Ольга Рожнова - "Дорога" [1990]

Artist: Ольга Рожнова

Title: Дорога

Genre: Heavy Metal, Hard Rock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1990

Track List: 

1. Дорога
2. Грусть
3. К Счастью Путь
4. Белый Снег
5. Мы Все Зависим Друг От Друга
6. Защитить Своей Судьбой
7. Вот И Все

On 8th of March, I traditionally post something with female vocals, and it would be a good idea to post this undeservedly forgotten album that was unearthed and re-released not so long ago by GS Productions. Olga Rozhnova started professionally playing music in 1980 and was a member of a pop-rock band VIA Aquarelle until 1986. Since 1984, she started to write her own songs, and with the help of musicians of a band called "Park", she released her debut cassette album in 1987. After that, she formed her own band called "Voyage", with which she has recorded this album in late 80s. That was the time when Soviet hard rock became hyped in the West (for a rather short time), and it gave them an opportunity for a tour in Germany with the American singer Annie Addington. From 1993 to 1995, Olga was one of the hosts of a TV show called "Rock-n-Roll TV". However, mid-1990's were very bad times in post-Soviet countries in general and for rock/metal musicians in particular, and after releasing one more album in 1995 (which featured mostly ballad-oriented hard rock), Olga has stopped making new music.

This album is easily the best out of everything she has recorded, and one of the best Soviet hard rock/metal albums I've heard. The first half may be 80's hard rock in the vein of Lita Ford, but the second half is definitely metal (if a bit ballad-oriented). I won't be the first to call Olga "Soviet Lita Ford", but I think her voice is even more powerful, and nearly every song on this album is a hit (although the quality of production may vary):

Zoster - "Waxen Face" [1991]

Artist: Zoster

Title: Waxen Face

Genre: Old School Death Metal/Grindcore

Country: USSR

Release date: 1991

Track List:

1. Intro
2. Fantastic Epilepsy
3. Vomit
4. Cursed
5. Inquiries
6. Lethargic Sleep
7. In the Deepest Ooze
8. Zoster
9. Slaves of Libido
10. Friable Brain
11. Interpretation of Schizophrenia
12. Irretrievable Emotions of Pseudoyouth
13. What For?
14. Beg to Die
15. Waxen Face
16. Dumb Show
17. Timbre of Silence
18. Losing Coordination
19. Logical Sequel of Absurdity
20. Logical Sequel of Absurdity (First Version)

I've started this year with Ingush post-punk, and let's continue with a band from a neighbouring region of North Ossetia. Turned out there's a pretty big rock scene compared to other places in the North Caucasus, which is not particularly surprising - when I visited Vladikavkaz in 2023, it left an impression of a much less conservative and more hipster-ish city than anything I've seen in surrounding Muslim regions, and while I've seen a lot Christian iconography, the actual beliefs of people were more pagan than anything else (say, like in the neighbouring Georgia, there's a cult of St. George, but rather as a pagan god of war than a Christian saint). And if there was death metal in Dagestan in 1996 and Armenia in 1994, it could be in North Ossetia in 1991 too.

This particular band suprised me by being one of the first to play deathgrind in the USSR, when it was very rare even in the much bigger and cosmopolitan cities like Moscow and Leningrad. They started in 1988 as a project of the members of a hard'n'heavy band Исповеди and thrash metal band Orgy, and released their only tape album in 1991. While I expected a really poor quality of production before listening to it, it turned out to be a lot better than I thought, and the music itself is a lot more interested and varied than what you'd hear on a typical grindcore demo from the 90s. Unfortunately, it was released right before "Nevermind" by Nirvana came out, so next year they had to switch their style to grunge because no one was interested in their metal stuff anymore. Not much is known about their futher history except that they've finally split up in 1996 (yes, that was a tough time for everyone and for metal bands in particular), and their vocalist died in September 2001. If I'm not mistaken, no one in the band was ethnic Ossetian, everyone in the lineup had Russian and Armenian names.

