Rolling Eastern European Pop 2016

Давай! Давай! Давай!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RN0HlYJU5s

Tat'yana Kotova starting 2016 in style. Quite a strong chalga vibe. The inevitable Alan Badoev video is...striking.

On a completely different note, i'm quite taken with Monetochka, the latest in a long line of lo-fi Russian Internet stars. She makes cute, keyboard pop, some of which sounds quite like traditional chanson, some of which has a slight Casiotone For The Painfully alone feel. This one is called, "Mama, I Don't Sieg-Heil":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qttF8tE_06g

New Julia Marcell! Back singing in Polish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp2po8HRC6k

New Maria Peszek! Still singing in Polish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CytySnKHrY

Okay, I started a playlist and threw on a few stragglers from last year. Given the difficulty with Cyrillic, I'm making this one collaborative, so join in if you'd like!

[ILM's Rolling Eastern European Pop Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

Cool. Thx.

New Monika Brodka!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi4EwtJbhv4

Her first album in six years is released in May. The new single is pretty low-key but very nice.

The DUMPLINGS! have a new video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxQeXltiI0o

Nie Gotujemy, from their album that came out in November or December, is really lovely.

https://youtu.be/W7GvOvjNwDI

Very much an acquired taste but anyone who likes old-school late-90s / early 2000s lush Russian chart balladry might appreciate the new Reflex single. They have been around for fifteen years in one form or another, which is several lifetimes in Russian pop terms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQNAbFCHos0

whoa this new Brodka single has a great verse, just needs a better chorus and it'd be brilliant

& even that grew on me a bit by the end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohhwwDBt3LY

Vlad Darvin's Signal only has about 8000 plays on Youtube and it feels like i have contributed about a quarter of them. It's very infectious synthy R&B pop.

Playlist updated through March.

ILM's Rolling Eastern European Pop Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

New Julia Marcell single, taken from the new album Proxy, which seems to have been released already:

http://youtu.be/5PXAUoSh0-Y

still finding it hard to get into julia marcell. this track is nice but just doesn't seem to hang together for my liking in a way that i'm struggling to explain.

Might be worth checking out Marcell's previous album Sentiments as it is probably more structured than the recent singles.

Two contrasting but not entirely dissimilar takes on the stripped-down Ukrainian club banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRHwWGO_A48

Vidlik by the highly-feted group ONUKA, widely seen as continuing the work of Ivan Dorn in shaping a new vocabulary of forward-thinking Ukrainian pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=030YR0Fwb4s

The new single by Ira Levitskaya, widely seen as a model-wife of a minor oligarch passing the time with a vanity pop career.

The latter is more memorable imo, though not quite as good as Levitskaya's Vova Tantsuet from last year.

Leningrad have always been something of an acquired taste but remain hugely popular. Sergei Schnurov has taken over lead vocals again, meaning they sound closer to the cranky alcoholic ska band of the early 2000s than they have for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ugivNRYfjc

Their former vocalist Alicia Vox has started a neat line in retro Eurodance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIeNODU8C9g

i'll take a listen through sentiments. i really like vidlik, though couldn't get on with the ira levitskaya. both tunes reminded me of other (different) tracks that i've heard before.

new brodka single: https://soundcloud.com/brodkamusic/santa-muerte

New album in three days! The two songs have been good but i really want to hear everything in context.

I've been listening to the new Mujuice album, Amore e Morte, recently and it's really wonderful. There are shades of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone and Magnetic Fields but it's also clear that he has a background in more conventional dance music.

The single with Zemfira is lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co-wPmfkhxg

cute song! vocals are mixed super-close though which i find a bit distracting. apparently copies of the new brodka won't be arriving until mid-june? did i miss something?

It's streaming on Dazed and Spotify now:

http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/31097/1/take-a-trip-with-polish-superstar-brodka-s-new-album

It's also available to purchase on iTunes from today. Not sure about physical copies.

amazon showing mid-june delivery for the vinyl. thanks for the stream link! on my second listen through now. it's growing on me and i think it will grow even more. some great tracks, some mis-steps (thinking my name is youth doesn't fit the mood of the album very well at all but that seems like i might regret that later as a facile comment). i suppose it lacks that day-glo pop killer edge that granda had.

