Pussy Riot has officially announced its debut album, CYKA, due out June 12.
The announcement arrived in typical Pussy Riot fashion. Rather than unveiling the project through a carefully curated social media rollout, founder Nadya Tolokonnikova used the Venice Biennale as a stage for protest, timing the action to coincide with Russia’s controversial return to the international art exhibition.
The campaign’s first single, “Candy Dopamine,” features Avenged Sevenfold and finds Pussy Riot pairing pop hooks with punk urgency. The song examines prescription medication, designer drugs, and the increasingly normalized culture of self-optimization.
“This song is kind of a love and hate song to prescription and designer drug culture,” Tolokonnikova explained. “It started with my dependence on antidepressants, but it’s also looking at everyone now mentalhealthmaxxing and looksmaxxing via pills and injections. It’s not a judgment. It’s just an observation.”
The album represents a milestone for the collective. While Pussy Riot has spent more than a decade releasing music, staging interventions, and challenging political power structures around the world, CYKA marks the group’s first full-length album.
The 14-track record includes appearances from Avenged Sevenfold, B-Real, and salem ilese. One of the album’s most provocative moments comes in the form of a track titled “CYKA ft Vladimir Putin,” a credit that continues Pussy Riot’s long tradition of turning political antagonists into unwilling participants in their art.
Alongside the album announcement, Tolokonnikova issued another challenge aimed directly at the Russian president, calling on Putin to face her in a hypothetical UFC cage match and declaring that he should leave Ukraine if defeated.
The release continues a period of intense artistic activity for Tolokonnikova. Recent years have seen her performance works and exhibitions presented internationally, while projects including Putin’s Ashes, POLICE STATE, and other multimedia interventions have further blurred the boundaries between activism, performance art, music, and political resistance.
CYKA arrives June 12.
Featured image credit: Courtesy of Pussy Riot