Прикладное Искусство - "Храм любви и труда" [1989]

Artist: Прикладное Искусство

Title: Храм любви и труда

Genre: Synthpop, Darkwave

Country: USSR (Karelia)

Release date: 1989

Track List:

1. Поминальные танцы
2. Храни меня
3. Я ушёл в благословенный край 
4. Гонконг I
5. Обо всех и о ней
6. В городе снег
7. Гонконг II
8. Они
9. Илья пророк
10. Храм любви и труда

Excellent but very obscure synthpop from Petrozavodsk (Karelia), with very poetic lyrics and dark sound, bordering on darkwave and comparable to some later equally obscure bands like Universal System. Unfortunately the band never got much publicity outside their home region, and never released a proper album. All we have is this cassette demo from 1989 (not even sure about its official name), some tracks from 1992-93, and a couple of new tracks released in 2006-07 (after the death of the band's founding member).

During the Soviet times, Karelia had a relatively thriving rock scene since the late 60s, due to its proximity to St. Petersburg and Finland, but that scene remained mostly unknown countrywide - mostly because, as a general rule, Karelian bands were far from typical "Russian rock", preferring to stay as close as possible to the classic sound of western rock bands instead, often singing only in English. A notable example is Dmitry "Dima" Yaroslavskiy (RIP 1999) with his ballad "Karelian Girl" which became a local hit in the late 80s:

He was a friend of Igor "Gariman" Shushunov, who was the mastermind of the band I'm presenting to you today. During the school years in late 70s, Igor already played drums in an art rock band The 13th Team, and in mid-1980, he was a member of one of the first metal bands in Karelia and USSR in general - O.V.N. (whose name translates as "Very High Voltage"; to the best of my knowledge, they left no recordings). Later he became interested in electronic music, and recorded the first 4-song demo in 1988 with the help of Sergey Pozhidaev, a professional programmer, and Dmitry Osipov, a keyboardist and singer with an unusual high-pitch voice.

Synthpop bands became to appear in the Soviet Union as early as in 1983, but the heyday of Soviet Depeche Mode clones was around 1990. That said, Прикладное Искусство were much more than just another Depeche Mode ripoff band, which is for good (as I've said before, I never was a big fan of Depeche Mode anyway, although I do like the remix of "Enjoy the Silence" by Mike Shinoda). Nearly every song on this cassette is a hit, but I especially like "Hong Kong I & II". There's only one surviving recording of their live performance from that time (around 1991), featuring a new song that was released circa 1992:

There's also a low-budget music video from an unknown date, but it definitely was made before the death of Igor Shushunov in 2002 (unfortunately, his daughter Yulia has also died not so long ago, in 2018):

Overall, they were one of the best bands on the early Russian/Soviet synthpop scene, despite the very limited access to musical equipment and nearly no recognition outside of their home region, and I'd recommend them to everyone who's looking for good but undeservedly forgotten synthpop and darkwave. Enjoy:

Download

Альянс - "Звуки на заре" [1987]

Artist: Альянс

Title: Звуки на заре

Genre: Synthpop, New Wave

Country: USSR
Year: 1987

Track List:

1. Фальстарт
2. На заре
3. День освобождения
4. Порабощённые трудом
5. Дайте огня!
6. Падение - взлёт
7. Вальс
8. Когда печаль пройдёт...

So far this year was really terrible when it come to deaths of many important musicians, such as Genesis P-Orridge, Konstantin Ryabinov of GrOb, Gabi Delgado of DAF, Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk, and now Oleg Parastaev of Alliance.

The band was formed in 1981 and initially played ska and reggae, but later became more and more influenced by new wave, which was quickly gaining popularity in the mid-1980s Soviet Union. In 1984, Alliance among many other bands fell victim to the Chernenko's anti-rock campaign and were banned from any public performances. However, in 1986 they have reformed as a synthpop/new wave outfit, with Oleg Parastaev on keyboards. That was their "golden" lineup, but unfortunately it was short-lived: Parastaev left the band in 1988 and started his own new wave project called NRG, while Alliance became a female-fronted folk-rock band before finally splitting up in 1993.

