Great music rarely makes for great activism, and the reverse is true on Pussy Riot’s official debut album. A scattergun mix of icy electronics, pumping EDM and whispered rap, CYKA (“bitch” in Russian) follows a decade of musical protest performances from the activist collective. Made by co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova (she and Maria Alyokhina were imprisoned in separate penal colonies between 2012 and 2013), CYKA’s powerful point of view is diluted by weak delivery.
Lead single Candy Dopamine, with metal band Avenged Sevenfold, disguises its critique of big pharma with cutesy lyrics, corny electric guitar and inconsequential key changes. Generically moody synths and cliched siren sounds run through much of the record, as does blunt-force EDM: Nothing to Lose is both a cluttered trance track, and about being hated by Russia’s “liberal intelligentsia” for supporting Ukraine.
The strongest tracks are made for angry crowds. Gore (with Cypress Hill’s B-Real) is a furious dispatch from LA’s anti-ICE protests, while Disobey soundtracked Pussy Riot’s action against the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Using raw-throated, bare-bones punk, the purpose is not musical invention but to seize headlines. Likewise with CYKA’s Putin-trolling title track, which samples Vladimir as a gimmick to talk about Russian censorship.
Alyokhina once told me that attention from the west is vital protection for Pussy Riot members from being “disappeared”. In that sense, CYKA’s messy EDM matters less than any conversation it sparks about their urgent cause and impossibly difficult circumstances – not least as the poignant hyperpop closer Outro reveals the human cost of Tolokonnikova’s life in exile.
