Karl Hlamkin

OgneOpasno Orchestra
Art director – Karl Hlamkin
OgneOpasno Orchestra (ООО) is one of the brightest, the most cheerful and unpredictable phenomenon of Moscow musical life. It is the group which doesn’t find room on every club stage, but for sure blows any dance floor. Balkan and Jewish melodies, Cuban, Jamaican and Ukrainian rhythms, funk, ska, rumba and klezmers – although the music of the OgneOpasno Orchestra might seem eclectic, it creates a very integral impression. It is impossible not to yield to it, but to describe it is rather difficult. One may only try to do it: OgneOpasno Orchestra means dancing till one drops when all body hurts next day; klatches up to the stop with a hangover next morning; love until death with an illegible phone number on a crumpled napkin next day… Art director and the spokesperson of the group is Karl Hlamkin, a famous roarer from Riga who moved to Moscow four years ago, a talented artist and master of drum kit who used to be a raving alcoholic, but nowadays is none the less raving teetotaler. He drinks kefir, smokes a pipe, collects exotic drums, acts in television series, does gardening and with his wife Liga brings up his six-year-old son Kim. He has released two albums in Moscow on the label Sha-2 and several bootlegs in Riga. Other members of the group are: Oleg Mariakhin (saxophones), Boris Dolmatov (guitars), Mikhail Popov (accordion), Andrey Romanika (drums), Robert Musin (bass guitar), Salman Abuev (trumpet), Artem Seriakov (trombone), Ramil Mulikov (baritone-sax, tuba). During the three years of its existence Hlamkin’s orchestra has taken part in the following events: the major Russian rock-festival Nashestviye, The Beatles tribute-festival, Jewish music festival, the ska music festival Askarbin and so on. The group has played in the Great Kremlin Palace, concertized in Saint-Petersburg, Izhevsk, Tomsk, Kiev, Minsk, Riga and other ex-soviet cities and has also recorded a soundtrack for the serial “ Young and happy” (TV channel STS). At the moment the work over the OgneOpasno Orchestra new album is being finished. The album will be released by the creative circle Deti Solntsa (Children of the Sun) in spring, 2007.
Deti Solntsa (c) 2007