Some years ago i was rather obsessed with the Russian industrial music. It felt to me as it was something new, but also very much rooted in the old indurtial style of TG, SPK etc. It seemed like a small "scene" mostly based in St. Petersburg and using many similar atributes but in different ways, like soviet iconic images, machines/factories, influenses from the futurists and creating mysterious atmosphere. Some more noisy some more subtile, repetative and droning. And all from a culture that felt quite alien to me, making it even more fascinating.
My absolute favorite was called HUM (also used other name that i forgot), very calm and obscure drones on tapes with blurry photographs as covers. Also liked very much SAL SOLARIS, LUNAR ABYSS QUARTET (more "ritualislic" with churchbells and chanting), BARDOCENETICCUBE etc. But i think most, if not all, i got had a very high quality and was intriguing in it´s own way. I remember a cdr with theme of Sputnik and Gagarin, but forgot the name of the artist. Almost all releases came in strange handmade covers with sympols and writing that i couldn´t understand. Great stuff!
But after a while i felt it all getting to my head so after some manic collecting i sold it all off, maybe a bit drastic + interest was very low so didn´t get much for it, but that was it.... then i spent some months mostly listening to calypso/mambo records, haha!
Also had some stuff from the Ukraine, it wasn´t quite as fascinating as the Russian stuff in general, more accesable, but still real good stuff.
And the 10" series on Der Angriff label had some true gems, specially the Sal Solaris/Stahlwerk 9 one.
