A Closer Listen
One might begin with the 297-track Massive Hutsul Sample Pack, which includes pigs, ducks, chickens, cats and dogs, car washes, rivers, waterfalls, toys, drills, bells, musical instruments and occasionally a song. These pieces, some only a second long, were recorded by Kyiv’s Gasoline Team in the Carpathians, then handed over to a host of Ukrainian musicians for incorporation and reinterpretation. The label calls it a “bridge between generations,” which is never more obvious than when a folk tune finds a 21st century setting. We’re especially happy to see some of our recent site favorites, ummsbiaus and Hanna Svirska, represented on the set.
Or one might start with the war, the horrible war, the in-some-places forgotten war, as the news cycle has turned to other things. The latest updates include the russian disruption of the international food chain and the continued bombing of civilian targets. When large swaths of terrain are destroyed, heritage and history grow endangered or extinct; who knows if the areas visited by the Gasoline team are still intact, or if the musicians are still alive?
Once one knows the context, it’s impossible to listen to this music without hearing it as that of a culture under siege. At the same time as traditional folk songs are being forgotten (authors dying, print and digital copies destroyed), the new artists may be fighting on the front lines, or minding their own business when the next bomb lands. That’s why it’s so surprising to hear the positive placidity of a piece like Revshark’s opening “Ukrofuturism,” a title which deserves to be promoted to a word. The beats are warm, the vibe an extension of hope. Not every contribution is a dance track; there’s a wide variety to the approaches, which range from ambient to abstract. But the tone is remarkably constant: defiant, confident, proud. Instead of calling attention to themselves, these artists call attention to their heritage, insisting that the legacy of their ancestors will continue in some form, no matter what the circumstances. The title of Salmiac’s bell and water-laden “There is a River No One Can See” is as a metaphor for a future Ukraine, still united yet no longer at war. “A Conference of Trees” is Ocheret’s ambient-electronic statement that root systems have their own mode of communication, borderless and equalitarian.
Many of the songs, in particular Katro Zauber’s “DNA,” represent a collision between the old and the new. In contrast, the following track, Difference Machine’s “A Point in This Life,” is one of the album’s most traditional and pastoral. But there’s another musical collision occurring in Ukraine, as chronicled in Gianmarco Del Re’s ongoing Ukrainian Field Notes series: that between music as it was and music as it will be. The invasion has brought an acceleration of cultural change, whose effects have yet to be fully measured. One anticipates an increase in angry music, or in music that shifts from placid to aggressive, like Lostlojic’s urgent “Brother, Wake Up.”
After some appealing techno forays from jsky (“trembeat”) and Ira Hoisa (“Sylna”), the set turns farther afield. Symonemko’s “Весілля у Гуцулів” (“Wedding at the Hutsuls”) is celebratory, with boisterous breakbeats signaling a return to some semblance of normalcy. mires’ “bagna” resists classification, with crunches, cowbells and a sense of suspension. Andrey Sirotkin & Vlad Suppish’s closing “Live Pinnacle” is even more abstract, a dronelike cacophony that dissolves into extended chords, turning nearly orchestral in its final seconds before breaking into sonic fragments.
Спадок means inheritance, which on the surface seems obvious; these samples are inherited from the artists’ ancestors, or at least their elders. But the term is up for discussion, as Ukrainian youth will inherit conditions, attitudes and moods that were unimaginable before the russian invasion. Music continues to be a counter-balance, an expression of vibrancy in the midst of chaos and an integral part of the emerging Ukrofuturism. (Richard Allen)
Thu Jul 27 00:01:31 GMT 2023