An Opinionated
Exploration of the
Ukrainian Music-
Making World
The Best of the Best
The purpose of this section of the website is to highlight what to my mind are the most extraordinary instances of what is an extraordinary Ukrainian music making world overall, representing thereby the absolute pinnacle: The best of the best.
Much of what I find most exceptional and valuable in Ukrainian traditional music making—and in many respects, in Ukrainian music making as a whole—is in one way or another present in the two videos embedded below.
What I aim to provide here, then, is a single page on which anyone visiting this website—especially for the first time—would be able to experience all in a single juncture, what I feel are the most characteristic of the wide-ranging, diverse excellencies that make up the Ukrainian music making world.
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Drevo/Maisternia Pisni
Featured together in this first pair of videos are two ensembles working in conjunction with one another: Drevo, the group that decades ago pretty much spearheaded the traditional music “Avtentyka Revival Movement” in Ukraine, and Maisternia Pisni, a somewhat experimental group who describe themselves as an “art laboratory” operating “at the intersection of theater and traditional music”.
What we have here in these two videos, then, are a relatively small number of individuals, drawn from each group, who have come together to engage in a simple act of music making, altogether glorious albeit thoroughly unpretentious and even downright earthy. It would seem indeed to represent music-making enacted wholly on a horizontal, “vernacular” level—to all appearances, what might be thought of as music-making on the part of “ordinary people”.
As the essay that goes along with these two videos details—the link for this essay can be found below—things are rather more complicated that this. However, it is this horizontal ideal, the quotidian practice of “vernacular” music making on the part of “ordinary people”, that is not only raised up for celebration here, but confirmed as one of the true touchstones of the Ukrainian music making world.
Drevo/Maisternia Pisni: “Oy Tam Za Moryamy”
Drevo/Maisternia Pisni: “Korabel”
Essay | Drevo and Maisternia Pisni:
The Reconstitution of the Precious Tradition
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Drevo
Drevo: “Iz-za Hori Kam'yanoye”
Drevo: “Volodar-Volodarchyku”
Drevo: “Oy, U Poli Drevo”
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Hurtopravtsi
What we hear in this first video is not the sound of an aggregate of singers who happened to have come together in an act of song performance; what we are hearing, rather, is the sound of a community singing—a purpose-filled social gestalt, if you will, comprised of a self-organized congregation of human beings.
This congregation draws on Tradition as their authoritative wellspring, of course, but in so far as what they are doing has the capacity to bring into being real vitality—and I don't think there is any doubt that this is also what we are hearing in this marvellous piece—it is necessary that this Tradition be re-created in the here and now, in such a way that is in fact reflective of the actual time and place, and of each individual member of the congregation.
Each individual member must therefore, through their own volition, proactively endeavor to craft their individual vocal production so as to fit appropriately and with mutual beneficence into the whole—a whole which is, indeed, much greater than the sum of its parts.
It is a sound quite beautiful and profound.
Hurtopravtsi: “Mnohaya Lita”
Hurtopravtsi: “Halyna and Vasyl” [or “Adam and Eva”]”
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HulayHorod
HulayHorod:
“Chornomorets”
HulayHorod:
“Roza” (“Rose Flower”)
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Bozhychi
Bozhychi:
“Stradalnaya Mati”/Performance at Maidan
Bozhychi:
“Pomyshlyayte, Chelovetsy, Vsyakyi Chas O Smerti”
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[Spontaneous vernacular music-making @ Maidan]
[Spontaneous vernacular music-making @ Maidan]:
“Parova Mashina”
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Khorea Kozatska
This is not really “Preservationist” music making—representing an attempt at keeping alive a form that is under threat of dying off—but rather “Reconstructive” music making, restoring music that has already in fact “died off”, or in any event that decidedly belongs to a very different, very much by-gone era.
The dual task involved in presenting such music then is not merely to “reconstruct” it in a more or less “avtentyka” manner with respect to that by-gone moment—although this would be the first order of business—but also to render it somehow alive in this moment. These two selections succeed superlatively well I think in both of those tasks.
Khorea Kozatska:
“Piyte, Brattya, Popyite”
Khorea Kozatska:
“Yekhav Kozak Za Dunay”
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Volodymyr Kushpet
Volodymyr Kushpet:
[Solo Performance on Kobza and Lira]
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Eduard Drach
Eduard Drach:
[Solo Performance on Kobza]
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Pavlo Morhuniuk
Pavlo Morhuniuk:
“Oy Pidu Ya Luhom”
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Yuriy Molfar [Yurko Yahusevych]
Yuriy Molfar [Yurko Yahusevych]:
“[Composition for Solo] Torban”
Yuriy Molfar [Yurko Yahusevych]:
“Torban Improvisation”
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Michael Alpert & Julian Kytasty
Old World traditions from neighboring villages in Ukraine meet up again on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, so to speak. Julian Kytasty, distinguished North American heir of the Ukrainian Bandura/Kobza Tradition, joins musical forces with Michael Alpert, “a leading Yiddishist and pioneer of the klezmer revival” (quoting from the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter website). Not everything on this recording works as well as this particular selection, but this particular selection does definitely work very well.
Michael Alpert & Julian Kytasty:
“S'iz Gekimen/U Susida”
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Maqam (Crimean Tatar Music)
Maqam, filmed by Vincent Moon
in Bakhchysaray, Crimea/Part I
Maqam, filmed by Vincent Moon
in Bakhchysaray, Crimea/Part II
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Mashala Doza
It may seem odd in a way, I realize, to include these two very fine selections from the group Mashala Doza on a site whose overriding focal concern is with the permutations of Ukrainian traditional music in the current-day music world.
Mashala Doza, after all, although they are indeed a Ukrainian band, as far as I am aware plays virtually no “Ukrainian music” whatsoever.
Indeed, what this band plays is pretty much everything else but Ukrainian music; what they play, that is to say, is the “near abroad”, as it might be put—the “musical-cultural neighborhood” surrounding Ukraine.
In other words, Mashala Doza delves into styles drawn from the abundance of musical cultures found throughout Eastern and South-Eastern Europe—those musical cultures that might be considered tangential to Ukrainian culture.
