Center - Tyaga k Tekhnike

All Music Guide

Center, as said by its founder and only permanent member Vasiliy Shumov, is a band that does exist, but at the same time… doesn't. Same story with Center's records, especially with the early ones. Released exclusively on tapes (there is absolutely no way a rockband could be allowed to make an actual record), these albums were phantoms, delicious rarities, treasures from sunken ships of Russian rockpioneers. Actually, even some of the scanty promoters of rockmusic in the early 1980's were quite squeamish about music created by Shumov Co: it was very different from their idea of "rock" as acoustic guitar based gloomy socially conscious alternative to Soviet censored boredom of a culture. Center didn't quite fit: too strange, too bright and lightheaded, too funny, too shapeless. It wasn't just different music, it was a different mentality. It's almost that Tyaga k Tehnike (Inclination to Machinery), Center's fourth album, became popular (with two alltime hits "Ya Vsyo Umeyu" (I Can Do An...ything) and "Mal'chik V Tennisnyh Tuflyakh" (A Boy In Tennis Shoes) despite public's growing interest to homegrown rockmusic. While bands like DDT and Alisa sang about harsh Soviet realities and lack of freedom, Center actually tried to play music. Tyaga k Tehnike provides an array of cheerful postpunk melodies and 30second skits with lyrics so selfcentered, vain and unconcerned that it could (and did) scare off not only the party censors, but also many "serious" music fans, hungry for social commentary. Title track literally describes one's affection to everything mechanical over trainlike bass and wavy guitars. "Odinokiy Sergey" (Lonely Sergey) reminds of school dances, with Shumov's trembling vocals and shy keyboards. It is hard to say, if Center skillfully disguises irony towards new conformist generation under a bunch of blips, claps, yawns and echoes surrounding new wavemeetsrockabilly rhythms, or they really just don't care, their music is anything but boring, and that is more that one could ask for, perestroika or not. - Andrei Antipov, All Music Guide Read more Less