Ole Lukkøye – Zapara
Label: Fulldozer Records – FDCD43
Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Digipak
Country: Russia
Released: 03 Mar 2021
Style: Darkwave, Psychedelic Rock, Tribal, Fusion
Fulldozer Records presents an extended reissue of the significant Russian album of the 90s – Ole Lukkoye «Zapara», originally released on vinyl in 1993 by the label Antrop. Ole Lukkoye does not need a special introduction: the ethno-electronic band from St. Petersburg, which has existed for more than three decades, is well known to all connoisseurs of world music and psychedelia, not only in Russia, but also far beyond. Since its inception in 1989, Ole Lukkoye has released 8 full-length albums, which were released in Russia, Germany and the United States and received good press coverage. Starting from 1994 the band toured extensively throughout Europe, and five years later met the legendary German krautrock band Faust. The result of this collaboration was the recording and release of the album «Crystal Crow-Bar» in 2000 on the Klangbad label, owned by one of the Faust founders Hans Joachim Irmler, as well as the release of two other Ole Lukkoye albums on this label. The permanent leader and songwriter of the band Boris Bardash, among other things, is known for his participation in the recording of Theodor Bastard’s albums «Pustota» and «Beloe: Hunting For Fierce Beasts». A very special place in the creative heritage of Ole Lukkoye is occupied by the first album «Zapara», recorded in 1993 at the Antrop studio in St. Petersburg with the participation of engineer Yassin Tropillo. The album had a great influence on the sound of famous modern Russian ethno-electronic groups and on the entire Russian world music scene.
As those who have not yet had the opportunity to hear this album and who have heard it for the first time today rightly point out, it is hard to believe that such music was recorded in Russia in 1993. The unique and original sound of the album «Zapara» has absorbed both the influences of the best examples of the 80s darkwave scene and the tunes of various ethnos of the world, as well as the psychedelia of meditative rock and the avant-garde techniques of jazz fusion. Roughly seven musicians took part in its recording, and the range of instruments extends from keyboards, percussion and acoustic and electric guitars to bassoons, cello and banjo. The album’s magical spirit-lifting atmosphere is enframed by hypnotic recitatives in Russian performed by Boris Bardash and Andrei Lavrinenko. The canonical CD version of the album is supplemented with two previously unreleased bonus tracks: the meditative instrumental «Enfilade», recorded in 1993 at the studio of the Leningrad House of Radio, and the first version of the song «Toomze», which was recorded in 1995 at DDT studio in St. Petersburg, but was never included in this form in the eponymous album released a year later.
