Ukrainian discography counts albums that have become a sort of artifact, a “litmus paper” of their times. It was in the late 1980s that the rock stage began to acquire popularity, especially after the triumphant concerts of the Chervona Ruta Festival. Vika Vradii, bands Braty Hadiukiny, Vopli Vidopliasova, Zymovy Sad et al became the audience’s favorites. The significant time of social changes on the wave of national revival could not but give Ukraine new heroes and symbolic revolutionary albums which are now classics of the genre.
TOTAL MOCKERY, OR AESTHETICS OF “ANTI-HEROES”
I remember getting hold of the cassette of Braty Hadiukiny with their first album, Vsio chotko (Everything’s Fine). It was in 1989, the year when the obsession with this band started in our country, and their album portrayed an epoch of changes via the prism of unique humor and sarcasm. That’s the very reason why Vsio chotko is one of the “classics of the genre.”
In 1988 VV’s song “Tantsi” (Dances) was one of the most popular. In 1989, the Kyiv-based studio Fonohraf released an eponymous album. The cassette comprised VV’s main hits, like “Polit-rok” (Political Rock), “Hei! Liubo!” (Hey! It’s So Nice), “Buly denky” (There Were Times), “Tovarysh maior” (Major), “Polonyna” (Mountain Valley) and “Makhatma.” In 1991 the album Abo-abo (Either…Or…) was released on CD. Its recording on cassette in Paris was enriched with another portion of evergreen hits, like “Zviazok” (Connection), “Chervoni koni” (Red Horses), “Ia pidiidu” (I Will Come Up), and “Veselkovy tvist” (A Rainbow Twist). They included everything that made VV’s glory: drive, expression, and fresh ideas. Of course, the recordings were spread over the country without control of the authorities, and people became really obsessed with VV. However, in spite of the fact that the recording quality VV’s early albums was low, the band’s album Muzika (Music) released in 1997 and including countless hits “Vesna” (Spring), “Muzika” (Music), “Harmonia” (Harmony), “Hlybyna” (Deepness), “Horila sosna” (A Pine Was Burning) etc., appears to be a model work.
There were times, when Braty Hadiukiny were percieved as Lviv’s response to VV’s punk expansion. In terms of music, Braty Hadiukiny were an extreme mix of blues, rock, and Hutsul folk music. However, whereas Oleh Skrypka applied the patois of the Kyiv suburbs in his songs and looked like a typical lumpen bully, Serhii Kuzminsky presented the image of a kind of a moderate primitive villager. They both brought the “anti-hero” on stage, a man of the people, neither good, nor bad, just the way he is. They both turned slang of the streets and rudeness into aesthetics of total mockery, which was a distinguishable feature of the undeground of that stormy epoch, both in literature and music.
Let’s recall our authentic “punk-queen” Vika Vradii, who won the Grand-Prix of the international Miss-Rock Festival in 1988, legalizing the image of a unintelligent teenager, and produced three studio albums in cooperation with bass guitarist and arranger Volodymyr Bebeshko. Her debut release of Po tsymbalakh (I Don’t Give a Damn) was particularly significant, due to its many hits, “Tyndy-ryndy,” “Ukrainsky rok-n-rol” (Ukrainian Rock’N’Roll), “Shakhtarske bugi” (Miners’ Boogie-Woogie), “Ne treba, Stiopa” (Stiopa, Don’t), “Mamo, ale ia durna” (Mom, I’m So Stupid), “Hanba” (What a Shame).
