Shortparis

About the artist

Neither short of anything nor Parisian, SHORTPARIS is a post-punk, post-rock, post-industrial and - dare we say - post-Russian performance art band. Originating from the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk and based in St. Petersburg since 2012, they defy classification. Artemy Troitsky, Russia’s foremost rock critic and author of Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia, has called them “the best Russian rock band—ever!” The style of SHORTPARIS is best described as a full-spectrum experiment and provocation - musically and visually, aesthetically and politically. In this respect, they could be compared to another Eastern European conceptual band, Slovenia’s Laibach, and to some extent, Rammstein - though musically, they are far more flexible than the latter. Beyond post-punk textures and electronic rhythms, there is something uniquely distinct in SHORTPARIS’ palette: perhaps it’s the strange melodic lines - sometimes Slavic, sometimes distinctly Oriental - and the vocal arrangements, which range from classical to military choirs.