PUSSY RIOT
CYKA (Neon Gold)
CYKA, Pussy Riot’s first full album, does nothing to undermine the Russian collective’s long-established controversial reputation, but only elevate the diasporic, eclectic sense of identity that the band themselves hold a claim to.
The album is vast in all senses. Aurally, CYKA fuses trap, Russian- and English-language rap, electronic music and traditional folk-punk structures. Its content spans injustices of many kinds: child imprisonment, the Russia-Ukraine war, founder member Nadya Tolkonnikova’s exile, state hypocrisy and censorship. The title track, billed as “featuring” Vladimir Putin (more accurately, it samples his voice), is a diss track against state censors that is explicit to the extreme. As for Tolokonnikova, Nothing To Lose outlines how she now finds liberation in her exile and scapegoated position.
Though multilingual, Pussy Riot successfully capture a sense of retaliation in their melodies, so that their message transcends any language barrier. Labelled an “extremist organisation” by the Russian Federation last year, Pussy Riot’s music, expansive, experimental and revolutionary, is now more important than ever.
words MENNA WILSON