Yes, i've had a chance to listed to it a few times now and, though clearly not as immediate as Granda, it's another deeply impressive record. Will take a while to get more familiar with it before making any real judgement.

Cross-posted from the non-US rap thread, i really like the new L'One single. It has more than a passing similarity to Lean On but is still delightful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdRaS5mZkjk

Brodka's now in English!

This is great so far (I liked the preview single the first time around too)

I suppose this means we're getting fire/desire choruses everywhere now -_-

(thinking my name is youth doesn't fit the mood of the album very well at all but that seems like i might regret that later as a facile comment).

It feels a bit like a nod to Maria Peszek who also puts quite punky songs (like Sorry Polsko) on otherwise not particularly punky records but hers are arguably less consistent in tone than Clashes.

I quite like the latest in the series of severe electro-pop videos from Ne Tvoe Delo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3A0u0bEK7U

absolutely otm about sorry polsko, that's exactly what i thought of when first hearing it.

the l'one single feels like it owes a debt to early knife, melodically speaking. it's a lot, erm, "lighter" than i was believing it was going to be within the first few bars. the ne tvoe delo is certainly wearing its heart on its sleeve. very human league-y. and surprisingly short!

(xposts) Onuka are great! Thanks for posting that, Shari.

Serebro have a placeholder video up on their Italian label YouTube channel for Chocolate:

https://youtu.be/MYmmlvyeStg

It's mostly them eating biscuits in slow motion but the song is quite good. Not first rate by their standards but it has a nice chalga vibe to the chorus. I haven't listened to much actual chalga this year so if anyone has recommendations let me know.

Separately, it's very dispiriting to see that Jamala is headlining Banderashtat this year - the annual festival dedicated to celebrating / rehabilitating the reputation of Stepan Bandera and the UPA, enthusiastic participants in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Poles and Ukrainian Jews in WWII.

it took me until the first chorus to realise they were singing in english!

New Brodka video debuted in association with The Independent!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/new-music-to-listen-to-this-week-brodka-a7061316.html

It is good to see her getting belated attention from newspapers, Dazed, etc.

This is classic Brodka - haunting, shivery, folk music

O_o

Yes, that did stand out a bit though tbf it's not really that easy to describe exactly what she does.

I like the new Devyshka Shkol'nika single Botanik:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ZsTUP31SY

It's quite rough-around-the-edges DIY electropop with a strong retro ZYX feel but the're something about it that is very compelling.

i like that too. feels like the kind of thing i used to catch late at night on mtv2, when that was still a thing i did. it drove me back to listening to the onuka tune from upthread, though i don't know what that means. perhaps the retro-ism of botanik doesn't stick so much and the more future looking pop (if we can call vidlik that) is what's hooking me recently.

in other news, i picked up the LP of clashes (the last copy in empik!) and i am v much on-board with it now.

playlist updated.

Cool, thanks!

New Vremya I Steklo video a few days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q-qzjM3PWc

Very much in the same vein as the excellent mini album at the back end of last year.

I've also been listening to Pati Meiker by Pika a lot recently. Half way between Ivan Dorn and LMFAO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qomoxbo3v-I

Lots of low-key, atmospheric stuff around in preparation for the end of summer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hw_jh2I0cg

I'm looking forward to hearing the Ozera album В отличие от тебя хардкор никогда не умрет (Unlike You, Hardcore Will Never Die) when it comes out next week. The single, Akula, is rather lovely minimalist synthpop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEiTu_z1Hl0

I've been listening to Fosfor by Pharaoh a lot recently - trap with a kind of black metal ~vibe~.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivB-uGCnqOc

New Serebro video - Slomana. Another unmistakable Max Fadeev ballad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GNxwsFIDtg

Impulsi by Elena Temnikova is probably her best single since leaving Serebro.

Thanks for helping maintain the playlist; it's updated.

Pharoah track's really cool, and the Ozera makes me curious for the LP as well. Thank you!

Okay, I'm putting this playlist to bed for the year but it's still open for additions if I missed anything.

ILM's Rolling Eastern European Pop Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist