The minimalist synth music group “Suņu barība” (not to be confused with “Suuņu stūna”!) is another discovery of the program “Bitīt matos” – this student electronic group visited the studio of Damby and Blicson at the end of January.
“Ågenskalns Cosmonauts” was recorded at home between October 2021 and March 2022, when there were still three members in the group, but only two 14-year-old girls remained – art school student Petra (she plays the synthesizer) and Alice, who studies in music school piano class (also plays synthesizer and sings). The creation of the group was very simple, in the words of Alice, “one summer I thought of creating a group because there was nothing else to do”. The album includes eight tracks, including “Sleeping Medicines”, which has been in the rotation of “Radio NABA”, as well as “Help me, Buratino”, which is a cover version of Margarita Vilcāne’s 1965 song by the Soviet composer Vladimir Hvoiņitsky. Why the girls decided to make a cover version of this melody, which probably has not been heard even by many of the pop music lovers of the 60’s and 70’s, was not clear (it must have sounded on their father’s records), but getting its original in a recordable form was really a titanic job. because words and notes are not available on the internet.
By the way, on February 4, there was a presentation concert of “Agenskalns cosmonauts”, but before that there was no point in announcing this event, because the concert was held… in the girls’ own apartment. Among the invited guests – friends, neighbors, parents and people invited by them. If you want to know more about these young musicians and their band, go to Bandcamp and under no circumstances search by band name, unless you want to avoid various dog food promotions for months to come…
PAR. It’s a pleasure that the girls take the lyrics so seriously – they are sung sonically, with rhymes, and mostly preference is given to poets who have already proven themselves (there are also songs with their own words), for example Rihards Bargajs, Jázeps Osmanis, Jurim Boyko. By the way, Juris Boiko is also mentioned here in the sense that, stylistically, the creations of “Dog Food” could be remotely compared to the works of “NSRD”. The listeners mark “Gaisa tiltu” as the best song, but the reviewer could still recommend “Further away from home”. Of course, “Sleeping Medicines” have also been on the air of “Radio NABA” for a reason. Credit must be given for the musical archeological excavations in finding Hvoinicka’s “Pinocchio”.
AGAINST. Alice’s vocals are simply killer at times – it could sound like a dog stuck in the furnace chimney without food… But in general, I don’t want to say anything bad about the album, the girls are still only 14 years old.