Their especial focus, however, would seem to be on what I think of as a concatenated Greek-Balkan-Turkish troika [“triyka” in Ukrainian], bringing together Rebetika and other Greek music, with the diverse outpourings of those Balkan cultures north of Greece—Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, et. alia.—all of which are interspersed with the bountiful cornucopia that is Turkish music. Indeed, it is this last aspect—Turkish music—that is precisely that mutual element that most of all interconnects this concatenated “troika”.
And Mashala Doza at their best have indeed put forward impressively authoritative, spirited and at times quite keenly poignant renditions of the music drawn from this “near abroad”. Yet what justifies the inclusion of this band's music on this list of the “best of the best” Ukrainian music is for me not only the indubitable quality of their work, but also because what they do helps to highlight what I think should stand as an important principle vis-a-vis not only Ukrainian traditional music, and the Ukrainian musical world as a whole, but with reference to artistic and cultural expression as a whole:
Put in rather plain terms—human culture does not, and cannot properly operate within a self-contained box or bureau.
It does not conduct itself, that is to say, in any manner conducive to its own prospering at least, in terms of the sort of rationalized, conclusively determined and logically self-enclosed practices necessary for bureaucratic organization. Such practices are indeed also requisite for human civilization to maintain and preserve itself, without any question, yet cultural and artistic expression must—if it is to possess any health, vigor, and meaning-laden purpose and value—operate on decidedly different terms.
It must proceed instead in terms of certain strategies of responsiveness and receptivity, of exploration and expansion, of ongoing growth and robust development. And this is the case, I believe, even for those forms—such as patrimonial- or heritage-infused (as opposed to avant-gardist) “high art” Classical as well as “folk”-informed Traditional modes of expression—whose core concern is with the perpetuation of that which has been handed down to it from the past.
Among other things, therefore, what the accomplished music of a band like Mashala Doza proffers for Ukraine's “folk”-informed Traditional music making, I think, is a sort of repository of readily accessible alternative possibilities, derived from “nearby” cultures that already have some relation to, and to one degree or another, have already “organically” impinged upon and born influence on its modes of expression (pretty much inevitable for “tangential” entities in any case), but that now may be engaged with in a more explicitly focused, mindful and studied manner.
And engaging with such “alternative possibilities” in this way will moreover pretty much unavoidably bring into play procedures of exchange with these “nearby” cultures as well, which happens to serve thereby as one more stimulant to further growth and development.
It should be mentioned, however, that to my mind, Mashala Doza was really at its best when it included the three female vocalists—Elena Shykura, Olga Prudey and Anzhela Zaytseva—as well as the two figures who amount to (very probably) the most accomplished instrumentalists ever in their ranks—Serhiy Okhrimchuk and Mykhailo Kachelov—all of whom are present in the two videos embedded below. It would appear that both Okhrimchuk and Kachelov only occasionally perform with the band in more recent days, though, and of the three female vocalists (Ms. Prudey and Ms. Zaytseva are themselves instrumentalists of note, I should add, the former on accordion and the latter on violin), all but Ms. Shykura would seem to have moved on entirely.
The group indeed would seem to have always been something of an “all-star” project, as it were, gathering together for certain ocassions musicians whose primary gigs were elsewhere: Olga Prudey is a leading member of Cloud Jam, Anzhela Zaytseva was in Toporkestra and other endeavors, both Okhrimchuk and Kachelov have been in and out of Toporkestra and really so many other projects that they could not possibly all be listed here. Ms. Shykura—who I would guess enjoys a leadership role in Mashala Doza, as she is I believe the only member who has been present and accounted for throughout all its many personnel changes—is herself in addition a visual artist.
The group's newer members are of course of some estimable worth too—I'd especially mention the very fine British-born bass player, Dave Evans, whose primary gig is likewise with Toporkestra—but if recent video performances I've seen are any indication, they do seem to have lost at least a bit of the previous incandesence that is palpable in the two performances below. Their admirably adept and finely sensitive curatorial skills in both choosing and interpreting their material are still very much evident, notwithstanding—and I would thus guess that much of this is attributable to Ms. Shykura—and one would hope that this important and in some ways even indispensable (for all the reasons just elaborated on) Ukrainian musical force will not only persevere, but hopefully regain a good portion of their prior fire.
Mashala Doza:
“Sharena Gayda”
Mashala Doza:
“Elena Kerko”
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Pikkardijska Tercija
Pikkardijska Tercija: “Kacha”
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Veryovka Choir
Veryovka Choir “Rozpryahayte Khloptsi Koni”
Veryovka Choir “Tsvite Teren”
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Nina Matviyenko
It is illuminative I think to consider that, in so far as Matviyenko began her career as a soloist with what some consider the premier so-called “State Folk Choir” in Ukraine, the Veryovka Choir, and then later “went back to school”, as it were, with Drevo—the “mother of all Ukrainian avtentyka ensembles”—it might be said that she did time with what amounts to perhaps the major representatives of both of the two primary approaches by which Ukrainian traditional music has been put forward in a present-day context: the “Renovationist” and the “Preservationist”. And in this way, it might be said further that her career could be seen as thereby mediating—both musically and institutionally—between these two “institutionalized approaches”.
My own interpretation regarding Matviyenko's art is that it was in this way that she was able to carve out her own unique creative space—a territory deeply informed by both approaches, even while at the same time, precisely by way of this process of mediating between the two, in some sense independent of both. Her fierce commitment to engage deeply with Ukrainian traditional music in its purest forms of course relates to her involvement with Drevo, yet her essentially theatrical approach, the manner in which she intensely inhabits and embodies a song almost as a Stanislavsky-trained actor would do for a role in a play or a film, undoubtedly pertains to the theatrical character of the”State Choirs”.
Nina Matviyenko: “Holub i Holubka”
Nina Matviyenko “Letila Zozulya”
Nina Matviyenko “Holodomor 1932-1933”
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Susanna Karpenko
The Tradition must be preserved, and therefore, must find ways of being perpetuated in the contemporary world on its own communicative terms—this is the primary task of the “Preservationist” approach that undergirds the “Avtentyka Revival Movement”. Yet, in order to truly live in the contemporary world, and not be merely a static entity, fit only for retrospective, antiquarian regard, the Tradition must be possessed of some degree of dynamism—it must, in short, continue to grow.
