Rostyslav Shtyn was one of the first to feel the breath of independence and see the prospects for show business development in Ukraine. His family had long been involved in Lviv's informal music scene, and it was easy for him, who was familiar with the entire infrastructure of the Lviv scene, to set up the first Ukrainian production agency, Rostyslav-Show, in the western capital. A high-class recording studio was set up, more modern and better than the Lev Studio. The bard, a well-known ‘magician’ who had repeatedly helped his friends from Novoyavoriv to make their dreams come true, quickly introduced Shtyn to them, and a contract was soon signed. However, the Rostyslav-Show studio could not fully fund the recording of the band's new album, but it paid good money and gave them free instruments that no one had seen not only in Novoyavorivske, but in the whole of Ukraine. This equipment was transported to Spaty, and Skryba took over the sound engineering... Thus, between Lviv and Novoyavorivske, in constant moves, during vacations, instead of classes, the largest album in the whole of Ukraine, ‘Technofight’, was created at night.
Shtyn was a businessman. Of the three songs that were recorded directly at the Rostyslav Show studio with the help of sound engineer Serhiy Ryazantsev - ‘Sam’, ‘Don't Die’ and ‘In Your Eyes’ - he unmistakably identified the latter as the most promising, and a video was soon filmed for it. However, this work was never completed, although parts of it were shown on TV several times. These three songs were later included in the compiled new album ‘The Language of Pisces’ (1997) due to their quality recording.
The duration of the TechnoFight really exceeded 90 minutes - a phenomenon unheard of in Ukraine. And in terms of quality, it was something new: at last, the Skryabinas, not feeling pressure from sound engineers and other ‘bosses’, could fully realise all their hidden desires. Traditionally, the three of them wrote together - the drums were electronic, but in many songs Rostik's guitar (which in the future will never be heard in the foreground) is clearly heard. Some songs (‘Sam’, ‘Nylon Time’) also feature Rostik's vocals. There is a large share of English-language songs. The material was so diverse that even the musicians themselves hardly imagined it being released. The main thing was the creative process. However, it was from the album ‘Technofight’ that most of the songs for the monumental ‘Fairy Tales’ and other future projects were taken.
Most of these songs are now in the hands of fans in one form or another. Luckily, the material from Technofile, although never released, was widely distributed among friends, musicians, radio stations, etc. The album was mostly recorded and mixed in their own cobweb-covered basement - at that time, the SKRYABINS were the only musicians in the Spaty studio. But this was no longer basement music. This was soon proved by the success of ‘Penguin Dance’ on Lviv's Radio Nezalezhnist - the song took first place in the charts. In 1996, the song ‘That's My Sea’ written by Shura was presented to Vika Vradiy by Skryabiny, and it was with the video for this song that she became known in Territory A. In the end, the biggest hit from Technofit was ‘Train’, for which Zaykovsky shot a black-and-white video without any pretence. Later, in November 1995, the newly organised Lviv computer company Enigraph, which had been cooperating with Zaikovsky (and his TV programme Modus Vivendi, where SKRYABIN often appeared), as a friendly help and self-promotion, decorated the video with computer graphics, and in 1996 it gained popularity in Territory A. In order not to shock the teenagers, the footage of Kuzma's toothless mouth was removed from the video.
We were working on the album in a new place, in the same ‘Crystal’ - the first studio of ‘Spaty’ had to be given to Datsk in 1991. It was in the new premises that the ‘Kure's Shelter’ was located - all of this existed until recently intact, but has now been destroyed by renovations. In addition to Skryba, Kuzma was also involved in sound engineering at Technofit; Rostik testifies: ‘ ‘In Area A, we played “Train”, which we recorded on the Electronica mixer, and it sounded better mixed than anything that was played in the same area from professional studios.’
After the recording was completed, the band went on a real tour of small towns in Western Ukraine. Although this time the performances were in clubs and military units, the level of the shows was much higher, the musicians dragged big spiders from ‘Spaty’ with them and successfully fought off village bahurs and shaggy metalheads roaring ‘R-r-rock!’, drowning out the live sound of ‘SKRYABIN’. It was the band's first big concert tour, a kind of training - though it didn't bring any great results, but that was not up to them.
It's hard to say how effective the influence of their own pessimistic music was on the Skryabinis, but in late 1992 and early 1993, events occurred that added to the musicians' pessimism. ‘The Rostyslav Show suddenly collapsed, Shtyn fled abroad, and now there was no hope for the release of Technofyte. This was a big blow to the band: from now on, they had to look for other ways to make money, new uses for their music. The song ‘Nobody needs it’ was a kind of summary, which put an end to the album that had been thrown into a drawer. It seemed that SKRYABIN was finished.
- skryabin.tripod.com
