Ask Lemmy

Check out the netlabel plainly named ‘Russian Post-punk’ for some of that genre from various post-Soviet countries.

Some more from Eastern Europe:

Russia:

• NOM, e.g. ‘Entertainers choir of the conductors reserve’ — 90s ironic punkish rock, often mocking popular kitsch and consumerism. Now doing some metal-y songs with commentary on current events.

• Nol — 80s-90s bayan folk-punk. Later Fyodor Chistyakov recorded some moody interpretations of classical music on bayan, and currently lives in the US and has released English versions of his old songs (but they suck, because he's old now and because the songs don't translate well).

• Mango-Mango — 90s comedy-rock with splendid ska-ish instrumentation

• Nogu Svelo — 90s absurdist rock

• Boney Nem: e.g. ‘Heavy Nagila’ and ‘Chito-grito-margalito’ — mostly parodying cheesy Russian pop music in thrash and death metal. The 2003 album ‘День Победы’ (‘Day of Victory’) is full of bangers.

• Lemonday — acoustic-ish low-fi somewhat absurdist anti-folk. Their best stuff is these old videos on YouTube.

• Inturist — jazz/post-punk fusion

• toska po domu — electronic post-punk (Russian, based in Tel-Aviv)

• My friend tape recorder — very danceable post-punk, oddly lyrical

• margenrot — post-punk/post-industrial with some Arabic motifs

• Beskultura - noise-rock

• Megapolis — retro rock (the linked song is actually a cover of a 1958 song, but with different lyrics)

• Egor Letov / Grazhdanskaya Oborona — 90s psychedelic punk (fun fact: Egor's brother Sergei Letov is a jazz saxophonist, famously having played in Sergei Kuryokhin's band)

• Straw Raccoons — 90s absurdist noise-rock/punk

• Zemfira — 2000s inscrutable Russian alt-rock with pretty good instrumentation, afaik all written by the titular lead singer and leader of her band

• Anatoly Nikulin's ‘Russian Music’ is a bunch of prog-rock/electronic covers of early-20th-century classical music that was influenced by the folk tradition back then

5'nizza — 90s Ukrainian reggae-rock

Воплі Відоплясова — Ukrainian folk-rock

The Hypnotunez — Ukrainian, playing some kinda Balkan-ska/swing

Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra — a rather obvious recommendation for Serbian/Balkan folk-rock

Zdob și Zdub — Moldovan, playing Balkan folk-rock

Đorđe Marjanović was a popular Serbian/Yugoslav singer of the 1960s with rock'n'roll songs among other stuff

Demolition Group — Slovenian post-punkish rock, known for inclusion on the ‘Trans Slovenia Express’ tribute compilation by Laibach

the VAPE (Petr Válek) — hilarious Czech noise

A Hawk & A Hacksaw — USian, but mixing Balkan, Jewish and Turkish music

Elsewhere:

Die Toten Hosen — German bar-punk

Sexy Sushi — French electroclash / synth-punk (picks up with the forth track in particular)

Hedningarna and Värttinä — Nordic folk-rock

Garmarna — Swedish folk-rock

Ulver's ‘Kveldssanger’ is an acoustic album of sorta Norwegian folk-rock, made between two raw-black-metal albums

Tappi Tíkarrass and Kukl — Icelandic, punk/post-punk bands in which Björk was before The Sugarcubes

(Perhaps check out the 1982 concert/documentary film ‘Rokk í Reykjavík’, from which the Tappi Tíkarrass footage is taken, for more Icelandic post-punk/new-wave bands.)

‘Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968–1974’ and ‘Cambodian Rocks’ — brilliant compilations of garage-ish rock of Vietnam and Cambodia from back in the day

Pungo — Japanese jazzy post-punk/folk (see ‘Waltz’ in particular)

Garage Chanson Show — Japanese dark-cabaret

Melt-Banana — Japanese noise-rock

Ruins — Japanese prog/noise-rock

Faye Wong — Hong-Kong pop, check out the cover of ‘Dreams’ from the film ‘Chungking Express’

Mammals — Chinese noise/math-rock

Mimilocos — most probably Argentinian, coldwave

Molotov — Mexican rap/alt-rock