Comfort for Strangers

Comfort for Strangers took life when Andrei and Maximiliano, two workers on a secret Ukrainian nuclear plant started to discuss their musical tastes via Morse code (conversation between co-workers was not allowed) Maximiliano the grandson of an Italian Soldier lost in the USSR during the Second World War, was an engineer specialized in acoustics and nuclear power, Andrei was a computer engineer who was commissioned to build the most advanced Soviet computer at the time.
The two were musicians in their free time, Maximiliano sang and played organ, Andrei played guitar and was into computer based music, trying to create a digital machine that “could sample all the musical instruments”. He was not aware that the sampler was already invented. The two tried to replicate the sounds they hear on a short wave radio connected to an out of order air defense radar, but both failed at their individual attempts.
Some of the Red Army soldiers who where in charge of the secret building custody, formed an orchestra, to play in the communist festivities, were the all men crowd danced together naked in the snow after gallons of vodka. Maximiliano and Andrei recruited the bass and drum player from the orchestra, and tried to record their favorite songs and some original material. The sessions took place at the computer room, using a 286 computer (the most advanced soviet computer at the time) and the PA system used for the festivities.
They mixed two songs on a Yugoslavian open reel recorder, (the two songs we can hear here) and after using all the tape they had, they tried a novelty: an all new Czech cassette recorder. The problem was the Czech factory made the cassettes slightly bigger than the standard and the cassettes could be played only on special Russian cassette players that are now discontinued and impossible to find. When we finally get one we promise more songs.
And for the question of why Comfort for Strangers recorded very personal versions of a obscure song from a sixties South American band (Los Mockers’s “Empty Harem”) and a Tanita Tikaram’s 80’s hit (“Twist on my Sobriety”) we don’t have any answer. I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)