now for the first post. We have one of the four Rebel Planet tapes with bands from the Indian Ocean countries/territories of Reunion Island and Mauritius! The tape was compiled by Lük Haas in 1991, who would then go on to start the absolutely exceptional TIAN AN MEN 89 punk record label, which all their releases will hopefully be posted here sooner than later.
The Mauritius side starts off the tape. All the bands play great reggae tunes, totally enjoyable to listen too, but still has a totally DIY/raw lofi quality that I completely love. The Reunion Island side is a bit more raw having two punk bands and a, what I'll call, 'classic rock' playing band, plus a weird improvization from another group. Acid and Les Fuckers are raw garage punk, totally unexpected from a place like Reunion Island in the early 90s in my mind! I remember reading an interview with Lük about his travels there and he found news of Les Fuckers from a local paper or something but couldn't find any contact info, but was able to get the names of the kids in the band. So he was able to eventually track down the contact info by posing as the kids' parents at a local school and got one of their phone numbers too call them up and was able to get music from them. I'm a little hazy on the details but that's the gist of it.
If you have any info of new bands or the scene in Reunion Island or Mauritius, please contact me! It would be great to see what is happening 25 years later.
dl link...
Makarene Underground!
