Strannye Igry

STRANNYE IGRY
 
 
Strannye Igry  (“Strange Games”) was a Soviet Leningrad-based new wave band, noted for using the ska influences (which was unusual for the Soviet music scene of the time), writing lyrics based on the translations of the early 20th century French poetry, and endulging themselves in all sorts of buffoonery on stage.  The Leningrad avant-pop experimenter Sergey Kuryokhin was their regular collaborator.  Strannye Igry released two studio albums, Metamorphosis (1983) and Look Sharp (1986).  Not long before the second album’s release, they split-up.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

It didn’t stay that way though; harder rocking Russian rock bands began releasing albums more openly by the 1980’s, and some were available in this country as well.  The above double-LP album, Red Wave (1986) featured an album side each of music from four hard rock bands from Leningrad:  Akvarium (“Aquarium”), Strannye Igry (“Strange Games”), Alisa, and Kino (“Cinema”).  At one of the three World’s Fairs that we went to in the 1980’s – probably the Expo 86 in Vancouver, B.C. – the pavilion for the Soviet Union had a section where some of this rock music could be heard. 

 

(April 2015/1)

 

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