At the very beginning, I must admit that I love former Soviet Union and Russian hard rock and metal bands like Galaktika (Galaxy Group), Avgust, St. Peterburg, Status, Monomakh, Radio-Rock, Paranoia, Kredo, Aria, Master and a few dozen other groups who took possession of me. There are also many great guitar virtuosos in Russia: Sergey Mavrin, Victor Zinchuk, Igor Kupriyanoff, Alex Rosen and many others. But this time, I’d like to present a composer and keyboard virtuoso, Oleg Gurtovoy who founded his group Vega alongside Dmitry Simakov (bass) and Fyodor Guskov (drums) in the year 2006. The first full-length album of this commando was recorded along with a well-known Russian pop rock session guitarist, Oleg Belov in 2008. Its original title is “Voshozhdenye” what means “Ascension” in English.

Vega represent so-called cosmic space synth genre with influences of symphonic and bit operatic music. Most of compositions are dynamic, pompous, majestic and lofty. Obviously, here are also calmer tracks, however even those faster are very relaxing. The material has no weak points, especially as all tunes are hit, catchy and very accessible. This is the stuff for those people who admire electronic virtuosity with touches of Vangelis Papathanassiou, Jean-Michel Jarre, Harold Faltermeyer and guitar playing by Mike Oldfield and Patrick Rondat. With this mind-refreshing work, Oleg Gurtovoy deserved the title of one of the most talented electronic music virtuosos on the globe!
Mikolaj Furmankiewicz, Department of Virtuosity, HMP Magazine (Poland)