KINO
Kino (“cinema”, also “film”) was a Soviet rock band formed in Leningrad in 1982. The band was co-founded and headed by Viktor Tsoi, who wrote the music and lyrics for almost all of the band’s songs. Over the course of eight years, Kino had released over 90 songs spanning over seven studio albums, as well as releasing a few compilations and live albums. The band’s music was also widely circulated in the form of bootleg recordings. After Tsoi’s death in a car accident in 1990, the band shortly broke up after releasing their last album, consisting of songs that Tsoi and the group were working on in the months before his death. (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)
