Wine

Wine debuted in 1993 at notorious TaMtAm club announcing a new voice, an individualist who used the cliches of the past to force his way into the future. Wine promised the end of the post-soviet Russian Rock Era, and made an effort to bring Russian music a bit closer to the international values. Un enfant terrible of Russian musicworld, Winer resolved to avoid the trappings of showbiz, persistently rejecting to get signed by record companies. An obligatory condition to change mentality and make the Russian versions of the songs originally written in English, was too sore point for the artist who just wanted to act naturally.

Despite ignorance of the record companies, Wine quickly became a model for the generation of bands, doomed to fail in the Russian market because of their genetic attachment to the English culture and language.
A perfect stylist, Winer's aura is distinctively English. Winer doesn't transpose Russian rock ideas into King's English, but sticks to melancholy, shoe-gazing pop which has always been more of a British phenomenon.
The Kinks were the first and, probably, the greatest Winer's influence. And His Nasal Majesty R.D.Davies still remains some kind of a Godfather for Winer.
Poetically Winer continues traditions of so-called "Miserable Rock", established as a style by Steven Patrick Morrissey. Less pretentious and definitely uglier than his inspirer, Winer seems to be more adequate to the story of an ugly boy next door no girl or a boy would kiss. "Morrissey has taught me to avoid writing lyrics in a usual pop way" - says Winer.

Despite his manic tendency to absorb the cliches and ideas of the past, Winer and his music could be hardly classified. Outward simplicity turns into a trap. Going deeper one reveals a number of internal disguised levels, a maze of ambiguities and turned-over quotations. A frightening journey through the jungle of a human being's inner world turns into self-irony, water turns into wine. Vice Versa.
The seething whirl where Flower-Power, Trip-Hop and Big Beat merge. A cool mix of emotions and styles where all feelings are equal, but the only one predominates. This is Love. And in love all contradictions dissolve and disappear.

Links:

Official site: http://www.winemusic.ru
MySpace profile
Wine at NME Breaking Bands

Shoegazer album promo
Wine Not album promo

Facebook profile
MusicBrainz data
Wikipedia article (Russian)
LiveJournal community (Russian)