It's a new Vezhlivy Otkaz album! Oh wait, it's not. Fans of the Russian art rockers' 2010 Gusi-Lebedi (Geese and Swans) album, distributed outside of Russia via AltrOck, might be forgiven an initial jolt of excitement concerning this 2011 CD/DVD set from the Geometry label, enthusiasm reinforced by photos of the band -- also known by the English-language name Polite Refusal -- inside the tri-fold packaging and on the discs themselves. Those photos, snapped in May 2011, are of a get-together for old times' sake; the CD was recorded nearly 15 years previously. Originally issued in 1997, Koca ha Kamehb (Steel on Stone) is given deluxe treatment here, including a bonus DVD of TV, club, festival, and studio footage and a sizable glossy insert with (yes, 1997) band photos, lyrics, credits, and liner-note essays in both Russian and English. Those acquainted with Vezhlivy Otkaz via the excellent Gusi-Lebedi probably hope for something of similar quality if not style here, and Koca ha Kamehb does not disappoint -- depending on one's expectations. Both albums feature 11 tracks but these earlier songs are generally shorter and punchier, centered squarely around Roman Suslov's animated, impassioned vocal delivery and including wonderfully tight scored passages with herky-jerky, stop-start rhythms suggesting a twisted take on Russian funk (although the concluding "Run of Bad Luck" is darkly, dramatically atmospheric).
The music has fewer overtly avant-garde jazz elements than Gusi-Lebedi, yet the unison lines, riffing, and brief explosive outbursts from trumpeter Andrey Solovyov and saxophonist Pavel Tonkovid are likely to draw smiles from jazz and jazz-funk fans. Maxim Trefan's piano is angular and harmonically exploratory, Mikhail Mitin's drumming is effortlessly economical, and Dmitry Shumilov is no slouch on his limber and pulsing fretless bass either. Yet Suslov commands most attention, particularly on the DVD. On five songs performed in a tiny white-walled TV studio for the program Anthropology in 1998, Suslov's delivery ranges from intimate to declamatory, with touches of musical theater and cabaret (and retro-swinging "Rockenroll"); yet there's a ragged honesty to his presentation, and it's not surprising to learn that he abandoned city life during the '90s to live and work at a horse farm. In a grainy, amateurish club video from 1996 and a brief, jumpily edited clip from a festival appearance in Red Square that same year, Suslov has traded his acoustic for an electric and displays a new wave-ish hair and fashion sense seemingly incongruous with both rough-hewn farm life and his prevailing lyrical themes suggesting those who heed the call to "Leave your cities now/Poor little people!/Go out there, naked/Get dancing!" (from "City") might find that empty spaces merely bring more emptiness to the psyche. Ultimately, however, Suslov's new wavey stylistic blip is just one more facet of a malleable and intriguing band that has persisted on and off for decades against a backdrop of tumultuous times. One hopes that additional facets will be revealed by future jolts from the past like this one.