Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia is indeed a very international affair, with bands coming from beyond the familiar horizons of North America and Western Europe. Russian reverb sound architects Pinkshinyultrablast is one of the bands hailing from lesser known worlds and showing healthy disinterest in any local musical trends.
Back in the spring, at the time of the release of their debut album Everything Else Matters, they first crashed into the UK media orbit, leaving a trail of glorious reviews and excited comments in the wake of their first UK tour. Now they’re back for more, returning for another tour and playing more dates across the country. The singer Lyubov Soloveva brings along the rest of the band for a chat after their festival show. Each one of the band introduce themselves politely and, despite the fact that Rustem Izmailov (synths/electronics) and Sergey (drums) are not taking part in much of the conversation, they remain listening attentively, occasionally breaking into Russian to consult other members of the band.
Last time you were in the UK, you were going back to Russia to record a new album. Any news?
Roman Parinov (guitars): It’s done.
Igor Simkin (bass): Yeah, it will be out in early 2016.
What’s it going to be called?
Roman: It’s still a secret.
Is it going to be on the same label?
All: Yeah, Club AC30.
Do you have a label in Russia?
All: No.
Why is that?
Roma: I don’t know. We don’t have any gigs in Russia, or very rarely. We never release our music in Russia.
I understand that you got together a few years ago as a response to your dissatisfaction with the ‘scene’ in St Petersburg. Where do you fit into the Russian ‘scene’ in 2015?
Lyubov: We just wanted to play music and we didn’t really care about the ‘scene’. Maybe we wouldn’t have cared about it here, either. Maybe it’s self-centred, but we just don’t care about any ‘scene’.
Roman: It’s very fashionable in Russia at the moment to love some sort of Siberian lo-fi stuff, really crappy music. Old school Soviet post-punk seems to be all the rage. I don’t understand this as there are thousands of bands like that. It just happened in the last two to three years; I don’t know why.
How do you feel about your popularity here?
Lyubov: It’s nice to be popular. I don’t know how popular we are, but it’s really nice to have people appreciate your music.
Roman: It’s great to have people at our gigs; a real pleasure.
Lyubov: Sometimes you get confused and you don’t know whether you like your own stuff. It’s hard to judge, so feedback is really important for us.
Many shoegaze heroes, like Ride and Slowdive are back in action. Do you think this resurgence might help you gain bigger audiences?
Lyubov: I don’t know. I don’t think we play shoegaze anymore.
Roman: Yeah, actually we’re not shoegaze devotees. We like a lot of music. In the beginning, we were not trying to copy but just wanted to play this sound. It was almost 10 years ago. A lot of time has passed. We listen to a lot of music: 70s music, metal, electronic music, acid house.
Do you all have different tastes in music?
Roman: We have some things in common, but it can be pretty different sometimes.
So what kind of music do you all like?
Roman: I think we all like atmospheric music. We all like reverb. I think reverb is great, but I can’t name a band that all of us are crazy about.
[Quick consultation in Russian, with other members of the band picking their favourite bands]
Roman: Stars of the Lake is the band we all like.
Igor: Landing. Broadcast.
Lyubov: Stereolab.
You’ve been frequently compared to Lush and Cocteau Twins.
Lyubov: But none of us have ever listened to Lush!
Igor: Actually, none of us like this band.
Roman: We all knew about this band, but we didn’t listen to them. And then a lot of people started saying we were very influenced by Lush. I tried listening to several songs but it’s just not my music.
What about Russian music?
Igor: Grazhdanskaya Oborona.
Roman: Yeah, they’re good. There is this iconic Russian band. A lot of guys who wear black leather and drink cheap beer love this band. Their name is Kino. They were around in the 80s and early 90s. They were really good; they had a lot of ideas.
So what should we expect from the new album?
Roman: [hesitantly] The whole album is pretty fast and uplifting, much more uplifting than our previous album. It’s also a little heavier. It’s hard to explain your own music. We explain it with instruments.
Lyubov: I think the sound is just more intense overall.
Are you coming back next year with your new album?
R: We’d all be happy to come back.
L: It’s all up in the air. We’re not the ones planning things; it’s all paperwork and this kind of stuff. No use talking about it apart from the fact that we do want to do that. The rest is up to the people who are managers and bookers. We’re kind of just following the flow with the industry.
Buy Pinkshinyultrablast debut album Everything else matters HERE.
Click HERE for Pinkshinyultrablast news and UK tours dates information.
Read GIITTV’s full festival review of HERE.
Visit GIITTV’s Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia 2015 gallery HERE.
Photo credit: Simon Godley
