Kuralbek Chokoev (Куралбек Чокоев) is a Kyrgyz contemporary singer and actor. Evening Bishkek (Вечерний Бишкек) has described him as “a wonderful and modest person with an open soul and heart.” He sings mostly pop, preferring happier tunes. Chokoev was born in 1987 and grew up mainly in Kara-Balta, a town in Chuy province (not too […]
The Boys of Paul Street (Chłopcy z Placu Broni) is a Polish classic rock band formed in 1987 in Krákow by Bogdan Łyszkiewicz. The name of the band is a reference to a Hungarian classic children’s novel about two groups of boys who end up in a territiorial war with one another. Łyszkiewicz was the […]
T.Love is a Polish rock/pop band that was founded in 1982 in Częstochowa. Originally called Teenage Love Alternative, they chose an interesting time to start the band—during martial law. The four original members, Zygmunt (Muniek) Staszczyk (vocals, bass), Janusz Knorowski (electric guitar), Dariusz Zajaç (keyboard), and Jacek Wudecki (drums), were all in high school together, […]
Sztywny Pal Azji (which seems to mean something like “Rigid Pole of Asia”—something may have been lost in translation) is a Polish classic rock band that was formed in the 1980s and is still active today. It was formed in 1985 by Jarosław Kisiński (guitar), Leszek Nowak (vocals, piano), Paweł Nazimek (bass), Janusz Deda (drums), […]
Citizen GC (Obywatel GC) was a band created by Grzegorz Ciechowski. It was more or less his brief solo career, with the other members of the band cycling in an out according to his need. Ciechowski was a Polish musician, singer, and songwriter who is known mainly for the band Republic (Republika), for which he […]
Venya D’rkin (Веня Д’ркин; originally Aleksandr Litvinov, Александр Литвинов) was a Ukrainian (Russian-speaking) poet, songwriter, musician, artist, and storyteller, and one of the later generation of bards. He had a much more informal, unpolished image than some other recent musicians, showing his truly countercultural ethos. D’rkin grew up in a small mining town near Luhansk. […]
Kirill Komarov (Кирилл Комаров) is a Russian rock and experimental musician, one of the stranger and more interesting of recent times. From St. Petersburg, he studied Turkish philology at the Eastern Department of Leningrad State University, after which he began translating Turkish poetry and also writing his own original verses. He started writing the songs […]
Troeraznykh (Троеразных; the name translates to “three different”) is a Kyrgyz rap collective most of whose songs are in Russian. They originally consisted of two beatmakers and one guitarist—or, as Boorsok, a Kyrgyz magazine, has put it, “three forms who don’t resemble one another even by a drop.” They aim to be a “human” group, […]
Saltanat Ashirova (Салтанат Аширова) is a Kyrgyz rock and pop singer known for her “crystal voice,” according to New Faces (Новые лица). She sings mostly in Russian. In addition to her solo career, she is known for her membership in the now-broken-up band Eles and in her new project, The M.A.P. She sings and plays […]
Ilyaz Abdrazakov (Ильяз Абдразаков) is a contemporary Kyrgyz rock/pop singer. He is ethnically also part Kazakh, but sings mostly in Kyrgyz. Unusual among the small crowd of contemporary Kyrgyz singers, he uses harder rock instrumentation and sometimes electronica in his music, and while his voice is part of the current tradition of smooth, easy-to-listen-to voices, […]
Gulnur Satylganova (Гульнур Сатылганова) is a very popular contemporary and classic Kyrgyz pop(ish) singer. She is one of the best-known female Kyrgyz singers perhaps of all time—it’s hard to overstate her importance to Kyrgyz contemporary music. Satylganova was born in Toktogul, Krygyzstan, in 1968. She always dreamed of becoming a performer, but it took her […]
Aibek Zamirov (Айбек Замиров) is a Kyrgyz pop singer who sings in both Kyrgyz and Russian (and occasionally English). He is best known for participating in the duet Bishkek with Arsen (Арсен) when the two were representing Kyrgyzstan at the New Wave international music festival in 2011. They were competing separately at first, but for […]
