MOSCOW (AP) — When Russian “dark rave” duo Nastya Kreslina and Nikolay Kostylev got off the train for their concert in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, police were waiting on the frozen platform. They were asked for their passports, Kostylev was handcuffed and they were taken to the local police station.

There, police said they received an anonymous call about drug possession. But Kreslina and Kostylev, whose experimental performances as electronic duo IC3PEAK feature provocative, morbid and often gruesome themes, say the real reason for their arrest is their art.

During their tour across Russia, which began last month and stretched from the Volga city of Kazan to far eastern Siberia, six of their 11 concerts were cancelled. Club owners were forced not to host them and threatened with fines and closures.

“We haven’t received any official statement, any letter, anything,” Kostylev told The Associated Press of the harassment. “These are just seedy methods to fight against art.”

In recent months, Russian musicians have come under a spike in pressure from the authorities, with a series of concert cancellations and arrests that have caused an outcry from critics, who see it as the latest censorship against Russian artists.

The crackdown evokes Soviet-era restrictions on the music scene, when Communist Party officials chased rock musicians seen as an ideological threat underground. More recently, it follows the 2012 jailing of members of punk band Pussy Riot and other heavy-handed moves by President Vladimir Putin’s government to tighten control over the country’s cultural scene, reflecting unease over the wide reach of musicians and questioning official policies.

Last month, a rapper known as Husky, whose videos have garnered more than 6 million views on YouTube, was arrested after staging an impromptu performance when his show shut down in the southern city of Krasnodar.

The 25-year-old rapper, known for his lyrics about poverty, corruption and police brutality, was preparing to take the stage on November 21 when local prosecutors warned the room that his act contained elements of what they have called “extremism”.

Husky got into a car, surrounded by hundreds of fans, and chanted “I’ll sing my music, the most honest music!” before being taken away by the police.

A court sentenced Husky to 12 days in jail for hooliganism, but he was released four days later, hours before a solidarity concert in Moscow by popular hip-hop artists protesting his detention.

However, official Russian pressure on artists continued.

On November 30, rapper Gone.Fludd announced two concert cancellations, citing pressure from “every police department you can imagine”, while popular hip-hop artist Allj canceled his show in the arctic city of Yakutsk after receiving threats of violence.

Other artists have also been affected – pop sensation Monetochka and punk band Friendzona were among those whose concerts were shut down by authorities last month.

In the case of IC3PEAK, in addition to their December 1 detention in Siberia, the artists were tracked for weeks by the police and the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor agency to the KGB. Kreslina said authorities were using “old, tried and tested Soviet methods” to crack down on musicians accused of overstepping.

“We don’t want to stop playing,” she said. “But we think it’s getting worse.”

Their music videos use occult and “slaughterhouse” imagery, often featuring them in disturbing forms drinking blood and eating raw meat. They believe their most recent, which merged gruesome images of the couple lying in coffins against the backdrop of the FSB security service headquarters, is what has upset authorities.

Kreslina and Kosylev argue, however, that their work is more about challenging popular perceptions than making an overtly political statement.

“We take people out of their comfort zone, because it helps people think, it opens up new feelings and emotions,” Kostylev said. “If people are afraid of your art, you’re probably doing the right thing.”

Boris Barabanov, a music columnist at Russia’s leading business daily, Kommersant, said the government crackdown will only fuel “harder, more biting songs” and foster greater ingenuity in circumventing restrictions.

Unlike Soviet times, when Soviet rock stars were driven underground by Communist officials, “now all musicians are equal before the main channel of content distribution – the Internet,” Barabanov said.

“Anything forbidden only encourages the imagination,” he said, adding that bands will start changing names and holding secret gigs to dodge the police.

Indeed, less than an hour after being released from guard duty in Novosibirsk, Kreslina and Kostylev were playing to a crowd of 300 in an abandoned loft on the outskirts of town.

After so many obstacles, they now know how to organize secret and emergency concerts. Details are sent over an encrypted messaging app and people bring their own lights and sound systems.

“People go crazy, it’s a big adventure for them – people love what’s forbidden,” Kreslina said.

“It’s a perfect way to say f— you to the government,” Kostylev added.

It remains unclear whether the recent crackdown was led by Russian federal authorities or driven by overzealous local officials.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who along with band member Maria Alekhina spent nearly two years in prison for “insulting religious feelings” with their provocative 2012 performance at Moscow’s largest Russian Orthodox cathedral, says the latest reaction was fueled by Kremlin fears.

“The artists they banned have a stronger, livelier, angrier, more convinced and more reliable electorate than Vladimir Putin‘s,” Tolokonnikova said. “They are starting to feel the competition in the Kremlin and at FSB headquarters.”

Barabanov, the music columnist, has a different view.

“I don’t think the authorities want to ban a specific genre of music and I don’t think this is a pre-planned campaign” by the Kremlin, he said. “More likely it’s a matter of stupidity among regional officials.”

In a claim that appeared to back up the claim, Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-funded RT television network which has close ties to senior Kremlin officials, argued that Husky’s release came after government intervention. .

And last week, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service offered to create grants to support local rappers, while Kremlin adviser and former culture minister Mikhail Shvydkoi defended rap as an art “that should not be ignored”.

Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of a prominent Russian state TV news show, also came to the rappers’ defense, saying they represent a hugely popular subculture that “shouldn’t be harassed. “.

Trifon Bebutov, the former digital editor of Esquire Russia, saw all this as a sign that “the Kremlin is trying to find a way to cooperate and start a dialogue with popular artists”.

The popularity of musicians with young Russians and the possibility of proliferating ideas that are inconvenient to the government worries the Kremlin, he added.

“It seems that the government is really afraid of a public that they don’t have the ability to control, that they are afraid of being incited to act, to protest,” Bebutov said.

As a testament to this large audience, tickets sold out in just three hours for last month’s solidarity concert hosted by three of Russia’s leading hip-hop artists to protest Husky’s arrest.

Between them, the rappers have an audience in the millions, as well as the hearts and minds of young, internet-savvy Russians who don’t consume state media like the older generation.

The message they heard was clear.

“This gig isn’t just about Husky,” 33-year-old rapper Oxxxymiron told the crowd. “It’s about the artists who have faced this in the past and I’m afraid the artists who may face it in the future. It’s about the freedom of society.