Through terms other than its own, the Tradition can manage to find a place for itself within the world of today by way of a “Mainstreamist” approach, which combines aspects of traditional music with the forms and modalities of global popular music. And an “Avant Gardist” approach can likewise pursue this same endeavor through its experimentalist treatment of traditional music.
If the Tradition is however to fully live—which is to say, grow—within a contemporary environment, it must do so, again, on its own terms—in other words, it must do so internally, working from inside the “Preservationist” movement itself. And the most likely way of doing that is through intelligent engagement with the traditional musical cultures that are immediately tangential to it: From the Ukrainian standpoint, this would mean the other Slavic and Eastern European cultures that lie next to, and not infrequently, already overlap with its own culture.
The current Ukrainian artist who more than anyone else in my opinion is successfully fulfilling this challenge is Susanna Karpenko. And the venue by which she does so is her ongoing, and just about uniformly excellent project Patterned Songs.
Operating assuredly from within the Ukrainian “Aventyka Revival Movement” which she has grown up in as an artist, and which she continues to extensively participate in—particularly in conjunction with the “avtentyka ensemble” Bozhychi that she helps lead with her husband Illya Fetisov—what Karpenko is doing via the Patterned Songs project is to very thoughtfully mix together songs from Ukrainian traditions with those from Serbian, Crimean Tatar, Bulgarian, Russian and Polish cultures.
What I sense most of all in this work is both a rigorous intelligence that pervades everything she does, as well as a smartly focused curatorial sensitivity that she applies to the challenge at hand. All of this is discernable not only in the songs she chooses for the project, and in the arrangements she devises for them, but also in her own persistent growth as a vocalist. And she is indeed one of the premiere vocalists in Ukraine today.
She also exhibits her intelligence in the artists she chooses to work with: the two most frequent collaborators in the Patterned Songs project being master of woodwinds Maksym Berezhniuk and the great violinist Serhiy Okhrimchuk—two of the finest musicians in the Ukrainian music making world, both of whom are present in all three videos embedded below.
Susanna Karpenko
“Yavrumla Salgirnin Boyu”
Susanna Karpenko:
“Sidit Zayets Na Verbi”
Essay | Susanna Karpenko:
Broadening the Boundary Lines
of the Tradition (The Patterned
Songs Project)
Susanna Karpenko:
“Viryazhala Mati Sina”
Essay | Susanna Karpenko “Viryazhala Mati Sina”:
The Most Extraordinary Four Minutes in Ukrainian Music
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Burdon
No musical artist or group in Ukraine at the current moment has more life in it, I don't believe, nor more talent, for that matter, than the band Burdon [pronounced Boar-DOAN].
Almost nothing they do falls much below the level of “quite good” (this would seem to be pretty much their “floor”, in terms of aesthetic quality), and at their very best—such as in their invigorating take on Ukrainian Spring ritual music “Vesnyanka”, or the joyously beautiful “Sviatyi Vechor”, or the mesmerizing “Zozulechka”, or their consummate interpolation of traditional Ukrainian music with Babatunde Olatunji's West African “Drums of Passion” style of music in “Mlynok”, or their almost mind-bogglingly fine recent piece “Pod Biloyu Berоzoyu”—they are astonishingly good, and indeed, great.
In some aspects, such as in their choice in some instances of anachronistic, and always all-acoustic instrumentation, they can seem almost like a really hot version of an “Early Music” ensemble; in most other aspects, they certainly appear more of a Traditional Music group—albeit a very far-ranging one, in that they combine together all manner of traditional musical cultures, focused especially on those that tranverse the Carpathian/Transylvania region: i.e., Hungarian, Romanian/Moldavian, as well as of course Ukrainian.
Ultimately, however, the music making they do is too creatively unconventional for either category—they are too independent and quirky to be confined all that securely within the bounds of the traditional music realm, even though it is indeed from this realm that they draw nearly all of their material. And even in the matter of their instrumentation, what stands out the most is their very uncustomary, out-of-the-ordinary, and just plain odd mixture of instruments—everything from the Greek/Turkish bouzouki, to the Hungarian/ Transylvanian gardon, to the ancient (or at least very Early Modern), and really quite bizarre-looking Swedish instrument, the moraharpa.
Should anyone pound on the door of the Ukrainian music-making world, so to speak, and imperiously demand it produce for them the absolute best it can come up with at the current moment, in terms of overall creativity and aesthetic quality, and in sheer musical substantiveness and general excellence, there seems to me little question that Burdon would have to be the group that is then brought to the door.
Burdon:
“Pod Biloyu Berоzoyu”
(“Under the Birch Tree”)
Essay | Burdon “Pod Biloyu Berоzoyu”:
The Complexities of Musical Joyousness
Burdon:
“Vesnyanka”
Burdon:
“Zozulechka”
Burdon:
“Mlynok” (“The Windmill”)
Burdon:
“Sviatyi Vechor”
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Taras Shevchenko Poem
Setting of Taras Shevchenko's poem
“My Thoughts, My Thoughts”
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Iryna Danyleiko
Iryna Danyleiko/Valentyn Sylvestrov (Composer):
“Proshchay, Svite”
Iryna Danyleiko/Mykola Lysenko (Composer):
“Oy Odna Ya, Odna”
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Victoria Poleva
Victoria Poleva:
“No Man is an Island”
Victoria Poleva:
“White Internment”
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Natalka Polovynka
Natalka Polovynka:
[“Concert at All Saints Parish, Part I”]
Natalka Polovynka:
[“Concert at All Saints Parish, Part II”]
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Maisternia Pisni
Maisternia Pisni:
“The Message of Summer”
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Electroacoustic's Ensemble (Alla Zagaykevych)
Electroacoustic's Ensemble:
“North\West”
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Maryana Sadovska
Long before Dakh Daughters arose to great acclaim with their irrepressibly wanton, avant gardist take on madly askew Cabaret, long before DakhaBrakha broke through with their daringly innovatory mix of ancient tradition and hyper-contemporary experiment, long before Folknery, or Katya Chilly, or any number of other Ukrainian artists tread down paths of a similar ilk, Maryana Sadovska distinguished herself as the pioneering Ukrainian artist who opened up all these trajectories in the first place.
