Eastern European promise
- garethsprogblog
- 38 minutes ago
- 11 min read
Fully aware of the horrors perpetrated by Soviet leaders against their own citizens and knowing that the Soviet form of communism was deeply flawed, I was still more tolerant of the USSR than of the USA up until Boris Yeltsin oversaw the disbandment of the bloc in 1991 and then carried out dramatic economic reforms in the early 90s; I’d even wanted to expand my horizons with a visit to Leningrad from Helsinki while on an InterRail trip in 1983, but organising a visa while already enroute proved an insurmountable problem. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the thaw in relations between the East and the West seemed to herald better, more peaceful and prosperous times for the whole world…
Though I’d visited Berlin while the Iron Curtain was still firmly in place (getting shouted at by an East German soldier in his guard tower when I went to take a photograph of the Wall was pretty scary), including a guided excursion into East Germany, and the following year spent my honeymoon in what was the relatively ‘loose’ communist state of Yugoslavia (officially the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), the thought of collecting examples of prog from my travel destinations hadn’t occurred to me, and by the time of my second trip to Berlin in 2006 when I did hang around in a few record stores, Germany was unified and part of Western Europe and none of my purchases The Civil Surface (Egg), The Bridge Between (Robert Fripp String Quintet) or Songs From the Wood (Jethro Tull) was music originating from eastern Europe!
I was aware that rock bands, including some with progressive leanings, were around in communist countries in the late 70s and early 80s but my first eastern European album purchase was in 2005, a second-hand CD of U Vreci Za Spavanje by the Yugoslavian band Tako which came from Beano's in Croydon, not from behind the Iron Curtain. It’s a Brazilian reissue of the original 1980 LP plus a couple of bonus tracks and though the recording quality is a bit poor, it’s a very enjoyable album. The opening title track begins like something from Wish You Were Here and while there are plenty of keyboards throughout the album, there’s also a good quantity of flute, making it a great piece of symphonic prog which references Camel and Steve Hackett along with early 70s Floyd. I bought a download of the band’s eponymous debut in 2020 but then managed to find copies of both LPs on eBay, 1992 reissues on the Kalemegdan Disk label from Germany.
In 2007 I was invited to give a presentation at an Immunogenetics conference in Prague and having done some research before setting off I decided to look for some record stores on my time away from the conference schedule. Finding something by Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) was foremost on my list, a group formed in the aftermath of the crushing of Alexander Dubček’s Prague Spring in 1968, taking their name after the track Plastic People on the 1967 Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention album Absolutely Free. PPU were targeted by the communist authorities with punishment ranging from imprisonment to having a house burned down. Unable to perform in public, an entire underground cultural movement formed around the band during the 1970s and the sympathizers of the movement were often called máničky, indicating youths with long hair.
I did manage to visit a couple of record stores, one on a late evening trip around Wenceslas Square where the rock music selection was rather poor, and the other was Bontonland in the Centrum Chodov mall at the end of subway line C. Though this large, rambling store was staffed entirely by non-English speakers (my problem, not theirs) I made my request for Czech prog using an elementary phrase book and citing English examples of the genre. Despite these communication difficulties, the staff managed to produce a handful of CDs and provided me with a remote to ply through the selection. I sat for about an hour listening to parts of this collection but it was predominantly blues based material that I didn’t really like or want and I was unable to find any PPU releases, possibly because of the way I described Western prog acts and the confusing classification of PPU; inspired by Zappa and the Velvet Underground, the band occupy an area akin to chamber-prog, but with more riff-based music than, for example, Henry Cow.
In April 2008 Croydon was also the source of my next eastern Europe music purchases, two CDs by Polish band Albion, Wabiąc Cienie (2005) and Broken Hopes (2007). The former is their second release, entirely in Polish (the title translates as Luring the Shadows, and the cover picture, which is very proggy, conveys this quite nicely) and the latter, their third album is a more mature and coherent effort but sung in English. Wabiąc Cienie demonstrates good musicianship, influenced by Pink Floyd and early Marillion, though it comes across as being a bit too clinical, as if studio time and production were the most important creative processes; for the most part it’s unchallenging 4/4, albeit with pleasant alternating passages of guitar and multi-layered keyboards but Vocalist Katarzyna Sobkowicz-Malec has a great voice, at times hinting at frailty but always controlled and in tune. The best track is the 11 minute plus instrumental Bieg po Tęczy (Run the Rainbow) which hints at the continued direction on subsequent album Broken Hopes. More influenced by Pink Floyd, incorporating snatches of JFK speech and US astronaut chatter with NASA, the sounds of a young baby and the flapping of birds’ wings, Broken Hopes also contains lengthy passages in 7/8 time, but it still strikes me as Albion’s Misplaced Childhood with a narrative that questions politics, war and religion, all suitable epic themes for a concept album. It has more variation than its predecessor, with a more complete and satisfying sound.
