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!