They have reformed in 2008, but didn't gain much publicity until a decade later, when Oleg Parastaev has uploaded a live video of their most famous song "На заре" on his YouTube channel. By a coincidence, it happened during the Venezuelan crisis, and two of the band members in the video looked like younger Putin and Maduro to some viewers. Due to that, the video first went viral in Latin America, and later it became popular at their home in ex-USSR, since it fitted perfectly in the current wave of 80s synthpop nostalgia. After that, the band has released their first new album after 25 years of silence, and in February 2020 - another one, with mostly space-themed lyrics.

Sadly, both of their most important members are dead by now (their founding member Sergei Volodin died in 2017), and to most listeners they'll remain an one-hit wonder, but at least they finally got the recognition they deserve. R.I.P. Oleg Parastaev. He died at 5AM, right according to the lyrics of his best known song: "At dawn, the voices are calling me..." Well, let's say he hasn't died but called to leave the Earth and return to the cosmos he belongs to:

Монумент Страха - s/t [1989]

Artist: Монумент Страха

Title: Монумент Страха

Genre: Post-Punk, Noise Rock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1989

Track List:

1. Букеты Роз
2. Микробы
3. Ликует Слава В Огне Заката
4. Грусть - Источник Мечты
5. Рождество
6. Смерть Слепых
7. Памяти Я.К. 
8. Микробы (bonus 1990)
9. Смерть Слепых (bonus 1990)
10. Памяти Я.К. (bonus 1990)

Finally, I found the debut self-titled release of this very obscure Soviet post-punk/industrial rock band (perhaps one of the very first ones), whose second album I've posted here about an year ago. It was re-released on cassette (30 copies) by Ultra Records in 2009, and later on CD along with their 2nd album.

Compared to their second album, it's more straightforward post-punk with less distorted vocals, but the fans of early industrial/noise rock in the vein of Swans should enjoy this one too. Overall, both their sound and aesthetics were exactly what's expected from an obscure industrial/noise rock band from the late 80s, and it's sometimes hard to believe that it was recorded in Leningrad and not in London or New York. I'm still searching for any releases of their side project called Mechanical Ballet (if there were any at all).

Download

Дубль-1 - s/t EP [1986]

Artist: Дубль-1

Title: Дубль-1 (demo EP)

Genre: Heavy Metal, Hard Rock

Country: USSR
Year: 1986

Track List:

1. Дни, подстерегающие нас
2. Суббота
3. Ворон-викинг
4. Страшный век
5. Спи, дитя

Among the bands featured on this compilation, there's one female-fronted band (one of the very few ones at that time) called Markiza (not to be confused with Markize!), which was considerably popular among Soviet metal fans during the late 80s, yet is largely forgotten by now. Here's their even more obscure predecessor, whose music I personally like better.

Both bands were started by Sergey Sokolov, who began his career of a professional musician in 1970, and has played guitar in many "prestigious" pop/rock bands during the 70s. By the end of 1978, he and his wife Elena decided to record a hard rock album. They did have recorded a full-length album by 1982 (which wasn't officially released), but it wasn't particularly "hard" when it comes to sound. After one more failed pop/rock project, they again decided to start a hard rock band in early 1985. Their first live performance for a big audience took place at the festival "Rock Panorama '86" - the very first official rock festival held in Moscow during 4-8 May 1986. Again, they haven't played anything particularly "hard" there - their program consisted solely of pop-rock, although of a rather good kind:

While they haven't particularly impressed the public with their sound, Elena did cause a scandal by demonstratively wearing a very short skirt on stage - nothing special in today's times, but quite provocative back then. Yet that performance helped them to get more recognition, and, after some line-up changes, they officially hired by the Moscow regional philharmonic society. This enabled them to record their one and only hard rock EP, which is presented here. However, the next 1987 year wasn't good for them - Elena and Sergey have divorced, and in the end of the year, they were fired from the philharmonic. Later in 1988, they went on to form a much more successful glam-oriented band Markiza, but that's another story.

