Kino (band)

Kino Кино
Yuri Kasparyan (seated) and Viktor Tsoi (standing) photographed in 1987 during a concert in Leningrad
Background information
Origin	Leningrad, Soviet Union
Genres	Post-punk, new wave, jangle pop, folk rock, gothic rock
Years active	1981–1990, 2012
Labels	MOROZ Records
Past members	Viktor Tsoi† Yuri Kasparyan Georgiy Guryanov† Igor Tikhomirov Aleksei Rybin Alexander Titov Oleg Valinskiy Mikhail Vasilev Aleksei Vishnia

Kino (Russian: Кино́ "cinema", also "film", often written uppercase, КИНО; pronounced [kʲɪˈno]) was an iconic Soviet post-punk band headed by Viktor Tsoi. It was one of the most famous rock groups in the Soviet Union.

Kino was formed in 1981 by the members of two earlier groups from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Palata No. 6 and Piligrim. They initially called themselves Garin i Giperboloidy after Aleksei Tolstoi's novel The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin. The group consisted of Viktor Tsoi, guitarist Aleksei Rybin, and drummer Oleg Valinskiy. They began rehearsing, but Valinskiy was drafted and had to leave the band. In the spring of 1982, they began to perform at the Leningrad Rock Club and met with the influential underground musician Boris Grebenshikov. It was around this time that they finally changed the band's name to Kino. The name was chosen because it was considered short and "synthetic," and the band members took pride in that it had only two syllables and was easy to pronounce by speakers all over the world. Tsoi and Rybin said later that they had got the idea for the name itself after having seen a bright cinema sign.

Kino released their debut album, 45, in 1982. Since the band only consisted of two members, Grebenshikov suggested that members of his band Aquarium assist the band in recording the album. These included cellist Vsevolod Gakkel, flutist Andrei Romanov, and bassist Michael Feinstein-Vasilev. Since there was no drummer, they used a drum machine instead. This simple composition made the album sound lively and bright. Lyrically, it resembled earlier Soviet bard music for its romanticism of city life and the use of poetic language. The album consisted of thirteen songs and was named 45 in reference to its length. The group's popularity was rather limited at the time, so the album was not considered much of a success, and Tsoi stated later that the record had come out crudely and he should have recorded it differently.