Music in the disco style, brought to the USSR in the mid 70's, represented by such renowned groups as ABBA, Boney M., Space, Arabesque, Village People, Eruption, Dschinghis Khan, quickly acquired popularity among millions of Soviet music fans and large masses of ordinary listeners. Numerous professional and amateur vocal-instrumental ensembles, dominating on the domestic stage at that time, with pleasure performed titles of foreign idols, singing them in Russian. The format of the vocal-instrumental ensemble, designed for live performance on stage and in the dancehall, rather suited for singing Soviet popular songs, than playing disco-music with its studio sound.  In the late 70's in the students' club of the Latvian State Conservatory Janis Lusens organizes a rock-group, named "Zodiac", almost exclusively concentrating upon studio work. Their first album, "Disco Alliance", recorded in 1980, turned out to be a block-buster on the Soviet stage. LP's, issued in large quantities, sold out immediately at every corner of our huge country. Both the old and the young listened to this group, and I personally do not remember such a family, who did not have Zodiac's first LP.
All the albums by Zodiac are unique, sound different from one another, and made of titles, bound together by a common style and theme. The first album was composed in the disco style and included fast rhythmic titles as well as slow lyric ones. The first 2 titles in "Disco Alliance" experienced some sort of Space influence, but they defined the character of the group: abundance of new cosmic sounds of the keyboards. A characteristic feature of the album - Janis Lusens's preoccupation with low music diapasons. The tunes of the rhythmic fast titles sound alternatively in high and low octaves. Diversity of rhythmic patterns, performed by the bass-guitar, is worth noticing, the latter being a distinct solo-instrument in the second title, merging with the keyboards. The tune and bass being emphasized in the fast titles, Mirage, a slow theme is extremely saturated with polyphony. Unlike many Western projects, it is impossible to blame Zodiac for monotony. Zodiac had never been an epigone of themselves. The first album featuring disco as its leading subject, Janis Lusens in the second work of the group turns to space. New instruments, new syncopated rhythmic patterns, emphasis on guitars. And traditional splendid polyphony in "Silver dream" and "In the light of Saturn". A strong advantage of the group is correspondence of the headlines of its works with their music. I think, music fans will agree with me, that, while listening to "Rock on the ice" from the first album, we recollect the victorious performance of the Soviet figure-skaters of the generation of I. Rodnina & A. Zaitsev. A traditional for the Soviet stage style, featuring emphasis on synthetic polyphony in higher music registers and drums, is used in "Provincial Disco". In turn, in this very title we find all the beauty of manipulation with the tune in different octaves. This very element is one the hardest in the genre of the instrumental disco, which often suffers tediousness and monotony. I consider Zodiac to be a brilliant example of creative genious, imagination and inventiveness. So, the original members of the group  | Janis Lusens - leader of the group, "ARP Omni", synthesizer "ARP Odissey", celesta |  | Zane Griva - piano, "ARP Omni", vocal |  | Andris Silis - guitar |  | Ainars Asmanis - bass-guitar |  | Andris Reinis - drums |
Let's listen to the album "Disco Alliance" |
