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Кино (Pronounced Kinó), not to be confused with Kino (Also
pronounced Kino and not quite worth the paper its name occupies), is a band
you've probably never heard of. Formed in 1981, the band, with it's earlier
recordings, gives evidence to the Western world that the Russians were
putting dogs into space long before they managed to piece together a decent
recording studio, but despite their simplicity, any politically angsty rock
band that achieved success in communist Russia must have something going for
it.
The majority of the music isn't anything particularly unusual or
exciting. The band has the basic rock singer/guitar-lead guitar-bass-drums,
setup. Their songs are typically simple and slow: long intros and fade-outs,
even vocal and instrumental balance, repeated lyrical motifs. What
is unusual and exciting about the band is that it's good. Not
spectacularly so, and they never quite drip with that poppy head-sticking
charm, but each of their songs on each of their albums is simply good
standard rock, with just enough variation song to song and album to album to
keep from being dull, while maintaining a definitive and unique sound. This
quality of basic reliability, is rare and precious in our American world of
one hit wonders and recipe based pop-rock bands.
The band's allure doesn't stop at mediocrity, though, no matter how
simple it might be. Two things make it stand out.
Reason One: Victor Tsoy.
Tsoy's voice evades description. Powerful, expressive, melodic, but
restrained. There's a captivating tension in the vocals that so many other
rock bands love to smash with their angst-sweating moans and wails. Don't get
me wrong, I love Cobain's noises just as much as the next guy, but much more
can be expressed through composed, even economical, expression than can be
by unrestrained howling. Also, and I wouldn't have to say this if it weren't
for the sad state of much of today's popular music, the man can sing. It's
nothing operatic, and my experience with vocalization doesn't go much farther
than the two days of men's chorus I attended freshmen year, but whether by
innate talent or learned skill, his words achieve some sort of tantalizingly
subtle melodic perfection. I already said his voice evades description, and
my attempts to describe have been unsuccessful so far, so rather than
continue to debase with my inadequacy, I'll move on to not-mediocre-reason
number two.
Reason Two: it's in Russian.
I should admit, at this point, that I have a language fetish, and would
probably be raving about Green Day at the moment if the lyrics were in
Bangla, but in this case I believe my lingual fascination is justified by the
Russian language's perfect match with the Кино's musical nature.
The subtleties of pronunciation add a sort of aural depth that would be
near impossible to achieve even for the most talented English-based lyricist.
The "Shcheh"s and "Tseh"s and palatalizations and stress
patterns of Russian are music in their own right, and can be a wonderful
alternative to the distracting banalities of comprehendible language. That's
not to say, of course, that I don't like distracting lyrical banalities; some
nice cliché lyrics can do wonders, but distinct musical situations
require distinct sets of musical attributes.
If I try, for example, to listen to Кино in my room while I
do my homework, I'll get a headache in about fifteen minutes. The 'In Room
Doing Homework' situation requires much more melodic variation to penetrate
my studious concentration and provide anything more than repetitive
background noise. A car, however, seems to be the perfect situation for
simple, repetitive, Russian music, and simple, repetitive, Russian music
thus ought to be judged in this or similar situations. A car provides the
small space and good bass necessary to experience the depth of the rhythm and
vocals. A car provides a visual and motor diversion, so that one will not
tire of the relative homogeneity and lack of understandable lyrical
stimulation, while leaving the listening bits free to listen. A car, one
might say, insinuates itself very cleverly into the phrenic spaces within
which Russians with guitars have yet to find themselves.
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