This is the first official release on vinyl for Vopli Vidopliassova's legendary demo tape Tantsi (Dances) that originally was traded samizdat style in and around Kiev from 1989 onwards. I wish I had found some music like this when I visited Kiev in 1986 or that some of the music I left behind found it to this lots ears, but have no way of knowing, thankfully they are not influenced by Yuri Antonov. There is also a 33/3 E-book being released to compliment this album and help to contextualize the band and the struggle to be a Punk Band in Kiev in the dying days of the Soviet Union. This is a perfect album for anyone into obscure punk and odd rock bands who are wondering if there was anyone more out there than Sektor Gaza, I understand that some of the bands later records are deemed controversial, but coming form a time when stating you were Ukrainian and proud rather than soviet and proud could get you sent to the camps it's a complex issue.
The album opens with the title song Tantsi that is spoken word intro over stop start drums before the loose guitar comes and goes in waves, the drumming is vaguely military, like your trying to be thrown out of a military band by going garage rock.
La Letel has a searing garage rock guitar intro before the accordion kicks in just before the desperate sounding vocals, like they want to be cruising down the Kreshtatik but are stuck at home instead.
Olia is ramshackle steppe punk full of yelps and screams of the song title as the guitar does weird things set against the insistent snare drum an speed accordion.
Makhatma has a stop start formula and long spoken word passages that remind me a bit of the Plastic People Of The Universe or Sammla Mammas Mannas.
Krakoviak Rock is heavy garage rock, with mad vocals and a cartoon edge to the music, this sounds like it would be totally monumental live with the horror film vocals.
Tovarish Maior is slow ponderous accordion fuelled anthem to friendship. Politrok has a spoken word intro that clearly has issues with the politicians running their lives before they go all Tubes like as it gets wilder and more mad you just want to chant the title along with them.
Naliahai has a great repeating guitar figure as the vocals sound quite pained as they have a go at whatever this song is about, it's wild untamed raw as it comes garage punk.
Polonyna has echoes of early Black Sabbath or Deep Purple who were two bands I was quizzed about in Kiev in 1985, the guys I was talking too being shocked that a western music fan wouldn't love everything the two bands produced. This is super dark sounding until the accordion lifts things a good bit, god knows what happened in that Carpathian meadow.
Buly Den'ki is stripped back basic garage rock with a bit of a Lucifer's Friends style edge to it, love what the guitars are doing against the ever-insistent beat.
Muzika reminds me of arriving at customs on my way into the Soviet Union in 1985 and the customs guy staring at the badges on my coat pointing and going Muzika Groups? I said da and offered him his pick of the badges, this is slow, as whatever tale of the struggle to make music in uncertain times gets under way, before it explodes into an accordion led dance passage perfect for some mad modern Mazurka style dancing. It then breaks down to sparse percussion odd noises leading to the climactic conclusion.
Rassvet is apparently a song about Russian farming, it sounds more like a mad vodka fueled hoedown that gets out of control when the local police find the still hidden in the woods. This has a super speedy conclusion.
Kolyskova is built around a cool guitar line, before the Kvass-stained vocals come in to tell another dark tale of life under the Soviet yoke.
The album closes with Hey! Liubo! A scratchy guitar led garage stomper for Liubo whoever he was.
Find out more at https://recordstoreday.com/UPC/711574929412 https://www.facebook.com/vopli
