Yat-Kha

Yat-Kha started out in the late 1980s in the industrial steel-belt city of Sverdlovsk. Homemade bands across the Siberian hinterland, with their acerbic lyrics and free-thinking attitudes, were beginning to transform the grimly saccharine Soviet music scene. When Yat-Kha’s leader, Albert Kuvezin, performed at the Alma-Aty festival “Voices of Asia” in 1990, one particular judge – Brian Eno – was so astonished that he made up a special prize on the spot for Albert’s unique double-bass voice and its mixture of thunderous growling and high harmonics. In 1991 Kuvezin met experimental Russian keyboardist Andrei Sokolovsky. The two played festivals and performed in many cities, eventually becoming known as “Yat-Kha.