Still very much at work, and still very much advancing forward in her work, Sadovska maintains as always a fervent commitment to exploration married to a passionate engagement with traditional music forms.
Rather than attempting to directly expand upon the Tradition from within the Tradition itself, so to speak, in the manner that say, Susanna Karpenko does, the project that I feel Sadovska has always been dedicated to is to open up new perspectives on the Tradition from outside its boundaries.
And the way that she does this, I think, is to stir up a sort of suggestive aura of as-of-yet unrealized expressive possibilities, that may be seen as it were surreptitiously residing within traditional music, deeply hidden within its venerable textures as if a sort of ancient energy source—an aesthetic fossil fuel as it were—that in the hands of such an adept, subtle and tactful artist as Sadovska, can in fact be miraculously extracted from this music by way of an appropriately experimental engagement with it.
In this way, Sadovska's most characteristic musical approach would seem to represent an effort to get deep into the interior of a particular traditional song, so as to grab ahold of and exploit to the fullest its inherent, even if up to this point perhaps entirely furtive dramatic intensities. It stands therefore as a sort of histrionic excavation of the traditional form, enacted in a manner that is itself very un-traditional—however devotedly and even reverentially its relationship to traditional song remains—an attempt at quarrying into the heart of the tune, so as to project out from there all manner of things utterly unknown to the tradition itself.
Maryana Sadovska and Christian Thomé:
[Setting of Serhiy Zhadan Poem:] “Where Are You From,
Dark Caravan?”(”Zvidky Ty, Chorna Valko?”)
Maryana Sadovska and The Kronos Quartet:
[Excerpt from] Chornobyl: The Harvest
Maryana Sadovska:
[Live in Toronto 2014]
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DakhaBrakha
In many respects DakhaBrakha are the breakout band of present day Ukrainian music—the group that has paved the way, more distinctly and farther along the way, as it were, than anyone else. It is this group, after all, that has shown Ukrainian music how to be at one and the same time undeniably contemporary and authentically traditional, daringly avant gardist and resolutely populist, strongly in touch with and accomplished in both the “Vernacular” and “Aesthetic” modalities, yet managing nevertheless to be quite successful commercially, enjoying an impressive mass fan base scattered thoroughout the developed world.
In short, this is the present day Ukrainian band that, more than anyone else, has opened up on an artistic level the greatest number of doors for the Ukrainian music making world as a whole, and have done so, moreover, with near-unswerving creative authority.
This is not to say that I would recommend Ukrainian musicians in general to blindly follow their lead, by any means. Rather, what is imperative to take note of is the manner in which DakhaBrakha has made clearly discernible for one and all, I think, the very broad swath of creative possibilities that are inherent in Ukrainian music. For this, they stand as one of the most important primary models of Ukrainian contemporary music, and will continue to do so, I believe, in all the years to come. Indeed, if they ended their musical career right now and did absolutely nothing more, their place in the annals of Ukrainian music is already unimpeachedly secure.
In terms of cultural analysis, for what it's worth, I think it can be said that DakhaBrakha, in both their projected image and vis-a-vis their burgeoning popularity, more or less accord to what might be called a “Neo-Tribal” aesthetic and mindset.
By “Neo-Tribal”, what I mean is a discourse that attempts to address problems of contemporary mass society by way of the contrarian notion that human beings are at their best only when integrated within smaller-scaled, conscientiously fashioned “social networks”—“tribes”, in short, at least as construed vis-a-vis a sort of cutting edge, hyper-digitalized “postmodern tribalism”.
Thus, the music of the band serves for a significant portion of its listeners as a kind of operational metaphor for the conceptualization and practice of “re-tribalizing”—it provides a “soundtrack”, as it were, for this manner of praxis—even if more often than not, this does not amount to much more than a sort of theatrical role temporarily adopted by attendees of summer music festivals, in a manner not so unlike the way that small children “play” doctor or policeman or soldier or whatever.
I actually don't mean this as in any way a criticism of either the band or its music—or its fans, for that matter, a category I can count myself as a definite member thereof—for one has to acknowledge such “play acting” I think as one of the ways in which contemporary humanity tries to comes to grips with an unsettled, topsy-turvy, ever-changing world.
And what is most certainly worthy of a great deal of respect with regards to DakhaBrakha, furthermore, is the significant degree of musical and general artistic substantiveness that they manage to maintain in the process.
Even more admirable, in some respects, is how they are able to construct such substantiveness out of such small means: Working with little more than a handful of percussion instruments, accordion, occasional keyboards and woodwinds, as well as of course their singing—inclusive of a whole veritable menagerie of wordless odd vocal sounds—this rather sparse ensemble is then given a strong and righteous grounding by a darkly-strained cello that doubles as an (not infrequently funkified) upright acoustic bass.
What they thus exhibit thereby is a decided minimalist approach that, in their best pieces (such as the first three embedded below) manifest a well-nigh obsessively focused and utterly riveting mode of music making, in which as simple a matter as a basic chord change can take on the character of an ontological revelation.
At the forefront of a growing tendency in Ukraine to incorporate African-based percussion into a traditional Ukrainian music context, they carry off this endeavor with much aesthetic poise and sensitivity, devising an often exhilarating sound character through all-acoustic instruments, bypassing electronic sampling and the like (for the most part), without any loss of generated excitement whatsoever.
Perhaps most impressively, the group's relationship with Ukrainian traditional music—whose primordial-sounding, typically modal character is really the central sonic aspect most responsible for their “Neo-Tribalist” connotative aura—is absolutely genuine and deep-seated.
Thus, au courant hipsterism is intertwined with heartfelt Ukrainian traditional music in a manner that from my standpoint could very easily devolve into sheer Las Vegas kitsch, but in the sensitive hands of DakhaBrakha is rendered instead into something rich and strange indeed.
