It was a very pleasant surprise this winter when a new label got in touch with World Treasures Music and pitched a new, superbly conceptual album – warming the ears with a cold-wave tonic – as well as enabling discovery of a diverse and entertaining back catalogue. It’s an online diggers’ dream.

Inturist and the album Off-Season is the creation of Evgeny Gorbunov and guitarist/co-author of the band ГШ/Glintshake (with Kate NV). Released on Incompetence Records, Inturist are a blend of “avant rock, post-Soviet psychedelia, kosmiche and off-kilter electronic,” the label states.

This is the sixth album by Russian born, international artist Gorbunov and is an extension of last year’s radio art piece Stranger (Neznakomka) – presenting “freeform improvisations, reduced and distilled down to an autonomous work in its own right,” the artists say.

“Inturist mix the juiciest licks found in Aksak Maboul, Gong, Dome and Rip, Rig + Panic with the best in 80s Russian pop,” the label adds.

“Grobunov creates vibrating sonic collisions in the gap between popular culture shenanigans and sub-underground strategies, among low-brow cultural touchstones and high-concept experimentalism both in the sound of the release and its ethos.”

“Off-Season is a sonic metaphor for a never-ending vacation,” Gorbunov says.

“Much like a silent movie but contrariwise an audio one, it reveals noir, mystery, grotesqueness, absurdity, and mockery. Whether it is a comedy, a detective story, or a thriller depends on the perception of the listener. The dramaturgy of it is a search for a new home that can never be found in always-changing circumstances, where the beach is a stage, the sound of a sea is a mix of memories and new feelings, and the passers-by are an ever-changing audience.”

The label explains Inturist’s process: “At the heart of Inturist’s approach is the intuitive act of creation, improvisation, and the work of the unconscious. Inturist’s music draws on a range of cultural and temporal influences, blending them to create a strange and captivating musical landscape.

“At times, it evokes the sound of Soviet underground bands from the 80s, but with elements of free jazz and abstraction.”

For more, go to the Incompetence Records on Bandcamp.