CULTURAL SHOCK, RARA AVIS, AND UKRAINIAN EXOTICS
Another cult hero of the rock underground of the 1980s-early 1990s is the Kyiv band Kolezky asesor, which left a generally chimerical-fantastic image. Everything was extraordinary about them, from inventive sound constructions and text hooliganism, to queer clothes, inspired by various epochs. They would invariably evoke a storm of absolutely controversial emotions: the frontman Vasyl Haidenko managed to press such secret strings of the audience’s souls that other have never been able to reach. Since the very beginning, i.e., mid-1980s, “the assessors” remained in the avant-garde of the alternative stream and have always stood out from amongst their fellow musicians, causing cultural shock among the audience. Haidenko’s experimental opuses ranged from surrealistic art-rock to post-punk psychedelia. In terms of music and figurative thinking and concentration of innovations, “assessors” had no equals. The collection Kolezky asesor released by the independent label M. Hohol in 2001, comprises “Krepdeshyn mashyn,” “Tsar zviriv – bydlo” (The King of Beasts is Cattle), “Druha symfonia” (Second symphony), “Viiskova muzyka” (Military Music), “Feia v blakytnomu” (A Fairy Wearing Blue Clothes), “Nemaie konseptsii” (No Concept) and other symbolical works. At the moment Haidenko composes music for theatrical performances, but for the admirers the band still remains a bright example of Kyiv’s rock underground of the 1980s.
Foa Hoka, a joint Chernihiv-Kyiv project, is well remembered owing to its bright individuality in the field of electronic experiments. This is a sort of an exotic fruit, like feijoa. At the same time, it was the most exotic fruit on the Ukrainian independent stage. Dmytro Kurovsky, Ivan Moskalenko, and Vladyslav Dikhtiarenko use beats, noise, or melodious “magnifiers” in combination with live instrumental music and recitation of poetry. That was a mixed bag with handfuls of psychedelia, techno, folk and recitation of poetry. Their two albums, Muzyka bez Khaziaina (Music without a Master) and Nevidomist (Obscurity), were released in Poland by the famous lable Koka Records. The disc released by Foa Hoka in Ukraine in 2002 and called Indposhyv (Individual Sewing) is quite typical of the band. In a sense, this disc is a nihilistic, mockering requiem to the society of consumers. If art has any absurdity aesthetics, Foa Hoka is a typical example of such aesthetics on the modern rock stage.
CLOSE TO LITERATURE, ROCK MUSIC FOR INTELLIGENT PEOPLE
Merry Kapustniks gave rise to the Lviv band Mertvy Piven, the closest to literature and most mobile formation. Roman Chaika, Mykhailo Barbara and company have a large discography, but the highest concentration of “gems” is present in their album Shabadabada released in 1998. Namely this release represents to the fullest extent the variegated and ironic aesthetics of the band. Let’s recall the songs “Potsilunok” (A Kiss), “Hobelen” (Gobelin), “Kholodno” (It’s Cold), “Beautiful Karpaty” (The Beautiful Carpathians), “Lito bude” (Summer Will Come). Better than any other music bands, Mertvy Piven popularized the repertory of the poetic formation BU-BA-BU, including Andrukhovych, Neborak, and Irvanets. It has always remained a sort of a living bridge between the rock musicians and literary bohemia. Brilliant works carried produced jointly with Viktor Morozov in the album Afrodiziaky (Aphrodisiacs) and Yurii Andrukhovych in the albums Pisni dlia Metrvoho Pivnia (Songs for Mertvy Piven) and Kryminalni sonety (Criminal Sonnets) have reinforced the group’s reputation as company involved to the greatest extent in literature.
Taras Chubai and the band Plach Yeremii have always “been friends” with the refined word of poetry. A big part of the band’s songs was inspired by Taras’ father, a Sixtier dissident Hryhorii Chubai, as well as Kost Moskalets’ verses. In the 1998 the collection Dobre (Good) saw the light. This is a compilation of the three preceeding albums, Nai bude vse yak ye (Let It Be As It Is), Dveri, kotri naspravdi Ye (The Doors That Really Exist), and Khata moia (My House). All of the band’s 15 songs make its golden fund that can with confidence be included in the national rock music treasury. “Vona” (She), “Hryfon” (Gryphon), “Korydor” (Corridor), “Svitlo i spovid” (Light and Confession), “Sribne pole” (Silver Field) “Koly do hub tvoikh” (When Half-Breath Is Left To Your Lips), “Kalamutna voda” (Muddy Water) and many others are vivid examples of the rock music mainstream. Chubai’s three solo projects, Nashe Rizdvo (Our Christmas), Nash Ivasiuk (Our Ivasiuk), and Nashi partyzany (Our Guerillas), have every chance to be included in the virtual pantheon. Better than anyone else, Taras offers fantastic interpretations of the people and author’s material. All these discs were hits in Ukraine.
