NAUTILUS POMPILIUS - "RAZLUKA" (1986)

Original album title: Разлука

"Razluka" is a landmark in the career of Nautilus Pompilius. It was their first album with lyrics by poet Ilya Kormiltsev, the first with Aleksey Mogilevsky's characteristic saxophone solos, and the first with a decent sound quality. 
It was recorded with the help of sound engineer Andrey Makarov, in the basement of the Architectural Institute of Yekaterinburg, where the band members were studying at the time. 

Almost every song here is a classic of Butusov's songbook and the range of styles is wider than ever, including post-punk marches ("Skovannye odnoi tsep'yu"), mutant blues ("Prazdnik obschej bedy"), robotic songs full of synthesized sounds ("Vsego lish' byt'"), and funny impressions of ballroom dance music ("Nasha sem'ya"). If you want to hear something different, this is your album.

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NAUTILUS POMPILIUS - "NEVIDIMKA" (1985)

Formed in 1982 and led by singer Vyacheslav Butusov and bassist Dmitry Umetsky, Nautilus Pompilius was the prominent rock band from the Ural region, and one of the most important Russian bands of the Eighties. In terms of popularity they were second only to Kino.

Their debut album, "Pereezd" (1983), is a collection of poorly recorded, but extremely aggressive punk-folk songs. It is not a bad, but at the same time it doesn't represent the band at all. I think this second studio effort is the right place to start from.
Here Butusov adopts the new romantic aesthetics that would have made him famous a couple of years later, while his compositions ranges from tango to boogie, from post-punk to torch songs. The arrangements incorporate a set of electric guitars with rudimental effects, some keyboards and a basic drum machine. Sound engineer Leonid Porohnya also did a great job, considering the poor equipment he could count on.

At the end of the tracklist you can find two of the band's classics, "Knyaz' tishiny" and "Poslednee pis'mo" (they became popular in 1988, when they were re-recorded to be included on "Knyaz' tishiny", the band's first legal album, which you may find on Soviet Sam someday).

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