This EP turned out to be surprisingly good, all things considered. Obviously influenced by Lita Ford, Doro Pesch and Lee Aaron, it mostly lies on the blurry boundary between hard rock and traditional heavy metal (+ a ballad in the end of the EP, which is probably the best song on the whole release). The 3rd track can even be half-jokingly considered to be the first viking metal song made in the USSR... or, with all seriousness, probably the first Soviet/Russian metal song with lyrics based on the Norse mythology:

Download

V/A - "Monsters of Rock USSR" [1986-1993]

Artist: (various)

Title: Monsters of Rock USSR

Genre: Heavy Metal, Thrash Metal, Glam Rock

Country: USSR
Year: 1986-93

Track List:

1. Диалог - Красный рок
2. Статус - Лешаки
3. Чёрный кофе - Владимирская Русь
4. Тяжёлый день - Берегись жала
5. Коррозия металла - Дьявол здесь
6. Железный поток - Эмбрион
7. Э.С.Т. - 30 ХГСА
8. Маркиза - 220 вольт
9. Мастер - Воля и разум
10. Союз - Племена
11. Чёрный обелиск - Стена
12. Круиз - Дальний свет
13. Демарш - Свободная любовь
14. Рондо - Богиня секса
15. Джокер - Магия
16. Холостой выстрел - Тотальный исход

bonus:

1. Август - Демон
2. Ария - Герой асфальта
3. Фронт - Мы победим
4. Парк Горького - Volga Boatman

This compilation was made by a music journalist Denis Boyarinov, originally including 16 tracks and released under the title "Devil Is Here: Soviet Halloween Rock". Later on, the owner of this blog decided to extend it a bit. In its final form, it contains 20 tracks by various Soviet metal bands, both well-known and obscure.

Of course, it should be mentioned that some of the bands on there were not that good, and are deservedly forgotten by now. For instance, glam rock bands like Rondo became popular mostly due to the use of the word "sex" in their lyrics (yes, it was considered quite scandalous at the time), and their provocative stage looks:

A special case is Korrozia Metalla, who never were a good band by any means, yet they successfully made a career of a comedy/shock rock band, and their frontman now enjoys a living meme status. Some of the better known bands on there, such as Aria and Black Coffee, are now considered extremely uncool to listen to by metal elitists, but 30 years back they enjoyed an unquestionable cult status among "rebellious" Soviet teenagers. In particular, the debut album of Black Coffee was sold in more than a million copies, largely because it was the only metal album available in stores in most smaller towns around 1988:

Some tracks on this compilation are from the post-Soviet period (1992-93), but the overwhelming majority of them are from 1988-91, when the public interest in metal was at its peak in the USSR (fun fact: the "Monsters of Rock" festival held near Moscow in 1991, featuring Metallica, Pantera and AC/DC, is now considered one of the largest rock/metal festivals in history - according to some estimates, the number of attendees was over 1.5 million!). The metal scene first appeared in the Soviet Union during the summer of 1984 (initually consisting mostly of children of diplomats and other people who was able to travel to the Western Bloc countries), broke into mainstream around 1987-1988, and became largely dead by 1995 (the modern Russian metal scene is a different story).

Download

Asparez - "Anathema" [1990]

Artist: Asparez

Title: Anathema

Genre: Heavy/Power Metal

Country: Armenian SSR
Year: 1990

Track List:

1. Clearing
2. Fire & Metal
3. Sorrow
4. Crazy Age
5. Tell Me
6. White As Black
7. Untruthful Game
8. Black Garden

Asparez were quite possibly the very first Armenian metal band, formed in 1982 and released their first demo in 1985. The demo, however, is now lost, so this album is their one and only available release. It was recorded around 1988, during the times when an ethnic conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan was already brewing (the song "Black Garden" is dedicated to these events).

