Луна (Luna) 3x
Not to be confused with the Korean or Bulgarian Luna, nor with Louna from Moscow, or Luna the Spanish flamenco singer from Overloon. All the light on the Ukrainian Kristina Viktorovna Gerasimova (1990), from Kyiv but born in Dresden (East Germany), and as Luna/Луна sings in Russian.
Genres
Besides being hard to tie to one country, it’s impossible to pin her to a single genre. It’s categorized as dance/electro because of Дельфины (2019), Free Love (2017), and Огонёк (2017). Also to elevate this section musically, at least. Тропик Козерога (2019) doesn’t seem meant for dancing at all, though Luna herself does something along those lines. Мальчик, ты снег (2016) is also very calm. Luna, freshly awake again.
Often, it’s somewhere in between. A beat with undertones, something sultry or a bit melancholic. That’s when it becomes a Грустный дэнс (Sad Dance, 2016).
Чужие Люди (Strangers, 2020)
Мы вас не поняли, мы вас не поняли. Чужие люди на нашем проводе.
Сижки (Cigarettes, 2019)
Он курит свои сижки, а я живу отдельно. Осталось только небо, для полёта только небо.
Спящая красавица (Sleeping Beauty, 2018)
Пока мой принц не разбудит меня. Спящая красавица я.
More
On YouTube, you can also find Самолёты (2017), Jukebox (2017, also on Вечерний Ургант on 27-11 that year), and Бутылочка (2016). More music on Spotify and Apple Music, more Луна via Instagram and VK.
Reading: Nice to Meet You: Ukrainian Singer Luna on The Shining and the Importance of a Smile (Interview Magazine, 2020) and Meet Luna, the star of the Ukrainian musical revolution (i-D/Vice, 2016).
Most of the music here is also in an
R1 playlist on YouTube (in order of release).
See also
Best Russian Music and
Russian Song Lyrics.
More
Music
Anyone who wants to present Russian music cannot ignore Zemfira. Popular and mainstream – millions of records sold – but also distinctly idiosyncratic. The music is usually accessible (we categorize it under Pop), but the attitude is rock.
Raw Anti-Putin punk from
Nizhny Novgorod /
Нижний Новгород. Loosely based on ‘Maggie’ by The Exploited.
From the green city of
Zelenograd /
Зеленоград. Dreamy indie-folk with a melancholic undertone. Created by
Mikhail Rodionov (1992).
The alarm blares (Ревёт тревога), the road awaits (ждёт дорога). They are many (Их немало), we are few (нас немного). We are in an unjust world (Мы в несправедливом мире) tin wolves in the shooting range (Жестяные волки в тире).
The word offret is Swedish and means ‘sacrifice’; the band Offret is Russian and makes heavy music. The link between the word and the band: a
1986 film in Swedish by the Russian Andrei Tarkovsky.
A band from Saint Petersburg that makes a kind of post-punk/indie-pop. Not for long yet, so not much material yet. However, they already have a few very successful tracks with original music videos. До свиданья, дорогая is the
Russian title for the film
The Goodbye Girl (1977), but it has nothing to do with it.
