Zodiaks

Biography

Zodiac is an electronic-pop/rock band from Latvia. Founded in 1979 and led by keyboardist and composer Juris Kulakovs it was titled Arka (The Arch). In the very same year, while recording their first album, Juris left the band because of musical disagreement with all the rest of members. Keyboardist and composer Jānis Lūsēns took the leadership. In 1980 the band was renamed to Zodiac. The first line-up was: Jānis Lūsēns - keyboards and composing Ainars Ašmanis - bass guitar Andris Sīlis - guit...

Zodiac is an electronic-pop/rock band from Latvia. Founded in 1979 and led by keyboardist and composer Juris Kulakovs it was titled Arka (The Arch). In the very same year, while recording their first album, Juris left the band because of musical disagreement with all the rest of members. Keyboardist and composer Jānis Lūsēns took the leadership. In 1980 the band was renamed to Zodiac.

The first line-up was:
Jānis Lūsēns - keyboards and composing
Ainars Ašmanis - bass guitar
Andris Sīlis - guitar
Andris Reinis - percussion
Zane Grīva - keyboards

All members were students form Latvian conservatoire with average age of 20. In the beginning Zodiac played only instrumental music. Because of that time sound equipment inapplicabilities for live playing, Zodiac was a studio-type band. In 1980 Zodiac recorded their first album - legendary Disco Alliance. Though in global level this album was nothing special (many of that time space/electronic bands (e.g. Space, Kraftwerk, J.M. Jarre etc.) were playing very analogical genres), in USSR it made an explosion in music (for some reasons all previously named bands were forbidden in USSR). Disco Alliance was sold in 20 million copies in Soviet union only and it was a grand success for that time (even now it's a huge issue). For some reasons, Andris Sīlis, Zane Grīva and Ainars Ašmanis left Zodiac and in 1982 Ivars Pilka (bass guitar), Dzintars Sagens and Aivars Gudrais (both played guitar) joined the band. This line-up recorded their second album Music in the Universe, but after recording it Zodiac broke up. Although Music in Universe didn't reach Disco Alliance's commercial success, it was also well appreciated by listeners .

In 1987 Jānis Lūsēns assembled band called Zodiaks (the same Zodiac, but in Latvian). Musically the new Zodiac hadn't any relationship with the old one. Now they played synthpop and electronic rock, which quite differed from Disco Alliance and Music in Universe.

Line-up was:
Jānis Lūsēns - keyboards and composing
Maija Lūsēna - vocals
Zigfrīds Muktupāvels - vocals and violin
Dzintars Sagens - guitar
Gatis Zvirgzdiņš - keyboards

As the line-up shows, Zodiaks was vocal-instrumental band. Their biggest success was in 1987 in music festival Liepājas dzintars (held almost every year in Liepāja) where they got the first place in the contest. In 1989 Zodiaks released album In Memoriam which contained only instrumental pieces. Later line-up changed again - Gatis Zvirgzdiņš and Dzintars Sagens (replaced by Aivars Gudrais again) left the group. Zodiaks disbanded in 1991, when one of vocalists - Zigfrīds Muktupāvels joined another band Bet Bet. Zodiac last reunited in 1996 for releasing album Dedication, which was actually reissued In Memoriam. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.