On last.fm, I've seen it tagged as "protoSOAD", but as for me, the only things in common between Asparez and SOAD are their "heavy" sound and ethnic Armenian musicians in their line-up. In fact, Asparez are much more similar to another well-known Soviet Armenian metal band, Ayas. I'd recommend both bands to anyone who's looking for obscure old school metal with lyrics in a weird sounding language:

Download

Игорь Чернявский - "Завтра Будет Вчера" [1990]

Artist: Игорь Чернявский

Title: Завтра Будет Вчера

Genre: Ambient, Minimal Synth

Country: USSR

Release date: 1990

Track List:

1. Я знаю, что ты знаешь, что я знаю...
2. Дом на набережной
3. Бегство из Москвы
4. Заблудившийся трамвай
5. Над пропастью
6. Тема 183
7. Рабы
8. На лестнице
9. Hommage

While not being particularly outstanding, this album is an interesting example of a release containing some elements of classic percussion industrial (especially in the track #4) that was officially released on vinyl in the USSR (by Melodia, 5800 copies). For the most part, however, it's just instrumental ambient / minimal synth. The composer, Igor Chernyavsky, was living in Poland since 1983, where he played in a band called Aya RL and also recorded some electronic music mostly for radio & movie soundtracks. This is his first solo work, recorded in Warsaw in 1988. The release notes describe it as a mix between "so-called post-industrial rock", "Russian urban romance songs" and the music of Central Asia, but the music itself is not as complex as you might think after reading such a description. Get it here, or listen to it on Youtube:

Автомат DL-440 - "Жить в огне" [1989]

Artist: Автомат DL-440

Title: Жить в огне

Genre: Techno, Old School EBM

Country: USSR

Release date: 1989

Track List:

1. С тобой
2. Первый
3. Жить в огне
4. Рейтар
5. Сто лет
6. Помни
7. Конвой
8. Боль
9. Ещё
10. Пластик

Just look what I've found - a very rare example of early Soviet EBM, recorded in 1989 in Western Siberia using a tape recorder and a primitive Yamaha computer. The band was a duo consisting of Pavel Dudin (vocals & lyrics) and Andrei Udot (music), former members of a band called "The Hedgehogs" (no idea what sort of a band it was). Initially they were recording their stuff at home, but this album was recorded at a club where they were working at that time. Their dream was to perform on stage in Moscow wearing Robocop costumes, but unfortunately, the band broke up due to an internal conflict after an year or two of existence, without gaining any recognition.

Despite the (expectedly) poor quality of recording, their one and only tape is very interesting, and suprisingly similar to the Western EBM scene of that time, although I seriously doubt they were aware of this term (as all the electronic music of this sort was lumped into the "techno" category). The lyrics are said to be about "fantastic heroic deeds", which is fairly in line with the militaristic image of the early EBM bands as well. Overall, this release is a very valuable historical document at the very least, and definitely shouldn't be missed:

Download

Сепсис - "Литургия безумия" [1991]

Artist: Сепсис

Title: Литургия безумия

Genre: Avant-Prog, Krautrock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1991

Track List: 

Side A:

1. Отчуждение
2. В Плену У Диких Собак
3. Размышляя О...
4. В Волнах Желания
5. Апогей

Side B:

1. Изгнание Бесов
2. Погружаясь В Сон
3. Плач Блуждающей Девы
4. Спазмы Рассудка
5. Оковы Славы
6. Прочь Из Этих Мест
7. Изгнание Бесов
8. Катарсис 

All I know about this band is that they were an instrumental avant-garde rock trio from Pushkin (which is in the vicinity of St.Petersburg). This album was recorded during March-April 1990 with the help of Yuri Morozov as sound engineer, and was released on vinyl by Andrei Tropillo's label AnTrop, when the band already has split up.

