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.
Eyal Har-Noy – This Is Me
Pop rock has a habit of mistaking volume for feeling. Eyal Har-Noy's new single, *This Is Me*, goes the other way. It begins quietly, almost shyly, like a man clearing his throat before saying something he has rehearsed in the mirror for years. By the time the chorus arrives, that nervous clearing of the throat has become a declaration, and a room full of strangers could happily sing it back.
Firefly Search Party – Sing Me A Song
Nobody asked for another song about wandering. The troubadour with a rucksack and a restless heart is among the oldest figures in popular music, and the road has been worn smooth by a century of boots. Firefly Search Party walk it anyway, and "Sing Me A Song," the second single from their debut album *Prism of Dispositions*, turns out to be a small, glowing, thoroughly disarming thing.
Susie Cousins – Take On Me
A-ha's "Take On Me" arrived in 1985 wearing a pencil-sketch video and a synthesiser riff bright enough to power a small town. Its chorus is a notorious vocal assault course, which Morten Harket scaled with the nonchalance of a man popping out for milk. Since then it has been covered by everyone from wedding bands to metal outfits, usually with all the subtlety of a dropped tray. So when Susie Cousins announces that she has stripped it of synthesisers and handed it to a string quartet, the sensible reviewer sharpens his pencil and prepares to be unkind.
LTMAA – Violent Bouquets
Flowers have always been the great alibi of the dangerous man. They arrive wrapped in cellophane and ribbon, they are presented in public, and they ask the recipient to be grateful. LTMAA understands this better than most songwriters, and "Violent Bouquets", the second dispatch from her debut solo EP, builds an entire nightmare from the idea.
The Snow Ponies – Holding On
Every so often a record turns up that has no business existing, and is all the better for it. *Holding On*, the debut album from The Snow Ponies, was recorded over twelve months by one man in the Waikato, who played every instrument himself. That man is Phil Dean. His CV includes thirty-odd years of gigging, a guard's uniform in *Rings of Power*, a thumping from Jason Momoa in *Aquaman 2*, and a head injury that has left him unable to tolerate bright lights and loud noise. This is not the usual route to a good guitar record, and yet here it is.
Molly Warburton – Eyes Wide Open
Molly Warburton has served her apprenticeship in public. Years of gigging around Lancashire and beyond, from Kendal Calling to The Great Escape, plus a national-competition slot on Lucy Spraggan's tour, have given her the kind of stagecraft that cannot be faked. *Eyes Wide Open*, five songs long and released this September, is that education turned into craft. It sounds like a record by someone who has watched a great many faces in a great many rooms and learned what they need to hear.
Social Treble – Dead Reckoning… The Last Known Location
Concept albums have a reputation for pomp, for capes and wizards and side-long suites about dragons. Social Treble's debut keeps the ambition and drops the costume. Its hero is a software architect known to his employer as Token AS-1133, and its villain is a customer-service reflex: a wellness system that logs his distress, stamps the time, issues a reference number and sends him back to his task list. Nobody walks down the corridor. The record names this Timestamp Care, and it is the sharpest idea in progressive music for some years.
Segana – Midnight Masquerade
Synth-pop has a habit of arriving at the party in a rented tuxedo, all sheen and no stories. Segana, the Sydney duo of Blair Djuna and Josh Paltoo, turn up in denim and trainers, sit on a graffiti-scrawled wall, and then make the neon sound dangerous again. *Midnight Masquerade*, their ten-song after-hours confessional, is a record of real swagger and, better still, real nerve.
More to Give – Popkanon, RarriQUESO, Jack Flash
A sufficient number of synthesisers can make almost any sentiment sound like a revelation, and pop has long confused grandeur with depth. "More to Give", the 22nd release from the Norwegian-Chicagoan songwriting trio Popkanon, arrives with a modesty that makes its ambitions all the more convincing. Credited alongside the Chicago Latin artist RarriQUESO and the producer Jack Flash, it is a song about stubbornness, the particular kind that survives a bad few years and still manages to look at a horizon without flinching.
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.