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Rating: We are in 1990, the year before the dissolution of the USSR: the Soviet "empire" that had been terrorizing half the world for decades, and sometimes the other half too. It was this Russia, on the verge of leaving communism and led by Boris Yeltsin, that became the birthplace of one of the most naïve electronic music albums produced from that side of the Iron Curtain. Under the Melodiya record label, the only label permitted by the regime and, of course, state-owned, Автопортрет by Юрий Бучма was released. The work blends new wave/synth-pop sounds with impressionistic classical music, video game music, and 80s dance. All played strictly on vintage synthesizers (vintage even for the era) and very electronic drum machines.
From the opening Дождик, you can taste an atmosphere that clearly evokes the cold of the Soviet winter, but with the warmth of the melody, like a sip of vodka by the home fireplace, warming up the atmosphere. The sounds of the Roland D-50 keyboard are enigmatic yet graceful. Автопортрет, on the other hand, relies on prolonged sighs supported by some almost percussively hit "pluck" notes, representing one of the album's high points. Although relatively monotonous and repetitive, this song has such a hypnotic cadence and a cheesy finale that makes it adorable. Здравствуй, Киев, instead, is not a fully successful attempt at easy listening music close to the classical. Nothing you wouldn't find in our Fausto Papetti. The discourse is decidedly different with Чернобыль. год спустя (literally translatable as "Chernobyl. a year later"), which, although maintaining the previous style, manages to nail a melancholic arrangement, mysterious but also folkloristic and close to wave in certain passages. This track is supported by an almost universal theme in its musical language, evoking extreme rural poverty of that irradiated Ukrainian landscape, as well as the beaches of Miami, accompanied in the intro and outro only by a bass holding quarters and a "vaguely feminine" digital choir. Then there's the dance XXI век which, with tricks similar to the previous one, suggests a recovery of vitality, a race, a gasp. The second half of the piece is a whirlwind of effects and arpeggiators with an experimental flavor that catapults us directly into Летающая тарелка , another standout track of the LP, a little song much closer to Jarre's Equinoxe. The thump thump pah then comes to an end, and the following Мираж starts very well but gets a bit lost in the development, despite featuring a rather memorable/memorizable theme. Чёрный кофе, however, is undeniably a brief playful attempt at video game music, or even if those weren't the intentions, it is proven on listening. A mix of Donkey Kong Country and Looney Tunes' young children's video games, which weren't present in the USSR at the time. I feel a tremendous nostalgia for the PS1 while listening to this song, it evokes landscapes of Spyro and always catches one off guard in a comprehensive listen of the work. Дискуссионный клуб returns to already covered territories but with the freshness of a dreamy melody divided between a more danceable phrasing and a more twilight bridge. This too is very brief. На астероиде instead has all the mechanisms that would make it a precursor of vaporwave and even some scattered Phil Collins-style drum fills. Контрасты в голубом returns to game soundtracks but not with as much success as heard before and is closer to a Mortal Kombat, to which, however, I am less attached and therefore do not fully experience the nostalgic effect.
This gigantic album is only available on vinyl and has never been reissued. On Discogs less than a hundred people have declared possessing it, at least the last time I checked. You'll find it almost exclusively sold in countries that were part of the old Warsaw Pact. Ugly but with style.
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