Izabela Trojanowska was one of the most popular Polish singers in the early Eighties. This is her second album, which sold over 300.000 copies between 1982 and 1983. Unfortunately, she was forced to leave Poland soon after, when the authorities refused to release her next album because of some harsh anti-establishment lyrics.
The music is a mix of post-punk, synth-pop, and blues rock, with both muscular riffs and gentle embellishments. A new wave feeling dominates the tracklist, with the legendary sound engineer Jacek Mastykarz always finding the right balance between the rock vein and the synthesized sounds. Another big plus is Izabela's voice, which occasionally reminds of Kate Bush.
Her debut album, "Iza" (1981), is also worth of notice. I will post it eventually, even if I'm struggling to find it on CD.
This is Marek Grechuta's second album, and his last collaboration with the legendary jazz-folk ensemble Anawa, led by piano player Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz.
"Korowód" is universally praised as one of the great masterpieces of Polish music and it's not hard to understand why: where else in the world can you find anything that sound like this?
Indeed, this is an incredibly well-recorded melting pot of poetry, catchy pop melodies, progressive rock structures, baroque orchestrations, dissonant jazz embellishments, and folk music elements. Some songs strongly predate the fusion between rock and ethnic music.
Funny how at the time "Korowód" didn't figure among Poland's ten best selling albums of 1971, given that today it is way more popular than any other album of that year, and the lead single "Dni, których nie znamy" is probably the most famous Polish song of the Seventies.
Original title: Женский альбом
Band: Вентиляция
Ventiljacija is a small cult band founded in Saint Petersbourg by singer and guitar player Fedor Norvegov. This is their third album, the best according to their few followers (it is also the only one I was able to find, albeit I will keep searching).
There is not much more information I can give about this band, as they are virtually unknown.
If you are a Russian reader, you can write something about them in the comments section, possibly in English.
The album is amazing nonetheless, a strong mix of post-punk and noise-rock, with a strange psychedelic and melodic vein, probably reminiscent of the legendary Yegor Letov. Despite the raw sound, every song sounds epic and every tune is easy to remember.
Original artist name: Александр Зацепин
Original album title: Тайна третьей планеты
One of the things I’ve noticed the first time I’ve watched "Film, Film, Film", an old Russian cartoon, was its strange soundtrack, which mixed rudimental electronic sounds, jazz, pop, and orchestral arrangements.
Shortly after I realized its composer Aleksandr Zatsepin, a prolific and appreciated musician who worked for the state-controlled label Melodiya, has written lots of original soundtracks and pop music hits.
This is the soundtrack from "Tayna Tretyey Planety", a beautiful science fiction cartoon released in 1981. It is a sort of artistic testament for Zatsepin, as he left Russia in 1982, after some misunderstandings with Soviet supervisors.
Never released as an album, it finally came out as a bootleg some years ago, ripped from the DVD audio track of the cartoon. Unfortunately, some sound effects which weren't part of the music can't be removed, but on the other hand, they kinda fit with Zatsepin's work and don't affect the listening that much.
This is a wonderful journey through analogic electronic music consisting of Moog solos, Mellotron backgrounds, electric organ and piano patterns, synthesized strings, sequencers, laser noises, and every kind of oddness you can imagine. All to create ethereal, beautiful melodies.
This is a mix of funk and alien lounge music, the same that became popular again at the end of the Nineties thanks to Air, or even today, thanks to Daft Punk and Todd Terje's latest albums.