Although it was produced by such famous (at the time) people in the Russian rock scene, it failed to get much publicity, mostly because the music was too unaccessible for an average listener. There were very few Soviet rock bands whise music could be called "avant-prog", and Sepsis definitely were one of them. The album is titled "Liturgy of Madness", which is a pretty appropriate name for a piece of such scary music (maybe not on pair with the best works of Goblin, Univers Zero and Shub-Niggurath, but still). The only known mp3 rip of it consists of two long tracks corresponding to the A and B sides of the original release:

Download

Юрий Морозов - "Погубить человечество" [1979]

Artist: Юрий Морозов

Title: Погубить человечество

Genre: Ambient, Experimental Electronic, Musique Concrete

Country: USSR

Release date: 1979

Track List:

1. Ария демона
2. Катастрофы
3. Фиолетовая вибрация
4. Летающие тарелки
5. Мистерия эроса
6. Битва бронтозавров
7. Пляски машин
8. Сигналы помощи
9. Агония

The most experimental album by Yuri Morozov I've heard so far, even more so than his previous one. To be honest I have discovered the electronic/experimental part of his discography only not long ago, and so far I like it much more than his blues rock albums.

Of course, like in case with his other album I've posted about a week ago, you shouldn't expect much from a tape album which was never intended to be published widely - it was just an experiment by a guy who had access to a pretty advanced synthesizer for that time, and wanted to create something that sounds as scary and "alien" as possible. And I must admit that the result indeed reflects the atmosphere of the "dark" sci-fi of the 1960-80s quite well. It's far from being a masterpiece like "Martian Chronicles" by Solaris, but it's fascinating to know that music like this existed in the USSR as early as in late 1970s, and I'd recommend to anyone who would appreciate the atmosphere of apocalyptic sci-fi, the UFO craze and the nuclear war scare of that time.

Download

Юрий Морозов - "Неизъяснимое" [1978]

Artist: Юрий Морозов

Title: Неизъяснимое

Genre: Ambient, Musique Concrete

Country: USSR

Release date: 1978

Unsurprisingly, I find the experimental electronic part of Yuri Morozov's vast discography much more interesting than his blues rock albums that he was primarily famous for (and not only because it's much "darker" in terms of atmosphere it creates). This album, recorded in the second part of 1970s, consists of 5 untitled instrumental tracks of synthesizer improvisation with some psychedelic rock elements mixed in.

Unsurprisingly again, this album is/was unpopular in the mainstram rock community, but it seems to be highly valued among the fans of more experimnetal stuff. I even have seem it being compared to Throbbing Gristle by industrial fans, and to Henry Cow and Aksak Maboul by RIO fans. Of course I won't go that far - after all, it was recorded just for personal satisfaction by a guy who managed to get his hands on a synthesizer and professtional recording equipment. I highly doubt he could know about any of the aforementioned bands at the time, but nevertheless, I have to agree that the material on this album strangely resemble a lot of much better known experimental music from the mid-1970s.

Download

Юрий Морозов - "Свадьба кретинов" [1976]

Artist: Юрий Морозов

Title: Свадьба кретинов

Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Proto-Punk

Country: USSR

Release date: 1976

Track List:

1. Конформист 
2. Кретин 
3. Не знаю, за что 
4. Дай крылья мне, Бог 
5. А мне и так конец 
6. Свадьба кретинов (Бродяга пес) 
7. Сон 
8. Черный пес

Yuri Morozov's name is largely unknown to modern Russian rock fans, but he was a cult figure during the 1970s, mainly because he was one of the first to record several proper rock albums in the USSR. He started his first band in late 1969 when he lived in North Ossetia, but his early works were far from rock music - it was mostly acoustic singer-songwriter stuff usual for the 1960s Soviet independent music scene. Three years later, he started to work at a Melodia studio in Leningrad as a sound engineer. So, he was lucky to have access to the professional recording equipment, which enabled him to record several albums in good quality (if you really want to know how awful most amateur recordings from that time were, check out this or this).

In the early 1980s he became increasingly religious and quite reclusive in his lifestyle. During the late 1980s Russian rock boom he formed a new band which wasn't particularly successful. Until his death in 2006, he worked mostly as a sound engineer and a writer, yet he's now remembered mostly as a multi-instrumentalist and a pioneer of Soviet rock.

