Recently, completely by accident, I came across a cover of “April” by Kino. It hit me so hard that I put it right up there with the original. I decided to share it with my wife—and that’s when I found out she doesn’t even know the song at all. Which, honestly, stabbed me straight in the heart. I genuinely have no idea how we managed to live together for 23 years if she knows Kino’s music that poorly.
As for me, I’ve been a longtime fan of the band. I remember laughing back in fourth grade during music class at a classmate who asked me whether I listened to “movie.” (In Russian, ‘Kino’ means ‘movie’). Yes, that’s exactly how I heard it. I even thought it was a funny idea—listening to movies. And I actually followed through: I bought a couple of reels and recorded all three episodes of my favorite film at the time, D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers, off the TV—because I could listen to the songs from it over and over.
But back then I forgot about the band Kino. I discovered it and fell in love with it a few years later—right after I stopped being a diehard fan of another legendary group, Laskovyi Mai (or groups, really, since there were like ten different lineups touring the USSR). Yes—straight from Laskovyi Mai to rock. And like with a lot of things I did, I went all in.
And “April” is one of those songs I loved then, and still love to this day.
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