Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Kazma Kazma - "Dances of Troubadours" {Ukraine} [1991] (post-punk/medieval)

One of the important recent discoveries for me, an astonishing gloomy underground record from Ukraine that features a weird combination of minimalistic post-modern song structures with medieval themes arranged for a brass section. Composed and recorded in 1991 by an outfit of seven adventurous students of a boarding school of music who at that time were still largely in their teens. This album was circulated in early 1990s on tape only, and to the best of my knowledge has never been re-released. Available are tape transfers for which we are thankful to people behind tape.hallucinations.ru. I don't have any cover art for Kazma Kazma, the photo to the left depicts Khodosh and Kurovsky, the two leaders of the band.

Tracklist:

1. Oratorio - Peter
2. Ballad - Wilgelm
3. Symphony #1 - Old Age
4. Folk-tune - Pike
5. Symphony #2 - Lilac
6. Swallow Rooster

Line-up:

Eugene Khodosh - guitar, vocals
Dmitry Kurovsky - flute
Eugene Nikolayevsky - drums
Alexander Negoduyko - grand piano
Valery Kharkovsky - French horn
Vitaliy Shevchuk - trumpet
Eugene Baryshnikov - bassoon

Link in comments.

14 comments:

Serhiy said...

Link: http://lix.in/33654d

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much man! It is great stuff!

Serhiy said...

I have on more studio album by Kazma Kazma, and I can post it if there's interest from the public. So far, there's been not much feedback...

Anonymous said...

Hey Serhiy - didn't get a chance to hear this one until now...it is very cool with a lot of potential. The vocals are a little off-putting for me, maybe because I can't understand the language. The music though has a nice original approach. Thanks for posting this.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, this is great stuff!

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot for this!

Anonymous said...

Serhiy, it's awesome! Please post the album you mentioned ASAP.

Сергію, це просто бомба! Давай швидше інший альбом!!! Я такого забойного R.I.O. не чув від жодного совєцького гурту, а тут ще й українці...

Anonymous said...

"I have on more studio album by Kazma Kazma, and I can post it if there's interest from the public. So far, there's been not much feedback..."


Well, i suggest you should post that album.. ;)

Serhiy said...

Will do very soon :-).

Anonymous said...

Good to see Kazma Kazma get rediscovered. I still have a cassette dub of "Plyaski Trubadurov", which I got through a collector out of Moscow several years ago, with one or two live tracks tacked at the end that are not on the album but on par with it. This album was also featured in Alexander Kushnir's book "100 Reel-to-Reel albums of Soviet Rock". It would be worth translating that chapter and posting it up here.

Serhiy said...

Thank you for your comment, Boris. I agree with you in that the article by Alexander Kushnir would fit in here perfectly. According to the stats, however, Kazma Kazma is one of the less demanded albums out of what I shared here, so I'm not sure it is worth spending time and effort on the translation. What could make sense instead, is your sharing with us the scans of the cassette artwork :). I'd be really thankful if you could do that.

Anonymous said...

Did not know about the stats, Serhiy, which is a shame really. I love this record very much. But perhaps it is for the better. Imeyushchii ushi, da uslyshyt.. I remember sending a tape to a buddy of mine who was then under impression that it was recorded in the 70's. As far as the artwork - there is none unfortunately - it was just a tape dub.

Serhiy said...

Well, I'm not really sure there ever was any kind of artwork to begin with :). The stats are not that bad for this particular album, but are awfully low for the second one. To me that means that most of the folks who downloaded 'Dances of Troubadours' didn't really like it and chose not to try 'Catacombs of Love' at all... Anyways, I'm thankful for your encouraging feedback!

Anonymous said...

where is possible to download this great obscure group ?

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