His discography is quite vast, consisting of 50 or so albums, ranging from psychedelic rock and hard rock to electronic/ambient. This album is his best known work, recorded at his workplace in 1976 and released on tape in 1977. The vocals for a couple of songs, which had some "risky" lyrics, were recorded at home. Lines like "I'm a cretin and I love it!" would indeed fit into the lyrics of any early punk band quite well, but as a whole, this album is fairly typical psychedelic/hard rock of the early 1970s. It is also noticeably different in tone from his early recordings, which were more lighthearted, with fairly inoffensive lyrical topics of the "wine, women and songs" variety, while this one is much gloomier, with a prominent theme of death and suicide; the topics of spirituality and non-conformism are also present. Overall, this album might be nothing special by the measures of the Western rock scene of that time, but it was a breakthrough for the Soviet rock scene, and it certainly doesn't deserve to be forgotten. Enjoy:

Download

Игорь Лень - "Здесь..." [1989]

Artist: Игорь Лень

Title: Здесь...

Genre: Ambient, New Age

Country: USSR

Release date: 1989

Track List:

1. Голос
2. Приговор
3. Тебе...
4. Срыв
5. Блюз
6. Здесь...

Here'sthe one and only solo album of Igor Len, a Moscow Conservatory-educated composer and sound producer who was an important member of Николай Коперник. His music can quite fairly be termed "dark ambient" with its depressive atmosphere unusual for most early Soviet electronic music. Anyway, he had a luxury of having his album released on vinyl by Melodia in 1989. It contains material from two his earlier demo tapes, dedicated to the works of Arseny & Andrey Tarkovsky. Download link for the MP3 rip shamelessly stolen from this blog (which I already have credited several times on here):

Download

 

Николай Коперник - "Родина" [1986]

Artist: Николай Коперник

Title: Родина

Genre: Post-Punk, New Wave, Art Rock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1986

Track List:

1. Горцы
2. В небесах лазурных
3. Дымки
4. Музы
5. Юкагиры
6. Конники
7. Там, вдали
8. Руда
9. Родина

Named in honour of Nicholaus Copernicus, this band was formed in 1981 by Moscow-based composers Yuri Orlov and Igor Len. Their music has very little in common with what's usually called "Russian rock", and to be honest, that's a good thing. They released only one full-length album on tape in 1986, and one more 7'' officially released by Melodia in 1988-89, but these releases were good enough to earn them a cult status in the Moscow underground scene. The band reformed in 2005 and released a new album (which is very good as well) in 2012.

As far as I know, they had chances to work with such musicians was Peter Gabriel and Frank Zappa, but they never became a particularly well-known band - likely because their music was too experimental for an average Russian rock listener. This album isn't an exception, yet the level of songwriting on it is well above many much better known Soviet rock bands. Interestingly enough, there's even a song dedicated to one small tribe in the far Northeastern Siberia that not everyone knows about :)

Download

Дурное Влияние - "Неподвижность" [1989]

Artist: Дурное Влияние

Title: Неподвижность

Genre: Post-Punk, Gothic Rock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1989

Track List:

1. 24 часа
2. Если я лгу
3. Дай мне уйти
4. Неподвижность
5. Жизнь как болезнь
6. Мёртвые смотрят вверх
7. Сейчас
8. Спать 
9. 24 часа (видеомикс)

bonus:

1. Неподвижность (2012 version)
2. Дай мне уйти (2012 version)
3. Кто здесь? (Петля Нестерова cover)

"Дурное Влияние (Bad Influence) was a Russian coldwave band featuring members from earlier band projects Механический Балет and Монумент Страха. The band released their debut album Неподвижность (Immobility) in 1989" (last.fm)

As far as I know, they were one of the most influental Soviet post-punk bands of that time, and they're widely credited as one of the first Russian gothic rock bands. The band existed from November 1987 to the summer of 1990 (according to other sources, 1991), and made a reunion during 2011-12. Their only full-length album was recorded in November 1989 at a home studio in Peterhof. The quality of production is unsurprisingly poor, but isn't it something to be expected from an obscure 80's post-punk band?..

