Bishkek musical duo Vtoroi Ka has recently dropped its third album: carnivalesque postpunk in a world where nothing is as serious as it seems. Novastan’s review.

“These post-Soviet cities have already seen quite some nonsense/ But after seeing our Kyrgyz squad up close/ the lockdown has been abruptly enacted for some reason“, says the chorus of the single “Vstrechyaite Govnyukov” (“Welcome the shitheads”), released in February 2023. The retro-aesthetic video shows an exuberant wedding party stirring up the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The audience has been warned: the “shitheads” are coming to cause a lot of trouble.

“Shitheads” – Govnyuki in Russian – is what Sultan and Ilya of the duo Vtoroi Ka, currently one of the most exciting music groups in Central Asia, call themselves. They adopted the term from a video blogger who mocked them with it and turned it into something positive. As Sultan says in a long interview with the online magazine SRSLY: “[We are] two shitheads. We’re explorers. The kind that aren’t afraid to try things and are constantly on an artistic quest.”

At the beginning of May, Vtoroi Ka released their third album, Svinaya Poputka, a mysterious title that could literally be translated as “piggy ride” – a not entirely inaccurate description of the listening experience. It opens with the inviting bass line of “Teni ot pal’m” (“Palm Shadow“): “Come take me quickly to where the palm shadows are…”

A cheerful Joy Division

The song, which was released in June 2022 together with a music video filmed in Bishkek and on Lake Issyk-Kul, is the duo’s most successful hit to date. A total of six of the eleven tracks on the album had previously been released as singles, all with funny and colourful videos. Die-hard fans of the group will therefore recognize some of the songs, but in any case Svinaya Poputka offers a musically delightful half hour.

Since their debut album “Den’ Zavisimosti” (“Dependence Day”, 2020), which was still clearly a rap album, Vtoroi Ka seem to be moving further and further back into the musical past. The second album, “Serial” (2022), features excursions into the alternative teen rock of the 2000s, and the most recent tracks are full of allusions to the post-punk of the 1970s and 1980s.

However, the characteristic sound of bass, drum computer and synthesiser, which according to one critic is sometimes even reminiscent of the late Soviet cult band Kino around Viktor Tsoi, does not underpin a dark soundscape as is so often the case. “Vtoroi Ka play post-punk, but their music doesn’t have the depressive vibe so typical for the genre,” emphasises hip-hop magazine The Flow. On the contrary: Svinaya Poputka is full of colourful irony – a kind of cheerful Joy Division, as those who grew up with English-language music might say (especially as Sultan’s bass voice is not so dissimilar to that of Ian Curtis).

Read also at Novastan: Inside Bishkek’s Metal Boom: Portrait of a Music Pioneer in Kyrgyzstan

Musical references and quotations can be found in abundance, whether in the lyrics themselves (“An old cassette, vernissage in the loudspeakers“) or in the musical elements. The reels that Sultan and Ilya use to promote their music on social media are like building instructions. For example, for Dura (dummy), their latest single: “Oh, try singing like Zhanna Aguzarova“, an eccentric Russian-speaking singer who was particularly successful in the late 80s.

Sex, drugs and gangster romance

While Svinaya Poputka takes listeners back to the 80s musically, its content primarily relates to the first decade of independence after the end of the Soviet Union. In the words of another reviewer: “The main characters in these songs are bandits and shitheads from the times of the wild 90s, such country road romantics”.

This is symbolised by the “Tonirovannyi Kaban” (“Tinted Boar”), which is enthroned on the album cover with Bishkek’s skyscrapers and a “Kosh Kelingizder” sign (Kyrg. for “Welcome”) in the background. On closer inspection, you can also recognise a “pig duck” on the sign, the signature of graffiti artist Cherv1, which adorns many a wall in Bishkek. Kaban – Russian for wild boar – is the popular name for the Mercedes W-140, a status symbol particularly popular among the nouveau riche and mafia of the post-Soviet 1990s. However, the bonnet is emblazoned with a pig’s snout instead of the usual star.

The single of the same name, in which Sultan and Ilya stage themselves as music dealers, is also dedicated to the “Tonirovannyi Kaban“: Bakai Kolchaev, director of the Bishkek music label Infinity Music, which also distributes the music of Vtoroi Ka, plays the role of a mob leader in the music video.

But unlike the Russian cult series Brigada, which definitively associated the “Kaban” with the criminal 90s, Svinaya Poputka is not so serious. “We don’t want to be taken seriously – like Skryptonite. We want to be simpler, with irony. Sometimes serious, but with a bit of fun,” says Ilya, summarizing the group’s approach.

Through music, colourful imagery and witty language the actually serious references turn into carnivalesque. A typical example for this is the music video “Dura” (“Dummy”), whose bizarre characters seem to come from Alice’s Wonderland. At the same time, the piece is peppered with allusions to the world of erotic webcams, an equally lucrative and dodgy business in Kyrgyzstan, and a recurring motiv in Vtoroi Ka’s work.

Dura‘s text speaks of “her” admirers (“Ukhazhory“), who “give her money wholeheartedly and so earnestly“, while she repeatedly goes “on air”. The same applies to the extremely danceable “Ona sovsem odna” (“She is all alone”): “Her body is a glossy comic for adults“, and further: “All admirers are wild, with brisk movements, unarmed/ In the chat, uncles over 40 are frolicking“.

The underworld of Vtoroi Ka with its very likeable characters, always on the lookout for the next “Dvizh”, the next adventure, is romantic. In “Boomerang”, a couple hides from unclear dangers in cosy togetherness in anticipation of the next Dvizh: “Here we are an easy target/ Let’s leave these rooftops“, whether meant metaphorically or literally. “We don’t have to die yet”, it says, as in “Teni ot Pal’m”, which tells of a girl who has become a “great shooter“, probably not without allusion to Luc Besson’s Leon – The Professional.

Obviously, if you die, you can’t have fun anymore. Intoxication and artificial paradises run through the album like another leitmotiv. The place of longing, where the palm trees stand, is one “where a kilo of junk for the nose costs a thousand“. Or “Pomyat“(“Crumpled”), a wild piece about the state “when there is nothing to recharge yourself with“. “Bong” stands out in particular with its rock’n’roll rhythm – and is, unsurprisingly, dedicated to the water pipe, which, according to the lyrics, should definitely feature in Vtoroi Ka’s Stage Riders (or that of their fictional characters?).

Flawless craftsmanship

Svinaya Poputka impresses no less with its detailed and flawless production, all handcrafted by Sultan and Ilya, who, by their own admission, like to control “everything from start to finish” when it comes to their songs. Without overloading their songs, they manage to surprise you – even on the hundredth listen – with a noise in the background, an imaginative rhyme or a particularly successful transition. The tracks are entertaining, all around two and a half minutes long, with snappy intros – and therefore fit perfectly into the streaming age. However, if you listen to the whole album in one go, you might get the feeling that you’ve had enough of the interplay between bass and drum machine.

But Vtoroi Ka, who must have felt the same way when they were working, have an answer to this: “We would like to say that we are concluding our post-punk story with this album. From now on, there will be other songs, other videos, maybe a different us.” We can therefore remain curious – and quickly browse through their video library – so that we can still claim to have discovered this gem before it became mainstream.

Svinaya Poputka can be heard on all streaming services.

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