I would like to discuss music from the Eastern side of Europe. I am a person from one of these countries and I'd like to heard a Westerner's point of view on our music. As for the other Eastern Europeans passing by, have any of you noticed a growing interest in local music amongst younger people? All of my parents put down Eastern European music meanwhile we (the first generation or so which did not grow up under the iron curtain) seemed to view things with less bias than before.
I will post some songs I like from time to time, however if you have some requests, I will try to help with the limited knowledge I have.
I'm Serbian and i don't think any American or Brit gives a shit about my musical culture or heritage. There's a lot of great bands from, let's say, the Ex-Yugoslavian territory but i don't think anyone wants to explicitly go out and find them and listen to them. Just my opinion.
What genres do you like?
Matthew Phillips
Sure, I´ll try (however there are so many genres and scenes, I am afraid I will forget something). Meanwhile I am typing out the thing, here is a Spotify playlist (I know many people hate this platform here, sorry for that). This has a various collection of songs from all areas and genres (everything from Psych Folk to NU-Metal). Hope you can find something interesting here in the meanwhile.
Oh shit awesome thank you dude, im gonna check out all bands mentioned.
Jordan Martin
I think it is obvious that on average, people do not care. I would like to make a note though that indifference is different to negative or prejudiced opinion. I think that any music scene or country can become something to care about with enough effort put in to develop it. I am from the Soviet block and the countries from it never tried to break out in the global market (only Russia and it was never a unanimous decision, it was only a few strong willed people who decided to take matters into their own hand). I think that while your statement is true, it might not be the best of mindsets. Before Americans start to care, we need to care.
The problem is exactly what you pointed out in the second comment about people not wanting to go out. The question that arises however, did people seek out South Korean Pop music, German Psychedelia or Swedish Pop Rock?
Probably not, I think there are two things that need to be done for Eastern Block music to make some sort of splash in the world? First is we Eastern Europeans need to listen to our local stuff more. I know a lot of self-hating Slavs and bunch will come at me screaming how we never produced anything of worth and so on and so on but the defeatist mindset won't get us anywhere, maybe we can find at least a few gems to universally agree on and enjoy. If we start checking out our own stuff more often, maybe we will get a growing scene with even "better" music.
The second thing that is needed is for some sort of stability in terms of politics, the governments should be investing in promoting our culture instead of territory disputes. I mean, it feels like "soft power" is a concept unknown to Eastern Europe unless it involves bitching about Coca Cola.
I like Polish folk music, a lot of it is rough and primitive but we had a lot of settlers here (TX) and I’ve had an interest ever since I heard it at a festival youtu.be/jbuE7FUJD90
Nicholas Moore
Good thread, thanks for all the recs, Anons.
Nathan Robinson
Hey im going through these right now, GREAT recs wow thank you so much. You really got my taste down to a t I've really enjoyed all of these so far. I'd say the Auktyon one might have been my favorite so far, they sound like can or something. I'll listen to more recs rn if you have any.
To the original question, as an American personally I feel like i must be missing out in tons of great international music from like the 60s-90s especially that I'll just never be able to find because there's so much to dig through and I don't know the scenes of different cultures. It does bother me, especially after getting into krautrockand stuff, so thank you genuinely i feel like I never would have heard any of this stuff if I didn't find this thread on mu today
1. Thanks for checking out the recs, really pleased to see that someone digged them. Auktyon are one of my favorite bands of all time. Their early stuff was more straightforward New Wave/Post-Punk but starting from the early 90s and onwards, they started experimenting quite a lot.
A lot of people consider the band's best output to be from 1991-2002
The two biggest highlight from this era is Этo мaмa (This Is Mama) and Птицa (Bird). Bird was actually a fairly decent commercial hit in Russia due to the song "Doroga" (second track on the album) becoming a Radio Rock hit.
This Is Mama is the album I recommended the first track from, it is my personal favorite. This album includes the band's earlier material but reworked in a less glossy, rawer way (they were a New Wave band earlier as previously mentioned) and also some solo Leonid Fedorov Singer/Songwriter tracks. The album has a sort of a dark sound to it (in my opinion) which could possibly be related to the band's uncertain future at the time and one of the members struggling with substance abuse (he sobered up later)
Besides the golden era, Дeвyшки пoют (Women Are Singing) is a fantastic record to check out. It was recorded in New York with the help of the John Zorn circle of musicians. The album is extremely varied with one half being some of the most crazy and manic Art Punk Auktyon ever did and the other pure suicide fuel in disguise of Talk Talk-esque Post-Rock.
2. If you ever want to continue down the Auktyon path but want a change of pace musically, Leonid Fedorov's solo work is really good too. His best known album is Лилoвый дeнь (Purple Day). The story about the album is quite funny, Fedorov recorded it in his kitchen in a span of a few weeks. All that Fedorov did was plug in some random CDs in his boombox and sing + play guitar over the sounds that were coming out of the boombox. The result was unexpected, the whole thing turned out really psychedelic and otherworldly. Sadly the album is not available on any streaming services due to license problems but is available on YouTube at least.
Another cool thing that this album showcases is the big music collection that Leonid Fedorov has at home. Here you will here bits of everything from Vivaldi to early Eminem.
My favorite from his solo work is Дyшeпoлeзныe пecни нa кaждый дeнь (Daily Songs For The Soul). This album is a collection of beautiful Russian Folk with a little Avant-Folk thrown in from time to time. These songs feel almost cinematic at times. youtube.com/watch?v=YrqY1zc5fYU youtube.com/watch?v=yuxhrVTRadE
For fans of something more straightforward, BOЛHЫ (Waves) might be the go-to album. A collection of pleasant Indie Folk with a bit of Experimental Rock (but not as in your face)
These are are some otherworldly recs, thank you user.
Owen Thompson
I don't know if user is still here but I am going to post a few more in case someone else stumbles on this in the catalog or archive.
For Post-Punk, there is quite a lot of music to possibly checkout. I think my favorites would be Vova Blue, La Strada (already posted in thread), Klaus Mitffoch and Dzeltnie Pastnieki,
These are just my favorites (as you could probably guess, I like the more rhythmic and groovy side of Post-Punk) but there are different flavors of Post-Punk that might be interesting.
Moon Pierrot is quite a cool band, its like U2 or INXS (I am not gonna use RYM's term Big Music) if they took shrooms and listened to RIO. Acquired listen but I like it.
If you want kitsch, I.I.I. is a really underrated Belarussian Art Punk, Bulgarian Voices meets Slacker Punk, Fiddler on the roof and some weirdo on the vocals. youtube.com/watch?v=fQquxoizI_0