I was made aware of Solaris by a work colleague who had been given a bootleg CD of the Hungarian symphonic prog outfit by another one of his colleagues. I eventually found a copy of Marsbéli Krónikák in Black Widow Records in Genoa in 2015 for just €17 when the advertised UK price at the time was almost £50. Solaris took their name from the science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem and their album titles from Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles; Lem’s first novel was called The Man from Mars. Marsbéli Krónikák is generally raved about, similar to the way that Ys by Il Balletto di Bronzo is hyped as being the best ever progressive rock album, and though it’s undeniably well-played symphonic prog with lots and lots of keyboard and flute, it doesn’t quite press all the right buttons for me, possibly because it’s driven by some simple riffs. I think the quality of the material tails off towards the end of the original album and I’m also not keen on one of the bonus tracks that appears on my 1995 re-issue CD though I’d still rate it as pretty good. Marsbéli Krónikák II is much cheaper to get in the UK because it was released in 2014, after years of the band attempting to get together again, and I was given a copy for Christmas 2015. This follow-up effort is stylistically similar despite thirty years between the original and the sequel, which again tails off in quality towards the end of the album but is, overall, a really good release.
Whereas Solaris appeared in 1980, their fellow countrymen Omega had been active in the late 60s and appeared on the Western prog fan’s radar with the 1975 album Hall of Floaters in the Sky. I think this may have had an airing on Alan Freeman’s radio show but I do remember looking at the interesting sleeve art in a local record store when it was released, thinking it was a pretty odd title, not realising that it might be a literal translation from the Hungarian and finding a copy at the right price, I finally bought the LP from a stall in Dalston Old Market in 2016. Despite Omega being the most successful Hungarian band and Hall of Floaters in the Sky regarded as one of their best releases, a mixture of symphonic prog and post-Barrett Pink Floyd space rock, I was disappointed. I’m not a fan of the lyrics or the English vocals and it’s too close to heavy rock for my taste.
In July 2016 the ProgBlog family visited Brno, the second city of the Czech Republic, and included a day trip to Bratislava in Slovakia, less than 90 minutes away by train. I really liked Brno with its flashes of Functionalist architectural style, the Villa Stiassni by Ernst Wiesner and Mies van der Rohe’s Villa Tugendhat, and the day trip to Slovakia was good, taking in a number of varied sites like St Michael’s Tower and the UFO Tower on the bridge over the Danube.
Back in Brno I combined two favourite pastimes, a trip to Indies, a shop selling CDs located next to the impressive Functionalist masterpiece Alfa Palace shopping arcade where I bought two CDs by PPU, Hovězí Porážka (Beef Slaughtering) (1984) and Obešel já polí pět (I Walked Around Five Fields) (2009), the recording of a 2003 concert with the Agon Orchestra in honour of Czech philosopher Ladislaw Klima.
Also on the agenda was a shop called Vinyl Records. Up to that time I had never previously travelled anywhere in the world with the intention of buying vinyl, not even on excursions to Italy where I’d noticed the vinyl revival seemed to have started before I’d seen the effect in the UK, but this shop, selling both new and second hand vinyl, was where I started. The incredibly helpful staff chose a selection of Czech prog for me and then let me listen to entire sides. I picked up original copies of Sluneční hodiny (Sundial) (1981), Křídlení (1983), both by Synkopy; 33 (1981) by M.Efekt; and a non-Czech LP, Brandung by Novalis (1977). Considering how small the Czech Republic and Slovakia are, there were some incredibly talented prog bands around in the 70s and 80s. I’m grateful to both Vinyl Records and the former owners of the LPs for keeping them in such great condition and though recording studios used by rock bands in former communist countries may have been less advanced than Western Europe or US studios, I’m impressed with the dynamic range of the recordings.
One of the early Slovakian prog bands was brought to my attention by the staff at Black Widow in Genoa on a visit in 2020. Collegium Musicum formed in Bratislava in 1969, playing classically inspired pop, but by 1971 when they released their eponymous second album they had become a quartet wearing their Nice influences on their sleeves. I bought the CD, which is highly regarded, and rightly so.
Lithuania is represented in my collection with Šviesa (1980) by Argo, bought from Vinylomania in Vilnius when my son was touring the Baltic states during September 2022 and given to me as a present. Styling themselves as an 'electronic music group' but really conforming to an almost standard rock line-up playing light, melodic spacey music on the jazz-rock part of the prog spectrum, their instrumentation involved a piece of equipment that set them apart from everyone else, the Vilnius-5 organ, an instrument made at a secret Soviet military electronics factory as 'side-product'!
Estonia is represented by a 2021 EP, Zenith by Kaschalot. This is modern prog, influenced by metal and post rock and if I’m honest, while I don’t mind the music, I bought it because the cover artwork, an abandoned brutalist viewing platform in Armenia, is fantastic.
