Archive of the New Composers band

The pioneers of musical sampling in Russia, New Composers were one of the most notable collectives on the St. Petersburg art scene of the 1980s and 1990s. The band was founded by Valery Alakhov and Igor Verichev, childhood friends who shared not only a desk at school No. 66 but also their love of science fiction and electronic music (Kraftwerk, Cerrone, Giorgio Moroder). In 1983, Verichev started working as a sound engineer at the Leningrad Oblast Maly Drama Theater. There, he recorded his first audio collage «I Love You as I Take off on My Flight,» which consisted of fragments of radio broadcasts about Yuri Gagarin, noise effects, and music. The track marked the beginning of the band New Composers and was included on their debut samizdat cassette album Outer Space. Timur Novikov, who at the time was working on his theory of collage re‑composition and in the process of gathering the future members of New Artists around him, heard the track and, feeling that Alakhov and Verichev could become part of the New movement, suggested the name New Composers. He also helped them organize their first concert, which took place on February 23, 1984, at Erik Goroshevsky Theater, which later supplied most of the artists for the collective Pop‑Mekhanika.

In 1987, Alakhov and Verichev started the Science Fiction Club at the Leningrad Planetarium, where for five years they organized lectures, performances, exhibitions, theatrical parties (with actors from the theaters Litsedei and Ekivoki), and night discos. New Composers performed at the first parties in the squat at 145 Fontanka (Tantspol Club) and the Khaas brothers’ Tonnel trance club. From 1988 to 2004 they collaborated with Svetlana Perova’s L.E.M. Theatre (Experimental Fashion Laboratory) and composed music for several of her performances (Swan Lake 2; The Life and Death of Tchaikovsky). In 1991, they took part in the making of Pirate Television.

In 2021, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art acquired Valery Alakhov and Igor Verichev’s archive about the history of St. Petersburg club culture and its connections with contemporary art. It includes photographs, ephemera, books, a selection of press cuttings, CDs and vinyl records, and archival documents related to the activities of New Composers.

The collection of over 500 photographs includes documentation of the band’s gatherings with other musicians and artists, their concerts in Russia and abroad, and their visits to artists’ studios and exhibitions. Around 50 photographs in the archive, including portraits and documentation of events, were taken by Evgenij Kozlov (E‑E). Several dozen are hand painted.

The collection of ephemera includes paper inserts for New Composers’ cassettes and CDs, flyers and posters for parties featuring their performances, invitations to exhibition openings, exhibition booklets (Andrei Medvedev, Vladimir Lyubarov, Daria Fursey), cards featuring works by Andrew Logan, Timur Novikov, Sergey Bugaev Afrika, Boris Kazakov, Andrius Venclova, and the Stubnitz project.

Archival documents include materials related to the Science Fiction Club (handmade posters, hand‑painted slides and video tapes used in performances), as well as agreements and letters between the band and labels and other musicians. The collection also features the book Anti Art (1985, based on Art Sociology and Modernism by Valentina Kruchkova) with drawings by New Artists and many handwritten notes on the text. It also features a selection of press clippings, small edition publications and books, and small works by Andrew Logan: four «orders» of stained glass, glitter, beads, and printed images cased in epoxy resin.

About New Composers

Valery Alakhov (b. 1962, Leningrad) and Igor Verichev (b. 1962, Leningrad) are Soviet and Russian electronic musicians, members of the band New Composers, and artists. Since 1983, they have released 12 albums and been featured on dozens of compilations. They have worked with the labels ARK Recordings (UK), Klanglabor Hödeshof (Germany), Parabola Records (Belgium), Aquarian Publication и Sauna Connections (Finland), Imc Records (Netherlands), Mashina Records, Elektrus, Music Шок, General Records, Phono, Future Records, KAMA Records, and CD Land Records (Russia), Sergey Kuryokhin and Pop‑Mekhanika (Insect Culture, 1985–1987), Georgy Guryanov, Yury Kasparyan, and Andrei Kirsanov of the band Kino (Start, 1987), Bob Stoute (the single «Tanz — Tanzevat!,» 1992), Brian Eno (Smart, 1997–2000), and Pete Namlook (Planetarium, 1998, 1999) among other musicians, as well as with the art groups New Artists and Engineers of Art.