Street Chanson and Gangster Swing from St. Petersburg. Their sound is warm and authentic. The atmosphere they create and the char, they originally have make them recognizable from the first  tunes.

Founded in St. Petersburg in 2000, “La Minor” has fans all over Europe. Their music inspires you to have a glass of wine and then dance. The Bayan (the Russian button accordion) pushes, the saxophone flatters and the lead singer Slava Shalygin tells his lyrical gangster stories: backyard songs about bad boys, love, passion, alcohol and prison.

“La Minor” comes from St. Petersburg, but has roots in Odessa. Indeed the alleys and bars of these two cities are a bit similar with their European charm. “La Minor” plays so-called street chanson, Russian folk, jazz and klezmer (Odessa style). They resurrect part of the atmosphere of Odessa of the 20’s to 40’s. Their songs sound like musical detective stories about little rascals and tragic loves - joyful and melancholic at the same time. Thieves and policemen, whores and undercover agents crowd the urban underworld of “La Minor” songs. The gentle-tender maternal nature of the Russian language makes the tough stories touching and timeless.

Russian Chanson has become an annoying genre in Russia and pounds out of every taxi these days. Refusing to wear golden chains and add corniness to their music, “La Minor” are the black and thus likeable sheep of the Russian prison and camp chanson. Therefore the band performs rather in rock clubs and doesn’t get aired on Radio Chanson in Moscow. They call their music ‘underground chanson with a human face’. Deliberately, “La Minor” chooses for their interpretations mostly no standards, but rather not so well-known pearls of folk poetry. These old gangster and jail songs — so-called Blatnyak — had also been present in Soviet times. Officially banned, these songs were the real folklore, as sung by the people at private parties or played on guitar in the parks. Especially in Odessa, the colourful port city and melting pot for many nationalities, with its long Jewish tradition, these songs were sung in pubs as well as amongst intellectuals and artists. The proud tragedies and wild adventures of the sailors and thefts, combined with the infamous Odessa humour, are the material “La Minor” carves their world from: a world of dodgy port bars where smug gangster Casanovas dance tango with their ladies and drink wine and play cards with their pals.

Folk music rarely ever sounded so tight and cool. You might call it Dirty Folk. This makes “La Minor” popular not only with a rock and indie audience, but also amongst the folk fans and intellectuals. And when the musicians of “La Minor”, dressed in vests and flat caps, enter the stage of your club, you know that tonight it’s time to dance and indulge. Those little criminal chansons get you with a lot of soul and feeling, but also with a wink — sometimes pleasantly jazzy, sometimes with speedy polka. “La Minor” means high spirits and melancholy at the same time.

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