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"Their trademark sound - almost exclusively instrumental - is a form of stripped-down, maximally lo-fi grunge full of background hiss. Frequently played at a very slow tempo, the swamp-like growl of these tracks sometimes slides into pure feedback or industrial drone, since individual notes are so drawn out. This is a very confrontational style, revelling in its sulky contrariness, yet at times - especially when the tempo increases sufficiently to banish thoughts of large animals - a hedonistic amateurism comes to the fore... A comparison might be possible between AWOTT and Edinburgh's Fire Engines, who played in a similarly hopeless vein, punctuating scratchy guitar work with the occasional yelp or funky drum break. All of which makes the Moscow collective very important. Music scenes without this kind of lo-fi, shambolic corrective are simply not healthy." (by David MacFadyen of Far From Moscow).
Born in 2007 from the ashes of three underground bands – Yarche-1000-Solnts, DimenticarmiNON!, and Lisichkin Khleb – a Moscow experimental outfit ASIAN WOMEN ON THE TELEPHONE is one of the new Russian avant-garde movement’s most innovative and for a time successful bands… but also perhaps one of its most misunderstood. Their artistic approach draws inspiration from the early Soviet-era Russian Futurism and Dadaism, and echoes a view of society as rigid, absurd, and schematic. They produce the strangest kind of music which collects influences from Kraut Rock, Noise-Rock, Electronics, Free Improvisation, Sound Collage, etc. and channels it into idiosyncratic, sarcastic vision. No overdubbing, no analog mixing or mastering… This is lo-fi music for a low-grade world. In fact, AWOT have never stressed their musical content, regarding music just as an accompaniment to freaky costume-and-masked performances they set. Being banned periodically from Moscow club-venues due to rumored connection to "a mystical ritualistic sect", the band focused on studio work and put out a string of messy recordings with unique packaging (by Maxim Ionov) which were a true labor of love and couldn’t be reproduced in proper manufacturing quantities… Still and all, nothing can be compared to live gigs by AWOTT who is a six-piece ensemble now featuring: Oriental Yid (drums, guitar), Good Enough Freundin (guitar, vocal, drums), Brown Polizei (keyboards, voice, bass), Divine Gift (percussion, voice), Mutter Land (drums, percussion, bass), and Lewd Primat (bass, voice). Contact AWOTT through their MyspaceMusic page. Download AWOTT albums for free through their BandCamp page.
Asian Women On The Telephone / ICanT (2011) / pro-duplicated CD-R $11.00
AWOTT refined and condensed their vision to produce the band’s most precise album to date with ICanT. But don’t be mistaken: they still blend elements of kraut, psyche, industrial, and avant-garde with a sound that has you quite goosy. However, everything has come together to make sense, and works in a more consistent, more focused manner. Almost pure instrumental tour-de-force that should make evil fans of both Faust and The Residents happy. Limited to 100 pcs: professionally duplicated CD-R (8 tracks – 78 min.) comes inside a hand-made silkscreen pentagon folder (red-grey-white/ red-black-bue colors over black cardboard & red-black-blue colors over white cardboard).
FREE-TO-DOWNLOAD: FMA or Bandcamp.
PRESS CLIPS
"Not an album for those who insist on a melody, and guaranteed to clear the room of late stayers at a party, AWOTT have made a wilfully obtuse album to be filed with your most unpleasant Faust albums. I actually quite like it, but then again I can be a contrary sod!" – by Roger Trenwith of Prog Sphere (Serbia) (August 2011).
The album was also reviewed at: Know Your Conjurer (USA), RCRC (USA), Far From Moscow (USA), Not For Resale (UK), Bent Music (Australia), Canili d'Adda (Italy), You People Are Poison (Hungary), iO Pages (The Netherlands).
Asian Women On The Telephone / Chelsea Grandpa (2010) / CD-R $13.00
Delicious kraut-n-noise soundtrack to over an hour long theatrical Dada-performance. Limited to 100 pcs: home-made CD-R (1 track – 69 min.) comes inside a hand-made silkscreen quadrant folder (blue-n-red colors over silver cardboard & green-n-black colors over golden cardboard).
Asian Women On The Telephone / AWOTT III (2009) / CD-R - OUT-OF-PRINT
The third official album by AWOTT. A rare masterpiece of brain-damaged psyche-noise rock! Limited to 100 pcs: home-made CD-R (8 tracks – 64 min.) comes inside a hand-made silkscreen triangle folder (various colors).
Asian Women On The Telephone / AWOTT (2008) / CD - OUT-OF-PRINT
The first ever AWOTT recording. It features rather intentionally primitive low-fi tune-scathes than actual song structures. Recorded at Max Ionov's home studio. Limited to 230 pcs: CD (11 tracks – 32 min.) comes inside a hand-made silkscreen folder (various colors). Rare thing!
Yarche-1000-Solnts (Brighter Than A Thousand Suns) / II (2007) / CD $7.00
The second album by the Moscow’s avant-core legend YARCHE-1000-SOLNTS led by Max Ionov (now with ASIAN WOMEN ON THE TELEPHONE). Joint release by Retrotrasher Records and Demo Records. (4-panel digipak; 1 track – 20 min.)
Dimenticarmi NON! / Non Returnable (2007) / CD $11.00
The first and the last full-length album by DIMENTICARNI NON! from Moscow. Arseniy (guitar), Nikita (drums), and Krasnikova (bass) mixed lots of influences from garage-rock and no-wave to new-vave and post-punk to create an original polystylistic musical blend of their own. (4-panel digipak; 7 tracks – 39 min.) D.NON! page
Lesbian Boy + Dimenticarmi NON! / (split) (2006) / CD $11.00
An excellent split-album by two bands from the Moscow No Wave underground: LESBIAN BOY (duo of Alexander Mitenkov and Pavel Voloshin) and DIMENTICARNI NON! (trio of Nikita, Arseniy, and Krasnikova). Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Max Ionov (of YARCHE-1000-SOLNTS) in 1999 (LB’s tracks) and in 2005/06 (D.NON! tracks). (4-panel LP-sleeve; 16 tracks – 44 min.) D.NON! page
| Title | Media | Price |
| CD (OSK Records) | N/A | |
| CD (Retrotrasher Records) | $11.00 | |
| CD (Retrotrasher/Demo Records) | $7.00 | |
| CD (Retrotrasher Records) | $11.00 | |
| CD (self-released) | out-of-print | |
| MC (self-released) | out-of-print | |
| CD-R (self-released) | out-of-print | |
| CD-R (self-released) | $13.00 | |
| MC (Warded Halls Records) | N/A | |
| MC (self-released) | N/A | |
| pro-duplicated CD-R | MP3-file (RAIG's Accessory Takes) | $11.00 | free download | |
| 2xCD-R (self-released) | N/A |
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