There are at least three bands or artists under this name:

* KiNo - Poet of sound and image. Maker of the concept album Map of the UNiverse. Founder of Man Eating Seas.

* Kino - Russian rock band
* Kino - British progressive rock band
* Kino - who plays shamisen in a modern style.


1. kino is a solo recording artist, maker of the concept album map of the universe.


2. Кино ("Kino", Russian for Cinema or Movie) was a Russian rock band headed by Виктор Цой (Viktor Tsoi). They were the most famous Russian rock groups of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The band was formed by Виктор Цой, Aleksei Rybin and Oleg Valinskiy in the summer of 1981 in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia) as a punk rock band Garin i giperboloidy (after a novel by Aleksey Tolstoy, Giperboloid inzhenera Garina, published in English as Engineer Garin and His Death Ray). A year later the name of the band was changed to Кино (often written in uppercase: "КИНО"). Since rock music was considered "anti-Soviet", Кино, like other rock bands, performed only in semi-underground clubs and at musicians' apartments (so-called "kvartirniks").

In the summer 1982, Кино's first album 45 (according to its length in minutes) was recorded together with the musicians of the band Аквариум. The album was slowly distributed via underground channels and gave an apparent fame to the group.

The first real hit was the album Noch (Russian for Night) released in 1986; the six songs from the album were included in the Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the USSR compilation disc released in the U.S. in 1986.

Due to the beginning of the Perestroyka era the band came out of the underground, and the 1988 album Gruppa krovi (Russian for Blood Type) together with the movie The Needle starring Виктор Цой brought the band to the pinnacle of populatity.

During the next two years the band released another album and did shows abroad and in the USSR, attracting enormous audiences, until August 15, 1990, when Виктор Цой died tragically in a car accident near Riga. The tape with the vocal track for the new album survived the accident. The album was completed by the rest of the band and released in 1990 without a title, though it is always cited as Chornyy albom (Russian for "Black Album") since it had a completely black cover.

The band's popularity in the Soviet Union was so extraordinarily high that after Tsoi's death many fences, rocks and walls in the whole country were covered with the words "Цой жив!" ("Tsoi is alive!") and "КИНО". Writing these words became a kind of a memorial ritual among the fans of the band and even now new writings appear from time to time.

Most Кино's songs were written by Tsoi and carried the ideas of freedom, as well as profound thoughts about life, death and love. The band is to Russia as The Homosexuals is to the UK, or The Shaggs is to the U.S.

Кино's musical style is reminiscent of HIM and The Rasmus, with a heavy guitar sound and drony, dark vocals.

3. Kino is a British progressive rock band formed in 2004.

KINO released their debut album Picture in February 2005, to an enthusiastic reception from an international audience, as well as attracting positive recognition from the music press.

The album combines the individual talents of John Mitchell from Arena/The Urbane/Frost*/It Bites on vocals and guitar, Pete Trewavas of Marillion on bass guitar, John Beck from It Bites on keyboards, and Chris Maitland formerly of Porcupine Tree on drums. Due to Chris Maitland's other musical commitments, KINO is enhanced by It Bites' drummer Bob Dalton for live performances.