Миссия:Антициклон - "С миссией в Москве" [1990]

Artist: Миссия:Антициклон

Title: С миссией в Москве

Genre: Post-Punk, New Wave

Country: USSR

Release date: 1990

Track List:

1. Вот и вся любовь
2. Цветочки и ягодки
3. В этом пальто
4. Если это революция
5. Будет время
6. Что дальше?
7. Дурацкий танец
8. Эпитафия

This band was formed in 1986 in Magadan of all places. Even this very remote town in the Soviet Far East was experiencing a rock music "boom" at the time, and the local bands were known for their quite specific guitar sound. Initially, M:A were playing glam rock and something that was described by A.Kushnir as "some unknown sort of grunge", but this particular album sounds like typical post-punk/new wave from the 80s (not surprising, since the Magadan scene of that time was strongly influenced by such bands as Japan and Talking Heads).

The whole tape was recorded during 3 days in Moscow on a professional 24-channel tape recorder, and the quality of production is very good for a Soviet post-punk band. The best track on the whole album is undoubtedly #4, which would be a very fitting theme song for the late perestroika times. Interestingly, the band still exist in some form, although their Facebook page isn't very active.

Download

Монумент Страха - "Весна" [1991]

Artist: Монумент Страха

Title: Весна

Genre: Post-Punk, Industrial Rock

Country: USSR

Release date: 1991

Track List:

1. Ещё Есть Время
2. Новогодняя Песня
3. Jazz Как Ты
4. Ино-о
5. Я Скучаю
6. О Дитя, Спи Спокойно
7. Весна
8. Эпилог

Here's a quite curious discovery I made just yesterday. I've never heard of this band before, but their sound is surprisingly close to that of the much better known industrial rock and no-wave bands of the 80s, to the point of being hard to believe it was recorded in Saint Petersburg (which was still called Leningrad back then).

According to Discogs, it was "recorded in February 1991 by Andrei 'Teacher' Nikolaev at Y.K.Home, Saint Petersburg. Edition of 30 copies". Apparently there were at least two more band members, one of which played such unconventional instruments as an electric saw and various metal objects. The end result is slow and repetitive post-punk/noise rock with distorted vocals. There's at least one more release from them, recorded in 1989-90, which I definitely will search for.

Download

Мёртвые Уши - "Большое железо" [1978]

Artist: Мёртвые Уши

Title: Большое железо

Genre: Garage Rock, Proto-Punk

Country: USSR

Release date: 1978

Track List:

1. Интро
2. Амазонка
3. Ковбой
4. Дикий Jazz & Rock-n-Roll
5. Solo 1
6. Большое путешествие (фрагмент)
7. Solo 2
8. Большое путешествие
9. Приезжайте к нам
10. В дебрях
11. Политинформация
12. Верхом на осле
13. Deutsches Lied
14. Песня о неврастенике
15. Дитя в раздумье
16. Песня против нейтронной бомбы
17. Бешеная овца
18. Баллада о старом Джоне
19. С одесского кичмана...
20. Песня о пионерском галстуке
21. Экспромт
22. Всё!

Yes, that's a school band that would later (around 1981) become Облачный Край. It was recorded by S.Bogaev, O.Rautkin and the Lyskovski brothers when they all were in their teens. The only instruments they had back then were an acoustic guitar, a homemade 3-string bass, and a toy keyboard called "Mickey" (not counting various so-called "percussion" such as saucers and garbage cans). Strangely enough, the end result turned out to be much more listenable that you'd expect (at least listening to it isn't going to cause ear death, contrary to what the band's name would suggest). However, these tracks were never properly released until 2009, when this album (more like a collection of rehearsal demos) was included in the band's anthology.

Download