Kontora Kooka or Kontora Kuka () is a Russian rock music group formed in Samara in the early 1990s. According to Rolling Stone Russia, their album Check was the best Russian album of 2013.
Band history The band has three members. Vladimir 'Kook' Elizarov is the band's ideologist, as well as a vocalist, guitarist, percussionist, and lyricist. Danila Telegin, a guitarist and singer, is the second member. The third member of the group, Viktor Gurov, is responsible for programming drum machines, noises, keyboard, and other electronic musical instruments.
In 2000, their first album was released under the title Kontora Kooka ().Review of the "Kontora Kooka" in the Fuzz magazine No. 11, 2000 The band's second album, Renovation, was released in 2004 by the Geometry music label. Critics compared Kontora Kooka's music to The Residents and other little-known post-rock bands. In 2006, the band recorded an industrial album named Ordnung (), which was influenced by Einstürzende Neubauten.
The album Jazz Virus ()Review of "Jazz Virus" in the Rolling Stone Russia №2, 2012 was released in the spring of 2012. That same year, the cover of the album won the Red Dot design award.
In early 2013, Danila Telegin left the group to start his own project, TLGN. The album CHECK ()Review of "CHECK" in the Rolling Stone Russia №9(110), 2013 was recorded in that year. After a long break, Oleg Sadovnikov returned to the group. According to Andrey Bukharin of Rolling Stone Russia, CHECK was one of the top ten albums and the best Russian album of 2013.
Middle Volga () was released in 2014.
On November 24, 2015, the album RIO () was released. Valeria Pikalova, the leader of Synesthesia, who previously collaborated with teams such as Adora VEGA and Purple Fog Side, took part in the recording of the album. Union Concern () named Rio one of the top twenty domestic albums of 2016.
Just one year later, on 29 November 2016, the band released the album Karachun. RuTracker.org selected the title track for their annual collection of the best tracks of 2016. The song "Baba-Lebeda" from the album got a spot on the annual compilation "ArtSovet Rutracker.org 2016 Essentials Titanium Block"."ArtSovet Rutracker.org 2016 Essentials Titanium Block" on Discogs
Kontora Kooka released the album Mein lieber friend () on September 19, 2017. Album featured by Aleksey Mogilevsky (ex-Nautilus Pompilius, Sax). Union Concern () named it the best album of the year and web portal NNeFormat () ranked it one of the top ten albums of the year.
Discography
Studio albums Title (Transliterated)Title (Russian)Title (English)Release dateCook's Office2000Renovation2004LO-END2009Jazz Virus2011CHECK2013Middle Volga2014RIO2015Karachun2016Mein lieber friendMein lieber friendMein lieber friend2017WOO-EEE....2019Forst Zinna2019Black Russian WomanBlack Russian WomanBlack Russian Woman2021
References
External links Kontora Kooka on Kroogi.com Kontora Kooka on Bandcamp.com Kontora Kooka on SoundCloud Kontora Kooka on discogs.com Kontora Kooka on musicbrainz