Voyage en URSS
Now this is something I'm proud of, the crown jewel of my record collection: A series of 10 LPs on the Melodiya label, introducing ethnic music from all over the USSR in co-operation with "Le Chant du Monde". The concept is similar to this one but on a much more ambitious scale. Here I've posted the cover of volume 1 (Russia) as an example, the other 9 covers look similar, only the number in the window is, of course, different. The 10 records were sold in the mid 1980s one by one, not as a set, and it took me some effort to get them all together, not least because I was notoriously short of money in those days.
I still remember how happy I was when I found the last one, volume 4 (Georgia and Armenia), that made my collection complete. It was in Collets, a communist bookshop in Charing Cross Road in 1987, when London still had enough communists to make the existence of a huge shop for this market niche worthwhile, extending over 2 or 3 storeys, just around the corner from Oxford Street. When I proudly took my new found treasure to the checkout there was a French gentleman standing there, talking to the staff. When he saw me with my record he smiled and asked me why I choose to buy volume 4. I told him it was the only one still missing in my collection. It turned out that he was from "Le Chant du Monde" and this particular volume was his favourite.
The complete anthology includes more than 150 songs and instrumentals, many of them not professionally performed and produced, but field recordings, collected by ethnologists who travelled to remote villages with their tape recorders. Many of the bands don't even have names and are just referred to as "group of female singers from the village of Alsounga" and such like. Each record includes information about the instruments (with illustrations), the peculiar musical traditions and some historical information in French and English. Artists and song titles are also listed in these languages (not in Russian, let alone in the other tongues spoken in the USSR).
The 10 volumes of the anthology are:
Volume 1 - Russia
Volume 2 - Ukraine, Belarus
Volume 3 - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
Volume 4 - Georgia, Armenia
Volume 5 - Lithuania, Moldavia
Volume 6 - Estonia, Latvia
Volume 7 - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
Volume 8 - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan
Volume 9 - North Caucasus, Volga, Ural
Volume 10 - Far East, far North
The songs and instrumentals on this particular volume are:
V. Sadovnikov / P. Semine: Kirilla
Trio of Vladimir horns: In the Prairies
V. Tikhov / Orchestra of the Academy of Russian Popular Instruments from the Bureau of National Radio and Television: When under the Pretty Apple Tree
Viol Ensemble from the village of Kolodnya: Kamarinskaia
S. Michine / The Russian Arabesques: Melody of the Shepherds of Briansk
M. Rojkov: Barynia
Balalaïka Sextet: Go Home You Tongue-Waggers
V. Talaev: Saratov "Chansonettes"
A. Mikhailov: A Little Red Fruit on an Ice Floe
A. Tsygankov: Never Have I Shown Myself in the Street
Wind Instrument Ensemble: Our Elders Had the Good Times
M. Vakhoutinski / Ensemble of Russian Popular Instruments: The Little Glade
V. Gorodovskaia / N. Tchekanova: In the Sky so Blue
S. Privalov: Ah You, My Home
T. Petrova: The Suffering of Zagriad
A. Tikhonov / The National Academic Orchestra of Russian Popular Music: The Day My Husband Made Me Heat the Steambath
V. Petrov: It's not the Wind that Bends the Branch
Singers from the village of Plekhovo: Little Feather
V. Andreev / V. Tikhomirov: The Crescent Moon Is Shining
The song "A Little Red Fruit on an Ice Floe", performed by a furious and most probably toothless singer with balalaika, is pure hard core punk, as wild as the wind that sweeps the Siberian steppe.
Voyage en URSS
Now this is something I'm proud of, the crown jewel of my record collection: A series of 10 LPs on the Melodiya label, introducing ethnic music from all over the USSR in co-operation with "Le Chant du Monde". The concept is similar to this one but on a much more ambitious scale. Here I've posted the cover of volume 1 (Russia) as an example, the other 9 covers look similar, only the number in the window is, of course, different. The 10 records were sold in the mid 1980s one by one, not as a set, and it took me some effort to get them all together, not least because I was notoriously short of money in those days.
I still remember how happy I was when I found the last one, volume 4 (Georgia and Armenia), that made my collection complete. It was in Collets, a communist bookshop in Charing Cross Road in 1987, when London still had enough communists to make the existence of a huge shop for this market niche worthwhile, extending over 2 or 3 storeys, just around the corner from Oxford Street. When I proudly took my new found treasure to the checkout there was a French gentleman standing there, talking to the staff. When he saw me with my record he smiled and asked me why I choose to buy volume 4. I told him it was the only one still missing in my collection. It turned out that he was from "Le Chant du Monde" and this particular volume was his favourite.
The complete anthology includes more than 150 songs and instrumentals, many of them not professionally performed and produced, but field recordings, collected by ethnologists who travelled to remote villages with their tape recorders. Many of the bands don't even have names and are just referred to as "group of female singers from the village of Alsounga" and such like. Each record includes information about the instruments (with illustrations), the peculiar musical traditions and some historical information in French and English. Artists and song titles are also listed in these languages (not in Russian, let alone in the other tongues spoken in the USSR).
The 10 volumes of the anthology are:
Volume 1 - Russia
Volume 2 - Ukraine, Belarus
Volume 3 - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
Volume 4 - Georgia, Armenia
Volume 5 - Lithuania, Moldavia
Volume 6 - Estonia, Latvia
Volume 7 - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
Volume 8 - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan
Volume 9 - North Caucasus, Volga, Ural
Volume 10 - Far East, far North
The songs and instrumentals on this particular volume are:
V. Sadovnikov / P. Semine: Kirilla
Trio of Vladimir horns: In the Prairies
V. Tikhov / Orchestra of the Academy of Russian Popular Instruments from the Bureau of National Radio and Television: When under the Pretty Apple Tree
Viol Ensemble from the village of Kolodnya: Kamarinskaia
S. Michine / The Russian Arabesques: Melody of the Shepherds of Briansk
M. Rojkov: Barynia
Balalaïka Sextet: Go Home You Tongue-Waggers
V. Talaev: Saratov "Chansonettes"
A. Mikhailov: A Little Red Fruit on an Ice Floe
A. Tsygankov: Never Have I Shown Myself in the Street
Wind Instrument Ensemble: Our Elders Had the Good Times
M. Vakhoutinski / Ensemble of Russian Popular Instruments: The Little Glade
V. Gorodovskaia / N. Tchekanova: In the Sky so Blue
S. Privalov: Ah You, My Home
T. Petrova: The Suffering of Zagriad
A. Tikhonov / The National Academic Orchestra of Russian Popular Music: The Day My Husband Made Me Heat the Steambath
V. Petrov: It's not the Wind that Bends the Branch
Singers from the village of Plekhovo: Little Feather
V. Andreev / V. Tikhomirov: The Crescent Moon Is Shining
The song "A Little Red Fruit on an Ice Floe", performed by a furious and most probably toothless singer with balalaika, is pure hard core punk, as wild as the wind that sweeps the Siberian steppe.