Agatha Christie (band)

Agatha Christie (band)

Agatha Christie (Russian: Агата Кристи, often transliterated as Agata Kristi) were a Russian punk/synth rock band led by brothers Vadim and Gleb Samoylov, formed in Sverdlovsk in late 1987. It was named after the British detective writer Agatha Christie. According to Gleb Samoylov, the band's main tendencies were based on 1970s art-rock and rock'n'roll, yet the lyrics represented early 1980s punk rock decadence movement. The band knew underground prominence during the fall of the Soviet Union, however mainstream popularity came only during the 1990s, with best recorded albums being Pozornaya zvezda ("The Shameful Star") in 1993 and Opium in 1995. Following the dramatic death of Aleksandr Kozlov in 2001, the band decreased recording material and went on hiatus by mid-2004. During 2008 Samoylov made an effort of reuniting the members (two of who went on to create solo projects) and made the final tour around the country. The material served as ground for their last album titled Epilogue. Their last concert played in their hometown of Ekaterinburg, on September 27, 2010, at the end of which Samoylov stepped forward and took three minutes to thank the fans for 22 years of support. The song Ya budu tam ("I Will Be There") then concluded Agata Kristi's existence.

Though many notable Russian bands such as Nautilus Pompilius, Akvarium and Kino made prominence of early punk-rock movement in the late Soviet Russian scene, Agata Kristi are known as the only pioneers to have elaborated their own style upon this theme and brought it into the 1990s and 2000s Russian punk-rock scene.