Who are they?
KAREN HOLLAND: lead vocals, guitars

YANNICK MUET: keyboards, bass

RICHARD CARLISLE: guitars

MAXIME SEITER: drums

Where do they come from?
Two Brits, two Frenchies - based in London.

When did they start?
Around 2002. Karen and Yannick were respectively guitarist/backing-vocalist and multi-instrumentalist/composer in Molotova [Fronted by Misty Woods, Molotova gigged regularly on the London circuit from 1999 to 2001 and grabbed a lot of industry interest, including InTheCity ’99]. Following Molotova’s split, they started writing songs together and formed Ninotchka in 2002. They’ve performed a series of gigs as a duo, with Karen on vocals/guitars and Yannick on guitars/keyboards with the beats on backing tracks. Spring 2005 marked the beginning of Ninotchka mk2 with Richard’s arrival, followed by Maxime on drums.

Who does what?
Yannick composes and produces the music. Besides vocals, Karen handles design and graphic duties (including this site). They write the lyrics together. Having joined only recently, Richard and Maxime’s parts have not yet been captured for posterity - but expect new recordings very soon!

What do they sound like?
Like a mix of classic pop and quirky electro. At random: Blondie meet Air, The Carpenters meet Goldfrapp, Gainsbourg meet Stereolab, etc. etc.

What do they call it?
“Prog-pop”... between sugar and experimentation.

Any items in the band?
Niet.

Who is Ninotchka?
A lovely Russian spy... or more precisely, a great movie from 1939 by a great director (Lubitsch), starring Greta Garbo. Go and see it...