Russian trio Fanny Kaplan showcase member Luisa’s graffiti in their video for траншея (trench)

[dropcap]In[/dropcap] 2010 Lusia and Karina Kazaryan moved to Moscow from the Siberian city of Omsk. Inspired by the punk band Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Гражданская Оборона or “The Civil Defense”) they later met their third member Diana and formed the band Fanny Kaplan (named after a Russian revolutionary that attempted to assassinate Lenin).  After a series of shows and lots of rehearsals the trio went to a cold semi-abandoned house in the countryside and recorded their first EP Siyanie Nits—live with no overdubs, cuts or any other corrections, just mixing everything down on a vintage soviet cassette deck. They followed the EP with their first full-length album Plastilin—that was recorded in the same fashion.

The next couple of years the girls spent seeking for the new directions in their music. They tried introducing guitar, different synths, various recording techniques—sharpening their sound by playing many local shows and festivals—nearly coming to blows with each other from time to time. The three eventually ended up creating a more heavy, diverse and technically inventive sound resulting in six new songs that were written and recorded live on a 4-channel digital recorder.

You can find these new tracks on Fanny Kaplan’s newly released self-titled album on Inflammable Material.

Regarding the video for Trench:

“Our second album is self-titled because we wish to articulate the idea behind the band name. It’s a name of historical person Fanny Kaplan who is known primarily because of her attempt to assassinate Vladimir Lenin on the 30th August 1918. We’ve got many questions about the naming since the time we started. That made us thinking about this woman’s fate and investigate a history behind her properly. For example, the story of her death is also pretty interesting. There is a myth that she had been shot under the noise of working car engines. Then the executors pushed her body into a tar barrel, poured with petrol and burned. It all sounds like some obscure poetry but it is metaphorically very close to the reality in which we are today.

At some point Lusia became interested in graffiti. During the summer she was often going out painting, totally unpretentiously but for the intimate process itself. One day she sketched those bunnies we decided to use for the cover of newest album. Later we realized that it might be a good idea to shoot a video about how she brings them onto a wall.

When we started thinking which track could work better for the clip, it quickly came to our mind that “Trench” is the perfect choice. The drawing illustrates symbolically the same idea which is evolved in the song.

The Trench reflects how one perceives an encounter with the rest of the world when trying to live his own way, being a blue bunny of a special shade. There is no conclusion. The song is about a confusion between ones’ inner voice, instincts, dreams – the small cyan bunny – and the accepted models of living – the huge blue trapped one.”

Pick the new album up here

 Following a performance at Kalabalik på Tyrolen festival in Sweden—Fanny Kaplan are currently preparing a minitour of Europe this December.