Post Description

Korpus 2 (kopnyc 2) 
( Eclectic Prog • Russia ) 

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KORPUS 2 (?????? 2) is an art rock band from Saint Petersburg formed in the early 80's by musician Vadim NOVIKOV.

Born in Wittstock in 1957, NOVIKOV's family at the turn of the 70's moved to Russian Federation and in Pushkin. In 1975 he went into the army, picked up a bass guitar and he made his debut playing in his garrison. Two years later he came back as a musician and started getting involved with bands in the Vologda region where he was present on both live and studio work, while trying to attend his education at the university. At this time the groups he was working with mostly played covers of Western hard rock and the original compositions he made were in the same style. 

The original KORPUS was formed around 1984 where NOVIKOV held rehearsals and auditions with which he planned to find the new sound but the project ended before officialy beginning. The next stable line-up appeared in spring of 1986 and the members were guitarists Alexander KONANCHUK amd Vladimir LAPIN, and Alexander ORLOV. It was this line-up that would be called KORPUS 2. The band still focused on melodic and rock'n roll in live perfomances untill another hibernation.

In April 1987 NOVIKOV reformed the group and kept the name, now featuring younger and less experienced musicians from Leningrad like guitarists Valery KOBUSHKO and Konstantin ERMAKOV but the new additions were also bandmates in duty of percussions and trumpets. This line-up debuted on May 19 in 1987 on a festival in Saint Petersburg where they started to show off their chops and in some circles they got noticed for their art rock influenced by KING CRIMSON. Their debut album in 1987 however didn't get much attention and destabilization of the line-up followed with some replacements and a stronger horn section. In 1988 they released their second album 'Want Nothing To Want (Or Do Not Want)' which had a hit in the title song and made the band think more about the studio material. By 1990 multiple line-up changes followed and the group lost some of the mainstream appeal to audiences.

In 1991 the group found itself at their probably most ambitious peak when they started working on three different albums in the spring time; the trilogy of albums that started of with 'Rice' and 'To You, Sweetheart!' was unfortunately cut short and the planned purely instrumental 'Solovetsky Dances' was never finished. Nevertheless, these albums were one of the most eclectic work the group has done, coming up with recognizable parts like fusion, avantgarde and Indian music into a fresh blend of different kind of art rock. The continuing work on other albums was getting slowed down as harder times came on to the music scene, and NOVIKOV even started to sell paintings he drew on the street to earn money for the next record. 

By the end of the 90's the group officially disbanded on NOVIKOV's birthday on March 15 1999, only to be reformed less than a year later. While the members of KORPUS 2 where still working mostly with non musical jobs, something in vein of NOVIKOV painting portraits on the street, the group didn't have too much trouble of holding reunion concerts and performances and as of 2005 NOVIKOV was working on some new material as well.


???????? / Swallow 1987 
??? / Rice 1992 
????? / Peas 1997 
????, ?????! / To You, Sweetheart! 2003

http://the-wall-of-music.actieforum.com/