I’m wary of listening to music from Russia because of the current geopolitical situation with Russia actively involved in a invasion of Ukraine, though I have a couple of examples in my collection. I’ve expressed disquiet in these pages over the late application of any meaningful sanctions and the inability of global sporting bodies, FIFA, the IOC and the FIA plus UEFA for not banning Russia from hosting Grands Prix, the Winter Olympics, the World Cup finals and co-hosting rounds of the UEFA International Championship finals following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. While Russian athletes have been banned from competing under the Russian Federation flag (or completely banned) following the state-sponsored doping scandal carried out between 2011 and 2015, and a number of sporting bodies did ban Russian and Belarussian competitors following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gianni Infantino has maintained that politics should stay out of football while simultaneously being a little too accommodating to regimes with a dismal record on human rights, handing them a World Cup finals or a FIFA ‘Peace’ prize! This latest act, honouring Trump, is currently under investigation for a potential breach of FIFA’s own rules on political neutrality…
I bought the 1983 album Радио Африка (Radio Africa) by Аквариум (Aquarium) from a shop in Canterbury in 2018, partly because Progarchives class it under ‘prog folk’ and partly because it’s regarded as a Soviet classic. It’s certainly not a good example of progressive rock although it contains a wide range of styles and I shouldn’t worry about playing it because in the 70s the band operated outside of official channels and original member Boris Grebenshchikov, in a 2022 interview with Oleg Pshenichny for The Insider, expressed strong disapproval of Putin’s illegal war.
I went to see Iamthemorning at the tail end of 2019, as support for The Flower Kings and liked the performance well enough to buy a copy of Lighthouse on vinyl from the merchandise stall. I find the duo, expanded to a quartet for the gig, hard to classify; their sound is symphonic-pop prog with a hefty dose of goth thrown in.
Keyboard player Gleb Kolyadin, who had been granted a Resident Permit from the UK government through a Global Talent visa was arrested and jailed in Thailand in January 2024 where he’d been performing as a guest with the anti-Putin, anti-war group Bi-2 and was under threat of deportation back to Russia until Iamthemorning bandmate Marjana Semkina highlighted the band’s plight on social media, asking as many people as possible to contact the Thai government and ask them not to bow to the Russian government’s bullying. Fortunately, her efforts were successful and Kolyadin and the other members of Bi-2 were released.
I was sent a digital copy of Dikajee’s debut album Forget-Me-Nots in 2021. Dikajee (Olga Karpova) is from St Petersburg but is now based in the UK on a Global Talent visa though she has travelled extensively throughout Europe and South America. Like Iamthemorning, her music covers some gloomy subjects and the album, where she was helped out by a range of musicians, is dark chamber prog-folk. I’ve seen her as a support act on a couple of occasions, where the complexity of the compositions had to be stripped down to piano and vocals, but on the second occasion she also sang with the evening’s headline act Aisles on one of their songs, having originally met the band while in Chile.
I’ve got a few downloads by Ukrainian bands, the first of which, Lair by Vøvk featured on the June 2019 playlist, featuring a mixture of styles including stoner, post-hardcore and smatterings of math rock and prog. More recently I’ve been impressed by the ability of musicians to produce music while the country has been under an almost constant barrage from Russian rockets, including Vøvk’s Litera where the out-and-out prog content isn't high but the emotions associated with struggle, loss, pain and hope are crafted into intelligent, well executed metal.
Kyiv-based Obiymy Doschu sent me a download for their upbeat new album Vidrada (which loosely translates as 'joy') in May. Mixed by Bruce Soord and exactingly produced, the tunes are highly melodic and accessible and I particularly like that it's sung in Ukrainian.
I was also sent a Soundcloud link to stream the rather unusual but delightful The Kingdom of Forgotten Whales by Prevod, an audio story ‘where progressive rock meets a fairy tale’. It relates the adventures of three young whales who journey beyond the borders of their familiar ocean and discover a world filled with forgotten memories. It’s presented as eleven tracks divided into four chapters and is available in both Ukrainian and English languages.
My Polish prog collection grew a little with the addition of Hero by Amarok, a 2024 Christmas present, and the opportunity to visit the country when my football team were playing a European tie in October this year facilitated my purchase of second-hand copies of Pamięć by SBB and SBB multi-instrumentalist Józef Skrzek's Ojciec Chrzestny Dominika from a couple of record stores in Kraków. Pamięć had been on my wish list and it was something of a surprise to find it, along with other early SBB albums, in the first shop I visited, the rather cramped Siesta Rock ‘n’ Store.
Given the opportunity, I’d love to return to Poland, but I’d also like to see more of the former Soviet bloc countries to explore the promise of their prog music.