SA-SA “Paskutinės Dainos”

Front cover

This Lithuanian band is a truly weird, excellent and, alas, somewhat obscure example of the coveted East European punk rock. Macabre and merry in approximately equal measures, it is rather garage yet effective sounding. Cue organic-sounding keyboards throughout and occasional terrace-choir singalongs. Catchy tunes get their commercial potential squashed by moribund artwork, and hailing from where they did, in 1994, of all years, was perhaps a surefire way to remain (garage punk) unknowns. The tape was released by Tundra Records, and I remain clueless as to whether they had any other releases. They didn’t really have to; this is a masterpiece. I have no clue as to what they sang about, my non-existent Lithuanian is enough to catch enough mentions of the words like ‘death’ and ‘dying’ to put most grind bands to shame. The kind people at hardcore.lt uploaded the mp3s (in 2002), and I scanned the cover and the insert (it’s double-sided).

PIĈISMO – Esperantocore highlights.

I think Ukrainian hardcore scene isn’t very large or terribly interesting yet. I quite like the Rivne-based crust band ZALUPA (too bad they’ve split up), but the really crazy diamond there is PIĈISMO (or PICHISMO). Formed in 1993, they claim the title of the world’s first Esperantocore band. There were some punk songs in Esperanto before them but there wasn’t a whole band. With time, the band had diversified its approach and started using Ido, Volapük, Klingon and numerous other invented languages. The sound has grown quite as diverse, and various releases reflect the interest of the band’s leader Gleb Maltsev in noise, electronica, grindcore etc. He didn’t get stuck in his South Ukrainian hometown of Tsyurupinsk for very long, and various versions of the band existed in Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Belarus and Latvia. Gleb’s now living in Kaunas, Lithuania, and gigs and records fairly often.
PIĈISMO is fairly prolific, as I’d mentioned. Just the tip of the iceberg, there you go.

“Ankoraŭ Unu Freneza Kanzono” live at Teen Wave festival in Yevpatoriya, Crimea, August 1994. Frenzied song this is, indeed. By the way, ta to Alex Volkov for making this available.

I like their first four albums the most:

“Subita Merdo” (1993; raw punk in Esperanto, original Ukrainian lineup, 4 songs released on a Darbouka Records 7″)

“Buĥtismo” (1994-1995; compilation of various punk / crust / noise recordings, various Ukrainian lineups)

“P.P.P.” (1997; crusty hardcore with members of Lithuanian band INVAZIJA)

“Esperantocore” (1998; also with INVAZIJA members)

I actually like early PIĈISMO enough to have released a tape covering their discography between 1993 and 1997. This post is a shameless plug innit?

http://www.myspace.com/pichismo
http://www.pichismo.narod.ru

P.S. E-punkoj, skribu min!