5'Nizza | 05

Listen to "Огонь И Я"

Listen to "Морячок"

Get it all here.

Found for $2 on Saturday in a Russian or perhaps Ukrainian media store on 108 Street in the gray area between Elmhurst, Corona and Forest Hills. Yes, I realize that, technically, there is no such "gray area"; I mean to me. As in, I don't honestly know what neighborhood I was in.

I'll be writing more about my Saturday adventures a bit later in the week as I post a few things I found that day from--are you sitting down?--Nigeria. I had meant to write about and post it all on Sunday, but for some reason Divshare wasn't uploading anything. (The third time since I upgraded that there's been a serious problem upping things.)

Meanwhile, I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I saw this thing in the store. And that all CDs in the store were on sale ("Just for today," the shop keep informed me) for $2. Because I had a sense of who these guys are, or were, from this album (which also turns out to be Ukrainian, not Russian).

This is 5'NIzza's third and last album; the duo, which formed in 2000, was not terribly prolific. But what they put out was, if this CD is any indication, totally sublime. Relying on nothing but guitar and vocals, the duo sounds, to my ears anyway, like some of the best Brazilian pop I've ever heard, sonically rich, fluid, various.

Lюк | Lemon

Listen to tune from this CD

Get it all here.

Over the years I've developed a fairly good spidey-sense when it comes to plucking fab CDs from bodega stacks. Except for Russian pop. I have found almost nothing I would consider really worth saving in any of the Brighton Beach stores ... except for this rather spectacular CD of pop-electronica, which I found several years ago.

I know little about the group other than that, less than two months after the performance captured on the video below, they disbanded. They've got at least a couple other CDs out there, which I'll keep my eyes open for. If, that is, I ever make it back to Brighton Beach ...