How Gnoomes made a 2026 album about fleeing Russia: “The life of an immigrant is a strange thing”
Russian-born duo Gnoomes, made up of Sasha and Masha Piankova, have released a new album, Losey, reflecting on their forced departure from Russia and subsequent relocation to rural Slovenia. The ‘stargaze’ act, blending techno and shoegaze influences, describe the move as less a political choice than a psychological necessity, and say the isolation of their new surroundings helped ease years of background anxiety while reigniting their creative partnership.
The seven-track record was written and produced almost entirely within the couple's own home, with the sole outside contribution being drums recorded by former bandmate Pasha in Perm, Russia. Songs such as the title track and ‘Satan's Ball’ retain the band's familiar acid-tinged, gothic sound, while ‘Shakshuka and Pie’ draws on Paul McCartney's melodic style for a more abstract, dreamlike feel. The accompanying video for ‘Losey’, pieced together from years of iPhone footage, mirrors the album's themes of insomnia, memory and the hazy threshold between waking life and sleep.
- Gnoomes' new album Losey reflects on fleeing Russia for Slovenia.
- Record made almost entirely at home, aside from remote drum recordings.
- Themes explore anxiety, dreamlike states and emotional displacement.
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Sasha and Masha Piankova make up Gnoomes, a Russian-born duo whose music mixes techno with shoegaze, a genre known for its wall-of-sound guitars and hazy vocals. After leaving Russia, the pair settled in a rural part of Slovenia, a move they describe as driven more by personal necessity than by politics.
Their new album, Losey, was written and recorded almost entirely at home, with just one outside contribution: drums recorded remotely by a former bandmate still in Russia. The record explores themes of displacement, memory and disrupted sleep, drawing on the couple's experience of adjusting to life away from home.
The story matters as an example of how displacement and migration have shaped the creative lives of Russian artists in recent years, and how Gnoomes have used their music to process that experience.