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.
Ten Ton Devil – Bad Hombres
Wilmington, North Carolina isn't the first postcode you'd circle on a map of thrash metal's ancestral homelands, but The Mighty Caputo — recording alone under the name Ten Ton Devil — has never struck me as a man overly concerned with pedigree. "Bad Hombres" arrives like a fist through drywall: unannounced, unapologetic, and leaving a mess that somebody else will have to clean up.
Zoé-Loes – Sanctuary
Some records announce themselves with a shout. "Sanctuary" arrives instead like a held breath, and it's all the more devastating for it. Born out of a writers' room at The Woods' Berlin Songfest and shepherded into being by producer Kevin Lehr alongside the songwriting trio of Sonia Maselik, Stefi Martine Ringen and Izumi Takagi, this is a track that understands the difference between drama and melodrama, and refuses to confuse the two. Zoé-Loes has built something that feels less like a pop single and more like a room you're invited into — dim-lit, private, a little dangerous.
The Ulkerrs – Love Me Crazy
Few pop songs bother to dramatize the actual mechanics of staying together. Most settle for the easy shorthand of love as feeling, a swell of strings standing in for commitment. "Love Me Crazy" by The Ulkerrs refuses that shortcut. It treats love as work, as negotiation, as two people choosing each other again on a Tuesday when choosing would be easier not to, and the song is far richer for the honesty.
Suzanne Grzanna – Sunset Dreams
Every so often a single lands with the unmistakable scent of coconut oil and warm tarmac, and Suzanne Grzanna's "Sunset Dreams" arrives exactly on cue, timed for release the same week she premieres it live at Summerfest. It's a shrewd piece of scheduling, because this samba was clearly built for outdoor air, brass catching the evening light, a crowd swaying before they've even decided to.
Watch Me Die Inside – Infinity Fall III
Comfort, that band once suggested, might be the real enemy. On this three-track EP, Watch Me Die Inside make that argument with the conviction of people who've actually lived inside it, and the result is a record that unsettles far more than it soothes — deliberately, gorgeously so.
Marcin Sanakiewicz – Unfolked Piano. Some Polish Themes
For nearly thirty years, Marcin Sanakiewicz has been the invisible hand steadying other people's careers: arranger, musical director, accompanist to Bartosz Chajdecki, Janusz Radek, and the storied cabaret Piwnica pod Baranami. It takes a particular kind of patience to spend a professional lifetime in the wings, and it takes a particular kind of confidence to finally walk to centre stage with nothing but a piano and a set of borrowed melodies. *Unfolked Piano. Some Polish Themes* is that walk, taken slowly, deliberately, and — this is the record's great trick — almost silently.
Hollywand – White Magic
Ten years is a long time to sit with eight songs. Long enough for a record to calcify into pastiche, or, if the maker is patient and unshowy about it, long enough for something genuinely lived-in to emerge. HOLLYWAND's debut, White Magic, belongs firmly to the second category — a record that wears its decade of gestation not as a gimmick but as texture, the way a well-loved leather jacket wears its creases.
Lomens – Surely Not?
Leeds has a habit of producing bands who sound like they've spent a winter arguing about genre and lost, gloriously, on every front. Lomens are the latest case for the prosecution. Five old friends — Christopher Parker on vocals, Jordan McNamara on drums, Jason Glazebrook and Joshua Stevens trading guitar and bass duties, Thomas Nicholson filling the gaps with synth and percussion — have spent the past year building a debut EP that refuses to sit still, and "Surely Not?" is the moment that refusal pays off.
Lil’ Mike – Shuryo
Goldtown is not, on the face of it, a breeding ground for demon hunters. But that is precisely the mythology Lil' Mike has built for himself on "Shuryo," the lead statement from his "HotDamn" EP, and by the second verse you believe every word of it.
The Snow Ponies – Oh My God
Phil Dean has spent three decades learning how to disappear inside a song, and on "Oh My God" he finally puts that skill to proper use. This is the fourth single lifted from a forthcoming album, and it arrives glittering with mirrorball confidence, a record that treats disco not as pastiche but as a language for saying something tender out loud.
Kiey – phan thiet
Grief has always made for peculiar pop music. It arrives sideways, dressed up as nostalgia or seaside reverie, and it takes a canny songwriter to smuggle real devastation past the listener's guard. Kiey manages exactly that with "phan thiet," a single so gently disarming you barely notice it's broken your heart until the final chorus has already done the damage.
Rorksha – Récif
French solo outfit Rorksha has fashioned something genuinely arresting with "Récif," a single that understands the value of patience before it lets rip. The title translates to "reef," and the song earns that image with unusual honesty: it doesn't arrive as a wall of noise but as a whisper that slowly gathers weight, guitar and voice circling each other with the wariness of two people testing whether trust is worth the risk.