DakhaBrakha:
“Na Dobranich”
DakhaBrakha:
“Oy, U Kyevi”
DakhaBrakha:
“Buvayte Zdorovi”
DakhaBrakha:
“Live @ The New Parish, Oakland Ca., 2015”
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Dakh Daughters
A theatrical endeavor before anything else, arising out of the same Vlad Troitsky-led DAKH Theatre origins as DakhaBrakha, as the similarity in the two band names indicate (the two groups also have in common the cellist/vocalist Nina Harenetska), but one that is enacted through song and music (and to be sure, each of its seven members happen to be very fine musicians), as well as through movement, costume, and a peculiar mode of stage acting and performance art that is all their own (although very strongly influenced by a more than century-old tradition of “avant garde Cabaret”, harking back to late 19th century Paris and Weimar-period Berlin), the reigning leitmotif of Dakh Daughters is beyond all doubt their relentless madcap creativity.
The group exhibits this characteristic, indeed, to an almost unhinged degree—it would not be too much to assert, I think, that they cram more unrestrained creativity in an hour long performance than many musical groups manage in a whole lifetime—and do so in a manner that is of course nothing if not unwaveringly and indefatigably avant gardist in its approach.
I would even aver that this group manifests perhaps more than anyone performing today what I think is almost certainly the future of avant garde art—the only future in fact that such art could possibly have, I believe.
Whatever remained of the “old avant garde” from a hundred and more years ago—associated with Modernist culture, and very much caught up in the rampant civilizational upheavals of that era—which reached its peak a decade or so on either side of the First World War, only to be institutionalized in the “First World” nations after the Second World War, insinuating itself thereby within the fortified walls of Academia as its final resting place, is now long gone under the ground, replaced by a sort of Conceptualist-oriented “PostModernist” avant garde that was itself largely conceived and hatched within Academia's protected environs from the start, a realm that in many respects—in terms of its ultimate social base at least—it hardly ever left.
Dakh Daughters, a group that rose up unawares from the expressly Post-Soviet cultural conditions obtaining in Ukraine, thus exemplify an alternative version of PostModernism perhaps—what I refer to as “Avant Populist”—one that is intensely entangled with the life and expressive modalities of the moment and of the recent past, not so much in the stand-offish and often judgmental Conceptualist manner, but in a way that lovingly engages with all forms of contemporary expression, incorporating in a wildly ribald manner virtually the entire swath of popular music forms, albeit in a well-nigh pointillistic manner—a smattering of 60s Pop here, a dab of Hip Hop there, a few fragmented globules of alternative 70s or 80s Rock over there, with large dollops of demented Cabaret smeared all about the place—that really makes sense only within an overall context that they themselves maniacally construct.
The role that Ukrainian traditional music plays in all this—bearing strongly significant weight, even if it is a relatively minor component—is quite interesting too. Hence, these traditional sounds, when they break out unexpectedly from within the midst of an overall sound character that is at extreme variance to them, serve a purpose I think of manifesting an altogether alternative reality (I am thinking here particularly of “Rozy/Donbassa”, but I have heard this effect in some of their other pieces, too), in a way that is not so different from how an avant gardist composer such as Alla Zagaykevych makes use of Ukrainian traditional music in her Electronics-based compositions.
And what is most surprising of all in this set of wholly startling and at times even anomalous approaches to making music and art, is that Dakh Daughters would seem through precisely these means to be assembling for itself a fairly broad social base—which is to say, a fervently enthusiastic audience for what is again, an unwaveringly and indefatibably avant gardist sensibility.
Dakh Daughters:
“Rozy/Donbassa”
Dakh Daughters:
Live in Alland Ethno Fashion Store
Dakh Daughters:
Live from Lviv
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Folknery
Folknery:
“Rozova-Berozova”
Folknery:
“Tadi, Shuhay, Tadi”
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Cloud Jam
Cloud Jam:
“Tumane”
Cloud Jam:
“Cosmic Gorilka” (Live in Goa)
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Hycz Orkestr
Hycz Orkestr:
“Lyubit Ukrayinu”
Hycz Orkestr:
“Pisnya Pro Asberna”
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Dychka
Dychka:
“Psykhbolnytsa” (“Psychiatric Hospital”)
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TopOrkestra
The very odd dynamic that seems to me to underlie the extraordinary music put forth by TopOrkestra—a musical collective that if it doesn't do so already, should definitely bill itself as “the world's greatest street band”—is what might be described as a shotgun marriage of world class musicianship to an approach to making music that is loose to the point of shambolic.
This shambolic approach, however—what at first certainly looks and sounds very much like a shambolic approach, at least—soon enough reveals itself to be a whole lot more than a mere approach to music making: It is rather I believe something like an entire approach to existence, a philosophy to living life.
The core components that essentially comprise this “TopOrkestra life philosophy”, as it might be put, fall somewhere I would guess along the following lines: Don't plan things too much, don't organize things overmuch, take things as they come, let things happen spontaneously.
Of course, bereft of the world class musicianship that this band at the same time embodies, the rough translation of this “life philosophy” into musical terms might very well be something on the order of an absolute and utter mess. That the music of TopOrkestra is not in fact an absolute and utter mess, that it is instead quite fine, and occasionally even outright glorious, is a tribute to this musicianship, and to the love and fierce commitment of this collective's diverse and ever-shifting group of musicians—most of all, one would imagine, its stalwart leader, accordionist Sergey Topor—to the art and craft of music making.
The “TopOrkestra philosophy”, in summation, does not entail an approach to music making that reduces music to a crass and wretchedly calculated commodity confined within pre-fabricated social forms, but one that flourishes as a vernacular-based live experience spontaneously occurring right in the midst of things, out and about amongst the peoples of the world.
The abundantly overflowing mélange of global music styles that the band lays out is also quite staggering—traditional Ukrainian, Russian, Gypsy, Klezmer, Moldovan/Romanian, Balkan, Greek, Turkish, Middle Eastern, general all-purpose Eastern European oompah music, pre-Modern Jazz—all of which is then interfused with a significant variety of more contemporaneous popular music modes such as Ska, Punk, Latin, Funk, and God only knows what else.
And considered as a specifically Ukrainian musical endeavor, it might also be said that TopOrkestra stands as one of the primary meeting places—perhaps in some ways the primary meeting place—between Jewish and Ukrainian musical cultures taking place now in the country. Indeed, TopOrkestra's maniacally uproarious version of Hava Nagila—a song that not only has roots in Ukraine, but is likely the product of a two-way intermixture of these musical cultures, as is also the circle dancing that frequently accompanies the song—is in my opinion incontestably nonpareil.
