KUBAN CRAZIES 60–90

The story of the Kuban musical underground, compiled by Radio Fantasia from archive recordings connecting several generations of music enthusiasts.

«When you hear "Soviet underground music scene" you think of Moscow and Leningrad and maybe Siberia. What role does Krasnodar play in that list?

In the private archives of DIY zines and magazines about the rock scene you can find evidence of opposition to Soviet censorship. In the city there were underground clubs and gatherings and concerts and performative actions.

We have created a mix from archive recordings of Krasnodar music from the 1970s through the 1990s. It is constructed around a story by artist Mikhail Smaglyuk about music enthusiasts who from the early 1960s would meet at the "clearing" to swap vinyl. It traces the history of the underground of Krasnodar krai right up to the 1990s.

According to Vladimir Elistratov’s dictionary of Russian slang, kreza (crazies) are enthusiasts, fans, and abnormal people. They are not yet included in the history of underground Soviet and post-Soviet music, and we are glad to make a start by presenting this survey mix that sounds like a cassette recording from your parents’ shelf: music, conversations, and excerpts from programs seem to be recorded over tracks you got sick of.»

Radio Fantasia* worked with the Typography Center for Contemporary Art* archive.

Cover: Five Years of Mental Dissection, video release by the group Mental Dissection, 1999. Video still

BIO

The genre-free community Radio Fantasia is a platform created by staff of the Typography Center for Contemporary Art* and friends of the Center for open discussion of pressing problems of social and political systems. The radio station is an archive of materials gathered by artists, curators and journalists, theorists, sound researchers, and poets.

*On May 7, 2022, Typography Center for Contemporary Art was designated a foreign agent by order of Roskomnadzor.