Kino

Born in Leningrad in 1981 under the name Garin i Giperboloidy before quickly adopting the name Kino, the group established itself in the Soviet rock landscape with a songwriting led by Viktor Tsoï and a sound that blends post-punk, new wave and rock with sober, taut and immediately legible melodic lines. Formed around Tsoï, then stabilized with Yuri Kasparyan, Georgiy Guryanov and Igor Tikhomirov, Kino moved from the circuits of the Leningrad Rock Club to the big stages of the late 1980s, while maintaining a pared-down aesthetic based on clear guitars, dry rhythms and a strongly marked urban tension. Kino's discography includes notably 45 (1982), Nachalnik Kamchatki (1984), Eto ne lyubov... (1985), Noch (1986), Gruppa krovi (1988), Zvezda po imeni Solntse (1989) and the Tcherny album, released in 1991 after Viktor Tsoï's death in 1990. Associated as much with the rock scene as with Soviet cinema of perestroika, Kino also left its mark through Tsoï's appearances in Assa and Igla. The band then ceased activities before occasional resurgences, followed by a live return from 2019 around historic members, with concerts based on new instrumental interpretations of Kino's repertoire.