TopOrkestra: Live Performance
from 2010 Країна Мрій Festival
TopOrkestra:
Live Performance in Uman 2015
TopOrkestra:
Husein Aliy Akbar
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Oleh Skrypka/TopOrkestra
I am inclined to see these two remarkable videos—which even now, months after I first came upon them, I am still unable to watch without breaking into a smile—as a sort of bookend to the two Drevo/
Maisternia Pisni videos which sit at the top of this list.
What these two Oleh Skrypka/TopOrkestra videos in my view amount to, that is to say, is the vernacular-based “horizontal ideal” that is celebrated in the Drevo/Maisternia Pisni videos as the foundation of the “Preservationist” or “avtentyka” mode of traditional music making, translated with near miraculous efficacy into the domain of popular music making.
There is a stage separating the performers from the audience, to be sure—although the stage seems to be clotted with all sorts of people (photographers, stage technicians, hangers-about, some guy blowing bubbles) not particularly engaged in music-making, while on the other hand, a great many audience members (some situated so close to the stage so as to almost blur the distinction between “stage” and “not-stage”) are themselves taking part in the music making, by way of (very adept) hand-clapping and “singing-alonging”.
What we have here, therefore, is not a group of disengaged performers enacting a practiced routine for a passive, disconnected audience: What we have here, rather, is a whole community—the Ukrainian music making community, inclusive of both performers and audience—making music together.
And at the center of all this, masterfully conducting the whole affair, is Mr. Skrypka, almost certainly the greatest sheer performer that the Ukrainian popular music world has yet produced. No-one else in the Ukrainian music world—and very few performers from outside that world either—could even come close to doing what he does here.
Oleh Skrypka/TopOrkestra:
“Ochi Chorniye” (“Dark Eyes”): Live
Performance from 2010 Країна Мрій Festival
Oleh Skrypka/TopOrkestra:
Live Performance from 2010 Країна Мрій Festival
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Vopli Vidoplyasova
Vopli Vidoplyasova:
“Kraina Mriy”
Vopli Vidoplyasova w/ Susanna Karpenko:
“Dibrivonka”
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TaRuta
What this band, when they have been at their best at least, has been so good at—probably better than anyone else in Ukrainian mainstream popular music in fact—is creatively weaving together aspects from the global popular music sphere with elements of Ukrainian traditional music culture, so as to most effectively situate Ukrainian traditional music within the contemporary world. And they do that best I think in the four pieces I have selected here.
Among other things, what TaRuta is able to demonstrate in these four pieces is that if one handles the task in a creative and thoughtful enough manner, it is in fact quite possible to import into one's sound all manner of disparate things, embracing a broad diversity of musical elements whose ultimate provenance may well be in any number of far-flung locales across the globe, and still at same time remain not only very much in tune with Ukrainian musical traditions, but in an advantageous position to take inspiration from all the age-old, deeply-embedded suasive power that this Tradition is able to bestow.
And the very important and valuable lesson that I think is thus set down here for the Ukrainian music making world in general is that the act of paying heed to the touchstone that Ukrainian traditional music culture represents, to the ongoing guidance that the Tradition has to offer as an enduring standard of value, need not be in any way constrictive or confining.
TaRuta:
“Synya Khmara”
TaRuta:
“Borom-Borom”
TaRuta:
“Horhanskyi Front” from Trypilske Kolo Fest 2012
Essay | TaRuta: The Eerie Beauty of Ukrainian Dorian
/“Borom-Borom” and “Horhanskyi Front”
TaRuta:
“Oy, Pidu Ya Luhom”
Essay | TaRuta: The Sad Beauty
of “Oy, Pidu Ya Luhom”
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Kamo Hryadeshi
Although apparently somewhat short-lived, and ceasing to exist altogether for a number of years now, this band was I believe among the best ever in regards to fulfilling the objective of incorporating Ukrainian traditional music elements into a mainstream popular music context. Kamo Hryadeshi (“Quo Vadis” in Ukrainian) did not perhaps scale the same heights as TaRuta did when this latter band was actually in pursuit of this objective, but at their best Kamo Hryadeshi came quite close to those heights, and during their short time together they were more persistent in its pursuit than TaRuta ever was.
Led by master of the woodwinds Maksym Berezhniuk, and fronted by two female singers—Yevhenia Serhiyenko and Svitlana Mashuk—each of whom brought markedly different capabilities that they managed to blend together in an optimally complementary manner, the surviving work of Kamo Hryadeshi should serve still I think as an exemplary model for the Ukrainian music making world in how to properly attain this objective, even if their time as a working band has now come and gone.
Kamo Hryadeshi:
“Cherez Yar, Cherez Pole”
Kamo Hryadeshi:
“Polyubyla”
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The Doox
To paraphrase a certain Mr. Zappa, “Rock isn't dead, it just smells funny”. The fortunes of Rock music have not been particularly auspicious in the last decade or so, that is to say, and this is most of all the case, I think, in regards to its aboriginal environs—i.e., North America.
What strikes me as so fascinating about this particular instance of superlative Ukrainian music making is how contingent and fortuitous its very coming into being would seem to have been.
It does not seem to me very much off the mark, indeed, to suggest that this is a tradition that has been in a slow but steady decline for an even longer stretch of time—maybe even for two or three decades now—although it has been in the last ten years, especially, that this trend has metastasized to the point at which it can hardly be denied, except perhaps by the most self-deluded of hopped-up enthusiasts.
One of the great, and perhaps insurmountable problems facing the Rock tradition is that it has had stripped from it most, if not nearly all portions of that one attribute which had provided it with its core reason for being for so long—an assured sense of the music's centrality to the culture and society as a whole. Bereft of this sense of certain centrality, Rock as a mode of musical expression seems to not quite know what to do with itself: What, pray tell, could be its whole point and purpose at this juncture?
Hence, if this tradition is to continue at all, in any way, shape or form, it may have to do so primarily as a result of activities taking place far away from its historic nerve centers. For it is part and parcel intrinsic to the experience of losing one's sense of centrality vis-a-vis the larger culture and society, that one likewise has difficulty considering oneself central even within the parameters of one's own discrete domain. An ennervating feeling of general decenteredness relentlessly spreads so as to pervade all and sundry.
