Pussy Riot
30th October 2022

Now out of jail and away from her house arrest for the support of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Maria Alyokhina and her infamous Russian feminist protest art collective PUSSY RIOT are coming back in the UK this October and November to perform Riot Days Live. Following a hugely successful UK tour in 2019 that included a 10 night stand at Summerhall for Edinburgh Fringe, PUSSY RIOT return to the UK at a very poignant moment for world affairs, with a revised show that now spans the prosecution of political prisoners, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Pussy Riot gained global notoriety in 2012 when five members staged a Punk Prayer performance inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, resulting in the imprisonment of Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Ekaterina Samutsevich. Continuously unwavering in their highly charged and political ideology, Pussy Riot’s music is based around feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the group considered a dictator.

Originating as the theatrical accompaniment to Maria’s memoirs of the same name, the Pussy Riot : Riot Days show has toured the world and is an innovative combination of live punk rock, theatre and film, delivered with a highly personal narrative from Maria Alyokhina. Far from being a conventional gig, Riot Days is instead a hard-hitting, punk spirited and encapsulating piece of art theatre.

Joined by ĠENN:

As befitting a band who take their name from the Maltese word for frenzy, ĠENN thrive amongst chaos. “Craziness follows us,” laughs lead singer Leona Farrugia, alluding to the quartet’s colourful history, which has so far featured robbery, legal disputes, long-distance collaborations, and three members of the band relocating to Brighton from Malta. Guitarist Janelle Borg concurs. “[ĠENN] could have been a support group, but we decided to make music instead,” she deadpans.

Jokes aside, it’s this unique outlook and tight-knit gang mentality that make ĠENN such a thrilling proposition musically, as evidenced on March’s Liminal EP. Released through London-based indie Everything Sucks Music, the six-song collection sees Leona, Janelle and their bandmates Leanne Zammit (bass) and Sofia Rosa Cooper (drums) contrasting searing post-punk missives with more allusive meditations cocooned in psychedelic textures. 

Sisterhood is an apt description for the creative dynamic within ĠENN: theirs is an unconditional bond, based on mutual affection and instinctive trust. Songs are born out of group jams, though the pandemic meant they had to adapt their process slightly to work at a distance. The songwriting on Liminal is the product of these remote sessions, with songs finalised post-lockdown at Brighton’s Small Pond Studios with producer Sam Coveney

Key reference points for the record included Baxter Drury, Metronomy, LCD Soundsystem and Captain Beefheart, as well as the band’s most enduring inspirations Warpaint. Listen closely, and you can practically hear the band shrugging off their Riot Grrrl reputation in real time, as they move in a more experimental and neo-psychedelic direction.

Press quotes: 

New revolutionary electronic punk opera (The Sydney Herald) 

powerful and exhilarating…

Alyokhina’s collaboration with music producer Alexander Cheparukhin and director Yury Muravitsky was full of fierce, rousing joy, free of scripted cues. …

poetic, razor-sharp and disarmingly witty… 

I left blazing with hope…

Riot Days convinced me that gigs still have the power to move the masses (The Guardian)

swaggering, throbbing gig by Pussy Riot… A ragged mix of performance art, poetry and bone-crunching trash-can tunes (The Times) 

Far from being a conventional gig, it is instead a hard-hitting, punk spirited and encapsulating piece of art theatre …

…stunning audio-visual experience

the best punk rock show of 2017