Dmitry Berger 's About the Band:

David Fedorovitch Tukhmanov, born 1940. Classically educated. Began his song writing career in the early 60-s, churning out hit-songs that were in many instances influenced by the western rock and pop music but also more mainstream soviet style pop-compositions.

In 1975 came his crowning achievement, the conceptual album, or as in the Soviet musical lingo they called it in a classical term a suite, “Sailing the waves of my memory”, a vignette comprised of ten songs written to the lyrics of various poets. The source for that, my guess is, was a recently finished and published The Library of the world, literary, a monstrous, many decades long project that translated almost all known world literature into Russian.

Using the translations and, in some cases, original poetry Tukhmanov created and recorded the one and only true Soviet rock album, that was about sex and pleasure, in a stark contrast to the rest of whiny and thoughtful Soviet rock, which fun forgot.

David Tukhmanov was not above borrowing a thing or two, like any other songwriter, particularly a passage in the song Old City generously borrowed from Pink Floyd’s Money.

The price for that was that he had to use a really serious and obscure poetry and as a result not only the soviet sensors did not get its content but neither did the most of the audience, who enthusiastically bought all the 2, 5 million copies of the vinyl album, just because it was cool and fun.

Meanwhile, Tukhmanov tuned to such, particularly at that time, not very recognized geniuses of the Russian poetic Silver age not taught in school, like Maximillian Voloshin and Anna Akhmatova, to euphemistic sex references of the Afro-Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen, to almost explicit “Good night” by Percy Bishy Shelly, (to the point that it remained the only song performed in its native language), to lesbian lyrics by the ancient Greek poetess Sapho, to the medieval French student song, where the violence, drinking and mischief are actually meant to be real. Add to that the strange Baudelaire poetry about sisterly love, Verlaine’s invitation to walk his pain, both French, Heine German complaint about his heart manipulated by a coquettish maiden, and a sad good bye by the polish classic Adam Mitskeivitch, and there is this album, that sometimes reminds of Charles Parker and Count Basie’s jazz, sometimes of The Beatles and Pink Floyd, sometimes of Led Zeppelin and Elton John.

As far as the music of the mid 70-s goes, “Sailing the waves of my memory” could stand its own if it had a chance.

The performance of the rock quartet lead by Tukhmanov himself, and various singers, notably Mehrdad Badi, the son of the Iranian political immigrants who could speak English, was impeccable.

In the end, a true rock album was created and produced and released and sold out in the Soviet Union without any reservation. Tukhmanov knew how to play the system and he did it. By the looks of it he still considers the “Sailing the waves of my memory” his best work..

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