Out on the peripheries, on the other hand, where this problem is not really felt all that much—at least not in the same uncomfortably pressing manner—revivifying energies might actually find sufficient impetus to rise up and flourish. Post-Soviet locales such as Ukraine, for instance, where the very practice of this musical form wasn't even fully permitted during the peak moments of the form's boom years within the so-called First World nations—very roughly, circa 1965-1985—may now prove themselves to be prime generators of whatever life the form has left to it.
While I don't find Rock creatively blossoming to any extravagant degree in Ukraine at the moment, there are some very worthwhile things going on in the country nonetheless. And most of this is emanating from those artists who endeavor to interweave aspects of traditional Ukrainian music with the various approaches and procedures characteristic of the Rock tradition.
Amongst the most dynamic and impressive of these artists I think is Maksym Berezhniuk. A man who can claim the prodigious feat of being able to play over one hundred different instruments—albeit almost all of them from the “wind” family—what is even more impressive about Berezhniuk is that Rock is just one of the many styles he excels in.
His deepest roots lie emphatically within the Ukrainian traditional music sphere, in fact, and his role as perhaps the one truly indispensable collaborator on Susanna Karpenko's pioneering Patterned Songs project positions him in the vanguard of that sphere.
Yet when given the opportunity to lead his own ensembles, Rock would seem to be Berezhniuk's default style of choice—although again, this is a mode of Rock very much interfused with Ukrainian musical traditions.
His first group set up along these lines, Kamo Hrydeshi, I discuss in the segment immediately above this one; his latest venture into these same territories is the somewhat strangely denominated band the Doox (it's only recently that I realized that this is actually intended to be pronounced as “the Dukes”), which first came together at some point in the portentous Spring of 2014.
Although I was at first put off to a certain extent by this band's not infrequent use of mechanized (or at least “mechanized-sounding”) percussion, and at times, overall Electronica sonic backdrop, I was won over before too long regardless by the very strong songwriting the band features, as well as its generally superb musicianship. This is of course the case with Berezhniuk himself, but proves consistently to be so with the other members of the band also—perhaps most conspicuously, with the band's female lead vocalist, Yulia Malyarenko.
Interestingly, Malyarenko—who also performed in the past with the band Astarta, another group that often weaved Ukrainian traditional music elements into a Rock mode—came out of the same Ukrainian traditional music “avtentyka ensemble”, Kralitsya, as the two female vocalists in Kamo Hrydeshi (as did one or more of the female vocalists in DakhaBrakha, if I'm not mistaken, as well I believe as Berezhniuk himself). Her voice is perfectly suited for the sort of power projection that is typically such an important factor in Rock singing, but at the same time is quite adept at more subtle and softer kinds of expression, too—and even more so, at modulating dramatically between these two approaches.
And while I find some of the Doox's recordings to be a bit on the overproduced side (this is actually a very common fault with sound production in Ukrainian popular music overall in my view; I am hoping that at some point something on the order of a Daptone Records “less is more” sensibility will begin to take hold in Ukraine), and on certain things, as I already indicated, the electronica elements I feel are also laid on much too thick, in some other pieces, at least as performed live, this band can take credit for constructing some of the most effective textures mixing together electronic and organic sounds that I have yet heard in a Rock format.
I would assert, in fact, that in regards to this particular task—which really amounts I believe to one of the most arduous, exacting challenges in contemporary music making, precisely in that it is so supremely and painlessly easy vis-a-vis electronics to just fall back on an uncreative, prefabricated sound character—the Doox could be said to be forging new ground, and in so doing, giving new life to a form of musical expression very much in need of just that.
The Doox:
“Soloveyko” Live @ Cadillac Art Club
The Doox:
“Pid Borom”
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Mykhailove Chudo/Nazad Slyahu Namaye
At the very least, the character of the piece as it exists herein was clearly not what its author had initially intended. The original version of this song—“Ptakh Dosha” (“Rain Bird”)—was recorded by the Ukrainian Heavy Metal band Nazad Shlyakhu Nemae (trans.: No Way Back), and featured Oleh Skrypka as guest vocalist and accordionist.
In this original version, the song was given a more or less Rap Metal treatment, stylistically speaking—complete with turntable samples, standard-issue Hip Hop posturing, and all the egregious grunting and unmotivated screaming that is pretty much obligatory for the genre.
And if I happened to have stumbled upon this original version prior to becoming familiar with what the song later evolved into—the version embedded below, in other words—then my reaction to it would have certainly been very different. Indeed, I am sure it would have appeared from my standpoint (although I remain a fervent admirer of the earliest Heavy Metal music, especially the first two Black Sabbath albums, there is only a small handful of what the genre has generated since then that I have any use for) that there just wasn't all that much worthwhile in this particular piece of music.
Of course, appearances are very often mistaken. “Ptakh Dosha” is in point of fact a great song, one of the best things ever written in the Ukrainian popular music realm I believe, yet its core greatness had to be brought out bit by bit it seems, only by way of trial and error, through a whole series of zigzagging transformations.
The author himself—although I could be wrong about this, I am assuming that this is Nazad Shlyakhu Nemae's lead singer, Dmytro Mitusov, for he is the only figure present for all of its many transformations—was obviously not entirely satisfied with the original treatment that the song had been given, as indeed, he proceeded to continuously experiment with a number of different approaches.
After an odd detour into a sort of updated early 1980s New Wavish style, Mitusov began then to systematically strip away most of the Rap Metal aspects, paring things down to a more 1990's “alternative” Hard Rock feel interwoven with a somewhat Thrash aesthetic, until finally happening upon the decisive step the song was calling out for by hooking up with the “avtentyka ensemble” Mykhailove Chudo. This primarily a capella group, led by Iryna Danyleiko—quite possibly the all-round finest, and I think without question the most versatile singer in all of Ukrainian music—then intriguingly brought to bear upon the situation certain aspects drawn from traditional Ukrainian music.
