SHORTPARIS

After getting together in 2012, Shortparis quickly became the most outstanding representative of the Russian underground scene, performing at known high-capacity concert venues as well as at weird and wonderful places like abandoned factories and even supermarkets. The band, which has already recorded two albums, has also performed at flagship Eastern European showcase festivals such as Tallinn Music Week and MENT. These appearances attracted heaps of exuberant reviews and write-ups. The highly performative concerts of Shortparis are known for squeezing the emotion and energy out of audiences. They are hard to analyse – you have to see Shorparis live and actually be there to experience the shamanistic ritual-like mystical adventure he takes you on. Witnessing the audaciously energetic delivery of vocalist Nikolai Komyagin and his colleagues, you can't help but admire the creativity of this electronic noir-art-punk quintet from St. Petersburg, recalling their sources of inspiration – Ian Curtis, Sexy Sue, Peter Murphy, Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, and Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu. These musical heroes, whose work erased the boundaries between rock music and fate, noticeably find their place on the altar–screen of Shortparis. Although Shortparis performs songs in English and French as well as in Russian, the band's origins are apparent right away, demonstrating affiliation with the culture of the Russian people – a people whose inexplicable strangeness is best attributed to the "mysterious Russian soul".