Yuri Morozov – Neizyasnimoe {1978}

Amazing instrumental electronic prog-rock from the “Russian beatnick” Yuri Morozov. The multi-instrumentalist, sound engineer and composer built his own home record studio where he produced around 60 of his own albums or as he stated “14,7 kilograms of tape”. Shadoks released his first album Cherry Garden of Jimi Hendrix in 2015. Back in 1973, it was only available in Russia if you had a friend who had a friend who had a tape of his great but officially banned music. His creative output ranged from psychedelic folk and rock to experimental and abstract electronic compositions. Here’s a really interesting one-and-a-half hour documentary about him. He sadly died in 2006.

“Yuri Morozov, a pioneer of underground Russian rock of the 70-80s, made more than 60 albums which circulated clandestinely in the USSR and were distributed with amateur tape recorders. The rock musicians of those years were pursued by the KGB, “treated” like dissidents in psychiatric clinics, or simply dispatched without official reason to labor camps. Some never came back. This documentary used the experiences of this musician to examine musical life in those years. We enter the catacombs-cum-concert rooms and follow 30 years of persecutions organized by the KGB, from the Brezhnevian era in a country cut off from the rest of the world, to the dark years of Vladimir Putin. For the first time, we discover the secret archives of the KGB. We glimpse an unknown USSR in the 8mm amateur movies, unseen for more than 30 years, which were shot on the sly during concerts given by hippies and rockers. Through the life of Yuri Morozov, who enjoyed underground fame and later official success, we discover the evolution of Russian society in the course of 36 years. While the Iron Curtain was drawn, Morozov went his nonconformist artist’s way.”