The Soviet Space Dog Project

Welcome to this first release of HDK's "Kosmische music" series, dedicated to our favorite artists playing classic E.M. in '70s Berlin-school tradition. It's a real pleasure to introduce Andy Bloyce from London, U.K., aka "The Soviet Space Dog Project".  Andy proves to have perfectly understood the recipe that made the records of the masters of this musical genre great; meditative music that at the same time prods the listener to bring his imagination to unknown and disquieting places; places where the outer space, with its immeasurable vastness, meets the inner one, the equally infinite and intangible space of the human soul: the cold description of unknown interstellar spaces so evokes feelings of amazement and anguish at the same time, feelings that tell about the greatness and transience of the human being.  Andy's music also intertwines with the history of the space race in the years of the Cold War, evoking vivid images of those heroic and often tragic events...  

This tape contains a long and amazing composition on the first side, called "Starcity"; the title refers to "Звёздный городойк" (russian, literally, the city of stars), a work settlement located in the 32 km. to the north east of Moscow. This locality, during the Cold War, was a closed city, inaccessible without authorization and not marked on maps, and was known only by a codename. This is because it was the seat of a training and research center for cosmonauts: the city of stars kept the secrets of the Soviet Space Program, secrets that could not be allowed to leak to the West at any cost.  On side B, Pushinka (Пушинка, "fluffy" in Russian) refers to the dog that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gifted in 1961 to the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

"Pushinka" (her name) was the daughter of Strelka, the dog that travelled in space aboard the Korabl-Sputnik 2. The White House Security Service feared that the dog could carry an espionage system (a hidden microphone or similar), but after careful checks with X-rays and magnetometers Pushinka turned out to be... a normal, fluffy dog.  Good listening!