Hall of Ukrainian Rock’n’Roll
In our traditional support of the Ukrainian rock scene, we would like to offer you a story about a remarkable event that took place in western Ukraine in the small town of Manevychi. Every year, at the end of May, all the world's museums hold a night at the museum, and such a night took place in Manevychi, where at the same time the soft opening of the first hall of the future Rock Capital museum took place. The hall is called The History of Ukrainian Rock and Roll and is the first of seven planned halls of the Rock Capital Museum. Perhaps it would not have been so attractive if the Rock Capital Museum had not truly been the first rock museum in Ukraine.
Do you know at least one Ukrainian punk rock band?
Do you know at least one Ukrainian punk rock band? Of course, no one asked me such a question, but I sometimes ask it to my friends. Talking about the glorious traditions of Ukrainian rock n roll, I don't want to miss punk itself. The first thing that comes to my mind is the band Borshch. Some people will say it's not punk rock, and maybe they're right. But musically and lyrically, Borshch has a spark that only lives in this style.
David Bowie’s first address
It remains interesting that even such alien rock stars as David Bowie had his parental home on our unfortunate planet. The future star lived the first 6 years of his life in 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton, London.
Formation of the Ukrainian rock n roll scene
2022 has become too difficult for one of the largest countries in Europe. It is about Ukraine and its heroic people. The passing year has brought devastation and tears, pain and suffering to the country. In its fight against the invaders, Ukraine is choosing its freedom and the right to a democratic future. Today we wanted to remember the glorious past of this musical nation and especially, we are interested in the development of the rock scene in Ukraine, in a country with its ancient roots and culture. How it was and how it was born.
Meaney and the misfits – Walk you to the altar
Pete Meaney has made a record that sounds like it was recorded in the room next to yours, by a man who has just put the kettle on and wants to tell you something that matters. "Walk You to the Altar" arrives from Plymouth with no glossy sheen and no stadium-sized chorus. It has a guitar, a voice, a few walls, and a father's reckoning with the speed of the calendar.
The Elusives – Run Away Into The Night
Some bands arrive with a press release and a haircut. The Elusives arrive with thirty years of unfinished business. "Run Away Into the Night" is the sound of two old friends opening a cupboard they locked in the Clinton years, finding the music still warm, and deciding to let it out.
QUINTESSE feat. KARL JOSEF – On my way
Pop music has never been short of songs about perseverance. They tend to arrive with a key change and a fist in the air, shouting encouragement at a listener who didn't ask for it. "On My Way" takes the opposite route. It begins almost in a whisper, and it's far more persuasive for it.
Open Horizon Records – Letting Go
Heartbreak songs usually arrive dressed for a party. They shout, they swagger, they rhyme "pain" with "rain" and hope nobody notices. "Letting Go", the new single from Lancaster's Open Horizon Records, does something braver and far quieter. It sits down at the kitchen table at two in the morning, phone face-up and silent, and tells the truth.
Pridhvi Sunain Zoro – MAHA: Make America Human Again
A debut album that opens with a title like this one is either a provocation or a pratfall. Pridhvi Sunain Zoro, a Santa Monica-based singer-songwriter, composer and producer, has made something rarer: a record that wears a slogan lifted from the loudest corner of American politics and quietly turns it inside out. Where the acronym usually shouts, Zoro asks what it would take for a country to feel like a community again, then spends nine songs working toward an answer.
Alastair Macduff – Kåtebol
A Glaswegian who has spent two decades in Sweden occupies a peculiar position: too Scottish to be Swedish, too Swedish to be Scottish, and therefore perfectly placed to notice what the locals no longer see. Alastair Macduff, now based in Gothenburg, has spent that time looking at the abandoned houses that dot the Swedish landscape, the *ödehus*, with their sagging roofs and curtains left to rot. *Kåtebol*, his first solo album, is what came back from the looking. It is a small marvel, and it is 35 minutes long, which makes it a rarity in itself.
Novaix Onyx – Close
Start with the admission, because the label does: Onyx is an AI artist. Words, arrangements, mixing decisions and creative direction are human; the voice and the visuals are generated. Novaix stamps this on every release, and the honesty clears the air. Nobody is being fooled, so the question becomes whether the music is any good. On *CLOSE*, it is better than good. It is the most coherent debut statement from a synthetic performer so far, and it would be a sharp record whatever its provenance.
Aner Andros – The Chakra Symphony
Plenty of musicians claim to heal. Few arrive with a Master's in jazz from Rome's Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, fifteen years restoring double basses, and the patience to build a seven-movement suite around the body's energy centres. Andrea Romanazzo, who records as Aner Andros, is one of the few. His debut is a serious, handsomely made piece of work. It asks to be heard from first bar to last, and it rewards anyone who obliges.
TaniA Kyllikki – HUMAN
Songs that tell us how to feel about one another are never in short supply. Far rarer is one that simply asks, then trusts the listener to do the work. "HUMAN", the new single from British independent singer-songwriter TaniA Kyllikki, puts the question in its title, repeats it until it becomes a mantra, and wraps it in a dancefloor pulse that keeps the feet busy while the conscience catches up.
Watch Me Die Inside – Fantasy Girl
Johnny O.'s original is a love song of the old, certain kind, the sort that announces a girl and a destiny in the same breath and never stops to ask whether the girl has been consulted. Watch Me Die Inside, the Cyprus-based project orbiting the enigmatic figure of Aleph, takes that certainty and holds it up to the light until it starts to look like something else: a man talking to a mirror and calling it a woman.
Inverted Mirror – Automatic Earth
Somewhere between a Bristol basement in 1995 and a Berlin dance floor in 2002, a door was left ajar. Inverted Mirror has walked through it with a single synthesizer, a drum machine's worth of nerve, and a conviction that the avant-garde and the earworm were never meant to be enemies. "Automatic Earth" is his debut, the opening transmission from a project promising three singles and then an album. If the rest keeps this standard, the signal will be worth following.
The House Flies – Lost Literature
Post-punk has spent forty-odd years learning how to dress for a funeral, and the more interesting question is whether it can dance at the wake. The House Flies, four men from Moline, Illinois, answer with "Lost Literature", the second single from their forthcoming Lions and Ore. It is gloomy, gripping and very hard to keep your feet still through.