There's some good information on Russian industrial in the "
Current Russian Industrial scene/projects?" thread on this board also, in case people haven't checked that out yet. The posts of user "64" on that thread are every bit as useful as the overviews provided by G. Avrorin on this one.
Today I played "Воздействие"/"Impact" CD by
Секта Феникса/Sekta Phoenixa a couple of times, and was reminded what a damn good release it is. According to
online accounts, Sekta Phoenixa existed in Tomsk from 1999 – 2003, and functioned not only as an experimental musical project, but also as some sort of broader subversive experiment in living. It seems that a line-up of Секта Феникса is
operating again nowadays, although I haven't yet listened to their more recent output.
Back to "Impact"... this was originally released in 1999 as a cassette, but what I've heard is the 2009 CD release by
Provoloka, in which the original tracks were edited down in length somewhat. The tracks are improvised, mostly built around repetitive synth textures or beeping, to which other layers and especially guitar are eventually added. The overall sound has been
compared to classic Throbbing Gristle, with added "psychedelic" guitars. While I pretty much agree with these characterizations, the release also curiously reminds me of some of the very best stuff that came out of New York during the second half of the Twentieth Century—everything from noisiest parts of the Velvet Underground, to the synth sounds of Suicide and the guitar styles of early No Wave acts (the unpolished grittiness of the guitars balancing out their alleged "psychedelic" aspects.) As far as I'm concerned, the release is one of the true underground classics of Russian industrial. I strongly encourage folk to grab one of the remaining CD copies whenever they show up on Discogs (the Provoloka label itself unhelpfully states that the CD is "temporary not available due some mysterious reasons [sic]").
For those who wish to explore Sekta Phoenixa's output further, it seems that one of the founding members has posted a number of other early cassettes and rehearsals as mp3 downloads on
his blog.