Even then, however, the song was still predominantly centered on Mitusov's shrieking vocals, and though I am all for screaming as a means of musical expression, as long as it is one element amongst others, this approach gets old for me very quick once it is established as the chief means of expression. What this approach most of all managed to effect, furthermore, was to obscure almost entirely all of the serpentine nuances and coiled subtleties that were all the time lying in wait within the song, simply requiring the right conditions to properly release them.
And maybe it was only because the performance featured in the video below was being enacted on a TV program during the Holidays that Mitusov decided to take a more subdued approach to his own vocals, and to instead let the two main vocalists in Mykhailove Chudo—Danyleiko and Halyna Honcharenko—serve as the principal singers for the song in this one instance.
This, however, turned out to be the crucial move that proved capable of bringing to the fore all of the glorious magnificence that was already implicit within the song—attributes which up to that moment had only existed perhaps as unforeseen, unanticipated potentiality.
Mykhailove Chudo/Nazad Slyahu Namaye:
“Ptakh Doshu” (“Rain Bird”)
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Joryj Kłoc
I'm still trying to figure out how these guys manage to succeed so well in doing something—combining together elements of Hip Hop, Heavy Metal and/or Rap Metal with aspects of Ukrainian traditional music culture—that virtually everyone else who has tried it has to my ears failed so badly at. It probably has something to do with their sense of humor, but I think it is most of all the consequence of a highly eccentric, and highly creative approach to dealing with such stylistic forms in the first place—one that for the most part, even if it doesn't reject electronic means of expression entirely, stays decisively clear of a too-heavy, not to mention clumsy and overbearing incorporation of an electronics-based sound.
Joryj Kłoc's (pronounced, roughly, as “Yory Klots”, the “o” in “Klots” rendered similarly to that in “close”) basic sound character is indeed the product of an appealing aggregate of traditional Ukrainian acoustic instruments: Violin and Lira (the traditional Ukrainian version of the Hurdy Gurdy) take care of melodic duties, while the rhythm section consists of nothing more than acoustic guitar and the big bass drum played by the band's lead singer Anton Lubiy—the band's Wikipedia page lists his contributions along these lines as “vocals and exclamations”—a standalone contraption that includes a small cymbal fastened to its top, struck by an implement in the right hand while the left hand batters away at the drum head, as is common in much of Ukrainian, and Eastern European traditional music in general.
Also quite interesting in regards to this band is their frequent commingling with a variety of other compelling artistic endeavors now going on in Ukraine: They have worked extensively for example with the film director/writer/musician Oleksandr Fraze Frazenko—who I like to think of as Ukraine's answer to the young Orson Welles—as well as with the wondrous DYV Shadow Theatre. All three endeavors in fact come together in the marvelous video for Joryj Kłoc's great song “Lis” (embedded below), which was directed by Fraze Frazenko, and features the work of DYV.
One thing at least is certain: Joryj Kłoc is a band that does things right.
Joryj Kłoc:
“Lis”
Joryj Kłoc:
“Siadaj Siadaj”
Joryj Kłoc:
“Verbovaja Doščečka”
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Okean Elzy
Okean Elzy:
“Ya Tak Khochu...”
Okean Elzy:
“Oy, Chyi Tam Kin Stoyit”
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Illaria
My first impression of Illaria, I would admit, was not a positive one. She in fact seemed to me a sort of apotheosis—the highest form of development—of the manner of aesthetic sensibility and mindset that informs the “Vocal Competition” TV shows, the musical influence of which I tend to regard in very negative terms.
Soon enough, though, my attitude towards this singer began to shift.
For one thing, the work she's done with Susanna Karpenko—an artist whom I have a great deal of respect for—certainly won favor from me, especially since it is very good work. The appearances she has made (following Nina Matviyenko's lead) singing in Kostyantyn Chechenya's Medieval and Renaissance “Early Music Ensemble” Restorationist project seem likewise deserving of commendation—if for nothing else, for exhibiting the full diversity of what she is capable of.
It furthermore became obvious to me that there was a substantial intelligence in operation behind the diverse work that she has done, and also a substantial sense of humor to boot—two attributes that will nearly always win my respect.
There is still a large amount of her work in the Pop realm—to be truthful, probably all but two or three exceptions—that I am not particularly fond of. And the full octave swoops and other virtuosic display she tends to indulge in tend to still get on my nerves, although there is little doubt she is in possession of a truly virtuosic vocal capacity—probably more so than any other Ukrainian singer of her generation, in terms of sheer technical capacity at least. Plus, no-one in Slavdom can roll their “r's” quite like Illaria can.
Even without the presence of any of these subsequent considerations, though, I'd still feel compelled to admit that “Vidma” (“Witch”) is a really first-rate tune (and really a Rock tune too, for what it's worth, even if it is an over-produced one).
Indeed, I would strongly recommend any Film or TV producer casting about for an edgy piece of popular music, dripping in both dark atmosphere and sexual tension—and along these lines, the full octave swoops and other virtuosic display in “Vidma” actually have a real rhetorical purpose as it happens—to look no further than this number. Setting aside whatever language barriers might be in operation, it should be clear enough to any listener that “Vidma” manifests both of the above characteristics in an especially powerful manner.
Illaria:
“Vidma” (“Witch”)”
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Précis
The procedure I intend to follow hereafter is just to continue to upload on a regular basis—perhaps one every two weeks or so—a new essay based on one of the selections of “the best of the best” for which I have a video embedded above. I will also be adding continuously to this selections of videos. Although I have settled on a considerable number of selections already, this doesn't mean I won't be making further choices as I proceed. Some artists not present on the list now may quite possibly show up later.
Certain readers may of course take note of those artists who are, as it were, conspicuous by their absence on this list. I do address questions along these lines in the Introductory Essay that can be found here.
Furthermore, I would expect that certain readers will find some of my selections to be rather eccentric. My only response to this is to suggest that such readers wait for the essay that will be included with the selection, since it is by this means that I will detail my reasons for each selection's inclusion (although I realize of course that this might not change anyone's negative standpoint, and may in fact even worsen it).
My intentions for this site as a whole, I should say however, are for the most part not to simply double-down on and thus reconfirm what is already the standard outlook on things, but rather to try to shed light on that which hasn't been looked at or considered as much, and to try to persuade readers thereby to at least potentially see things in a new way.
MORE TO COME....
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