Мухомор

[b]Toadstools[/b] (Мухоморы) were a Moscow art-group, created in 1978. Their sole album [url=https://discogs.com/master/834427]Golden Disc[/url], self-released in 1981-82, provoked interest in experimental and conceptual music among Soviet rockers, modern artists and melomaniacs, and became hugely influential for many other bands, including [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1608488]Bachyt-Kompot[/url], [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1539579]Waterfall[/url], [url=https://discogs.com/artist/688288]Khui Zabei[/url], [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1237436]DK[/url], and, of course, [url=https://discogs.com/artist/815329]Egor Letov[/url]'s side-project [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1448507]Communism[/url]. Originally self-distributed in samizdat as a "magnet tape" (reel-to-reel) album, Golden Disc was officially released on compact cassette in 1997 by [url=https://discogs.com/label/123973]Otdelenie VYHOD[/url] label in [url=https://discogs.com/label/396860]Russian Rock Zoo[/url] series. In 2014, it was re-released on CD+DVD (full album and a collection of short films from 1978-1982). [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1580448]Aleksandr Kushnir[/url] reviewed the album in [i]100 Magnet Tape Albums of Soviet Rock[/i] book. Friends and classmates Sven Gundlach, brothers Vladimir and Sergey Mironenko, Aleksey Kamensky, and Konstantin Zvezdochetov established [b]Toadstool[/b] group on 24th March 1978. They created a collaborative painting [i]Indian Hunting Down Eagle[/i] and declared this day to be an International Day of Happening. Toadstool staged and filmed satirical buffoonery performances, organized avant-garde exhibitions, radical psychedelic happenings and performances, published humorous manifestos and open letters, including one to [a=Margaret Thatcher] concerning Falkland Islands situation. On the winter holidays in December 1980 – January 1981, Toadstools got together at Aleksey Kamensky's apartment and decided to record their best "compositions." Golden Disc is a post-modernistic avant-garde radio play, with artists reciting their highly provocative poems over a pre-recorded sound collage, trying to match the rhythm and tempo. The studio technology was defiantly primitive. On a consumer Rostov-101 tape recorder, they would put a performer's voice on one channel, and pre-mixed sound collage from reel tape on the other. The soundtrack included "best of all times" instrumentals and fragments – everything from [a=Shocking Blue], [a=ABBA] and sound of Kremlin bells to [url=https://discogs.com/artist/807822]Leonid Utyosov[/url], [url=https://discogs.com/artist/95544]Beethoven[/url] and [url=https://discogs.com/artist/999914]Tchaikovsky[/url] symphonies, Arabian melodies, blues improvisations, and jazz standards. The album was initially distributed on DIY reel-to-reel tapes and presented as a "complex esoterically-theoretical avant-garde composition" in a small circle of Moscow underground artists, such as [a=Ilya Kabakov], [url=https://discogs.com/artist/3464295]Andrei Monastyrski[/url], and [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1419832]Dmitri Prigov[/url]. A regular audience seemed to enjoy a humorous and radical collage outside of a highbrow artistic concept. Rock music was under political repressions in USSR at the time, so without many events to attend, listeners liked this album as an alternative form of music-related verbal communication, as a surrogate for the live concert experience. [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1876593]Seva Novgorodsev[/url] broadcasted Golden Disc excerpts on his BBC radio-show. The growing popularity had drawn government attention, and Toadstool music was officially banned. KGB interrogated artists in 1984, and soon enough sent them out of Moscow for a compulsory military service. Since then, Toadstools were officially over. Most members of the legendary group continued working as painters and visual artists while Sven Gundlach founded [url=https://discogs.com/artist/1757829]The Central Russian Upland[/url] band.