ГРАЖДАНСКАЯ ОБОРОНА "Война" альбом [1989, ГрОб/XOP, 2001]

Jumping off from the previous post of old USSR post-punk groups, today I have the infamous and classic Siberian USSR punk groups ГРАЖДАНСКАЯ ОБОРОНА (Grazhdanskaya Oborona/Civil Defense) from Omsk, a city just a few hours north of the Kazakhstan border in south Siberia. This is their album that was recorded towards the end of 1989 called Война (Voyna/War). 

Unlike the previous bands I've talked about, GrOb were completely underground up until the fall of the USSR. Their releases were only distributed from person to person via tape recorders from stereos throughout the USSR and never were properly released until the fall of the USSR. This system of distributing censored music was called magnitizdat. Their singer/frontman/song writer Yegor Letov was even captured, interrogated and tortured by the KGB after the aunt of one of his bass players in the early days outed them for "anti-communist" activities. The official slogan of GrOb was "I will always be against". Musically and lyrically GrOb were one of the most subversive punk bands to ever exist on the planet in my opinion. Completely unique Siberian-styled punk that is almost folky but completely noisy, blown out, fast and driven punk. The noise levels are at the same level as Japanese punk bands like GAI for Confuse. I have no idea how the context of the sound for GrOb was imagined or created without hearing or being influenced by western punk acts, but amazingly enough, it does exist on it's own pillar of originality and creativity and developed completely on it's own based on all the info I've been able to find. 

Lyrically, GrOb are one of the most brutal and honest bands in critiquing their surroundings. The opening and title track has Letov screaming "Peace or War? WAR!... God or Death? DEATH!... Love or Fear? FEAR!... Freedom or The Lash? THE LASH!". 

Or the third track Философская Песня О Пуле (Philosophical Song about a Bullet) the lyrics are

"Wicked bullet, teach me to live
Good stone, teach me to swim
        Humanism spawned genocide
        Justice has given the tribunal
        Deviations of established law
        What we sow - and then are reaping"

Or their Song About Lenin (Песня О Ленине)...

Lenin - Hitler, Lenin - Stalin is
Lenin - is Kim Il Sung, Lenin - is Mao
Lenin - the Buddha, Christ, Abel and Cain
Lenin - is the yin and yang, Lenin - is the Tao
Lenin - a joke that we have poisoned
Lenin - is a carrot, by which we beckon
Lenin - is the hand that we mold
Lenin is a spotlight that blinds us
Lenin - is a hammer which we pierce
Lenin - that is all that drives us
Lenin - a tank that crushed us
Lenin - is the truth that we have poisoned
Lenin - is the bullet that cures us
Lenin - is the fear that cripples us
Lenin - is an ass, that we all stink
Lenin - is the blood that we slurp
Lenin - Hitler, Lenin - Stalin is
Lenin - is Kim Il Sung, Lenin - is Mao
Forever young, forever with us
He always, always alive!
      Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live
      Lenin will be, will be
      Lenin, Lenin will live!

There's a level of self-destructive, melancholic, desperate and urgency that I can only find in GrOb's music. I can only imagine what context this album was recorded... Right at the end of the USSR, the end of communism, the end of an era, the end of the world is what life must have felt like for people at this time, and the 4 (FOUR!) albums recorded and released by GrOb in 1989 reflect this. I read a very interesting interview conducted with Letov after the fall of the USSR and how people in the USA can't imagine the hostility, danger and environment in which he operated to make his art in the USSR and that people in America do not know what true oppression is, or something to that effect. Unfortunately the Kill From The Heart original website is down, they had that incredible interview available there.

Download link:
Voyna!

V/A "Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands From The USSR" 2xLP, Disc 1 [Big Time, 1986]

After the incredibly troubling, unfortunate, heartbreaking news of Tuesday, November 9th, here in the USA, it seems like we are headed towards a really bleak and regressive future. For the last week I've found the sounds of the old USSR punk/post-punk bands to reflect the sadness and hopelessness that I am feeling. It's also inspiring to look at bands that thrived and persevered through harder times than what the USA has yet experienced as a whole country.

Today's record is a very interesting US released double LP (Although I'm only posting disc 1) of Soviet Post-Punk bands from 1986 that was smuggled out of the USSR by Joanna Stingray, a young woman who travelled to the USSR and became friends with the artists. I'm choosing to only post the first disc because I find the music of AQUARIUM (Аквариум) and KINO (Кино) to be more interesting. I'll probably post the 2nd disc sometime in the future.

The first band AQUARIUM are excellent, experimental post-punk that definitely have a Soviet-Rock defining sound. It's great hearing their music after being intimately familiar with the material on the early 2000s releases of punk bands from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and to be able to see how a lot of those bands owe their sound to old bands like AQUARIUM and KINO, who are still major influences in Russia/Ex-Soviet states to this day. The recording production on the LP is amazing, a perfect balance between raw and clean, and amazingly enough, the whole record was recorded on a 2-track. I find it amazing to make something that sounds this good with a 2-track. Analog is truly the superior recording medium for punk.

Here's a video that was made of AQUARIUM's first song off the comp, excellent stuff:

The band following on side b is the legendary KINO, who are THE reference in Soviet rock. Interesting fun fact, their front person VIKTOR TSOI is of Korean decent and is considered one of the first Rockers in the USSR, and like-wise, one of the first Rockers in China was also of Korean decent. KINO plays some of the best post-punk in my opinion, and play in a style completely their own. I especially like the fact that both AQUARIUM and KINO have a sad/bleak undertone to them without being 'Goth' or 'dark' at all in their sound. The entire history of KINO is worth looking up.

Also, here is a great video of KINO from the 80s:

As far as Soviet-Punk/Rock goes, bands like AQUARIUM and KINO, although unofficial (that is, not state approved), still held a fairly privileged position. They weren't detained, harassed or interrogated by the KGB/the state authorities. In the future I will have to post the music of and write about bands/artists like Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Гражданская Оборона) and Yanka Dyagileva (Янка Дягилева) who were captured and interrogated by the KGB for their subversive lyrics, music and activities. These artists are the true Soviet underground.

Finally here are videos of Joanna Stingray talking about the release of the LP in the 80s:

Download link:
Red Wave Disc 1!