Asian Women on the Telephone (11 Albums, 69 Tracks)

Born in 2007 from the ashes of three underground bands – Yarche-1000-Solnts, DimenticarmiNON!, and Lisichkin Khleb – a Moscow experimental outfit ASIAN WOMEN ON THE TELEPHONE is one of the new Russian avant-garde movement’s most innovative and for a time successful bands… but also perhaps one of its most misunderstood. Their artistic approach draws inspiration from the early Soviet-era Russian Futurism and Dadaism, and echoes a view of society as rigid, absurd, and schematic. They produce the strangest kind of music which collects influences from Kraut Rock, Noise-Rock, Electronics, Free Improvisation, Sound Collage, etc. and channels it into idiosyncratic, sarcastic vision. No overdubbing, no analog mixing or mastering… This is lo-fi music for a low-grade world. In fact, AWOT have never stressed their musical content, regarding music just as an accompaniment to freaky costume-and-masked performances they set. Being banned periodically from Moscow club-venues due to rumored connection to "a mystical ritualistic sect", the band focused on studio work and put out a string of messy recordings with unique packaging (by Maxim Ionov) which were a true labor of love and couldn’t be reproduced in proper manufacturing quantities… Still and all, nothing can be compared to live gigs by AWOTT who is a six-piece ensemble now featuring: Oriental Yid (drums, guitar), Good Enough Freundin (guitar, vocal, drums), Brown Polizei (keyboards, voice, bass), Divine Gift (percussion, voice), Mutter Land (drums, percussion, bass), and Lewd Primat (bass, voice). - RAIG