Original album title: Русский альбом
After the release of "Ravnodenstvie", Akvarium entered the most difficult phase of their career. That album was not the work of a proper band: only Boris Grebenshikov and Aleksandr Titov played on all tracks, with various session men providing the rest of the instrumentation. That's why Grebenshikov decided to temporarily suspend the project and go on a journey outside Russia.
In 1989 he was in Great Britain, where he recorded the solo album "Radio Silence", produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. The same year an attempt to resurrect Akvarium failed after some sessions (the unfinished album, "Feodalizm", would have been released only in 2007).
After other minor projects, he decided to come back in great style with this "Russkiy al'bom", a set of folk-rock songs rooted in Russian traditional sounds. Released at the time simply as BG (his acronym), but today considered by everyone an effective Akvarium album, the work is dominated by acoustic instruments (guitars, violins, mandolin) and elevated by the presence of Oleg Sakmarov, who played oboe, flute, and Russian bagpipes, generating some incredible, ancestral sounds (i.e. the opening and closing instrumental tracks). Last but not least, here you can find "Nikita Ryazanskiy" and "Burlak", two of Grebenshikov's most beautiful and appreciated songs.
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