Горизонт - "Summer In Town" [1985]

Artist: Горизонт

Title: Summer In Town

Genre: Instrumental Art Rock, Avant-Prog

Country: USSR

Release date: 1985

Track List:

1. Снежинки / Snowflakes
2. Чакона / Chaconne
3. Летний город / Summer In Town

A RIO-influenced Soviet prog rock band which managed to release a vinyl LP in 1985, when the vast majority of independent Soviet musicians still had no other way of distributing their music than tape trading... is it real? Yes it is! Although they officially weren't called a rock band, but a "chamber instrumental ensemble", but it doesn't matter.

Horizont was formed in 1978 initially as a classic art-rock band influenced by Yes, Genesis and ELP. However, by 1983-84 their sound increasingly started to resemble the Rock In Opposition bands like Univers Zero or SMM, even if calling them a RIO-style band still would be a stretch. Like in case with Хроноп (whom they aided a lot with recording their two albums in 1990-91), they were based in Cheboksary and sponsored by Promtractor, which allowed them to release two professionally recorded albums in 1985 and 1988. Sadly art-rock wasn't very popular at that time, so they went largely unnoticed, despite being released on a major label. That's a pity, because they seem to be the only RIO-influenced Soviet band (beside Джунгли / Jungle who were an obscure jazz-rock band formed in 1983 as a part of the Leningrad Rock Club).

Here's a good and detailed review of "Summer In Town" written by Ilya Prutov, who's certainly much more knowledgeable of prog-rock and RIO than me (click to enlarge):

Download