Alexey Kozlov and Arsenal '1985 "Pulse-3 (Sport and Music)"
Алексей Козлов и гр. Арсенал "Пульс 3 (Спорт и Музыка)"

This 1986 masterpiece from Alexey Kozlov and Co. flows with richly vivid soundscapes of electronic sounds and synths - mostly Soviet, as much as sound gives a hint.

Arsenal can hardly be named as a progenitor for russian/soviet electronic music, its more like an exception for the band to go into library music like this. Originally Kozlov is considered a highly rated jazzman and Pulse-3 is a colorful step beyond,
glorious burst of synth music. The record is a brilliant in the way that it uses musical progressions and soundscapes to create an effect of whatever needs to be expressed.

Soviet state release label "Melodia" established a release line of records "Pulse" aimed to create soundtracks for sports events and backing TV library music. It only became available for persons like Kozlov to do so when the party politics got warmer in the mid 80s - earlier he was a typical representative of cultural underground in the era of Stalin and Brezhnev.

This record is making pure synthesizer music. There's an interesting variety of synth sounds and sequences, but the entire album is pretty much one or two instruments aside from some jazzy sounds that can appear to be a beautifully processed wind instrument - a nice hello to stronger Kozlov's jazz background. There is no live percussion or voice to be found.

Of the 8 tracks on this EP, the title track "Estafeta" ("Relay Race") seems the most thought out and developed, however, the second one - "Rondo" - catches you next and one can find it's emotionally the deepest work to be found on the record.

All one of the pieces are quite attractive. They can be described as dated futurism or symbolism, holding a sort of romantic, nostalgic feeling for what was then deemed as the cutting edge. Despite being electronic, Pulse-3 is a very emotional set of songs. They have all the best qualities of a TV library soundtrack and all the power of kinds of sport they would correspond with.