More about: Glintshake

“Taken as one, the concerts and video performances of Glintshake become a single anthem to the paradoxical freedoms, spontaneity and absurdity of Russian existence,” reads Glintshake’s Bandcamp. You might also read it, however, as a single anthem to the combined works of Wire, judging by their clear love of avant garde post-punk percussion drones, atonal jazz adornments, random octave-leaping new wave vocals and getting their guitar strings from the top of prison walls.

Hailing from Moscow, Glintshake have a history of reworking Russian academic music and avant-new-wave sounds for international audience, but they returned to their native language for their 2016 album ‘Оэщ Магзиу’, featuring such cranky, obtuse twelve-minute free-form skronkers a ‘Скульптура’ (my rusty sixth-form Russian wants to say ‘Sculpture’). There are Sparks-y oddball pop tracks too (‘Тени’), and bits that could be early Siouxsie & The Banshees singing in tongues until the military-grade jazz drugs kick in (‘Мой новый стиль’). A mad mash of prog, jazz and post-punk, it sounds, really, like a band trapped in some inter-dimensional time-warp in 1978 - approach with caution, a good book, Nurofen and a bong the size of Sellafield.

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Words: Steven Kline
Photo: Press

More about: Glintshake