Korolivski Zaitsi from Lviv can also be included in the intellectual wing of the bands that cooperate closely with writers. Their model disc is called Kazky korolivstva A-Mazokh (The Fairy-Tales of the A-Mazokh Kingdom), in which vocalist Lesia Herasymchuk sang poems by Lesia Ukrainka, Lina Kostenko, Pavlo Tychyna, and Beranger in a genre she defined as “alternative romance.” Without doubt, another quality standard is the album Zhovta kulbaba (Yellow Dandelion) by the band Sestry Telniuk, who successfully operate in complicated new-age stylistics, and display an extremely subtle and qualitative manner. In their work they have always used poems by their father, Stanislav Telniuk, as well Vasyl Stus and Ivan Kozachenko. Zhovta kulbaba is their first release, in which they presented several masterpieces they wrote themselves. It is intellectual rock music with a female face for spiritually mature people.
WHO ARE YOU, ROCK POETS?
The bands Nebesna kopalyna, Rutenia, Vasia-Klab, Mandry, and Vii were especially influential among the groups oriented at their own lyrics. The original songs of the frontman and guitarist of Nebesna kopalyna Yurii Polchenko were concentrated not on their first release, as it frequently happens, but on the ultimate one, Spliat yanholy (The Angels Are Sleeping). The songs “Chas ide kriz nas” (Time Is Moving Through Us), “Chekai” (Wait), “Spliat yanholy” (Angels Are Sleeping), “Moia liuba” (My Darling), “Zlitai” (Fly Up), “Sribny den” (A Silver Day) have attracted admirers of intellectual discourse in poetry. Spliat yanholy was the best, but unfortunately the last release of the Kyiv formation.
The urban folklore of the extremely talented poet, actor, and singer Vasyl Honcharsky is embodied in the three studio albums of his band, Vasia Klab. The band’s first CD Khipan has become axiomatic to some extent. This is a pure classic for Vasyl fans. “Ne puskai divcha huliaty,” “Chorna hora,” “Don Juan,” “Shidi-ridi,” “Hey, Jo” and other songs have long ago become popular.
In the same way, Mandry’s first CD Romansero pro nizhnu korolevu (A Romance About A Tender Queen) remains a sort of Everest for Serhii Fomenko (Foma) and his company. There he reveals himself to the fullest extent as a romantic poet and stylist of purely folk melodies, aptly ajusted to the contemporary needs of the urbanized audience. Such songs as “Dochka melnyka” (Miller’s Daughter), “Riaba kobyla” (Skewbald Mare), “Kartata sorochka” (Checked Shirt), “Stary shynok” (Old Tavern), “Choven” (A Boat), “Rizdviana nich” (A Night Before Christmas) are perceived today as axiomatic for their genre.
Anatolii Sukhy in his album Desiat rokiv po tomy (Ten Years Later), which is a partial summary of the activety of the band Rutenia, appears today as a non-trivial poet of the Kyiv student underground. The songs “Rozheve misto” (Rose Town), “Kruky” (Ravens), “Polit nad krylom kondora” (Flying Over Condor’s Wing), “Kolyskova” (A Lullaby), “Nich purpurovykh vohniv” (The Night of Purple Fires) etc. are unique example of the student resistance movement’s poetry of the early 1980s.
The leader of the band Vii Dmytro Dobry Vechir is distinguished among other poets due to his deeply mystical worldview and specific charisma. As for Vii, this band has long ago taken a decent place in the Ukrainian “pantheon of rock musicians.” In terms of high concentration of ideas and images, the album Chorna rillia (Black Tillage) remains an archetype, it has already undergone several successful releases. Their fundamental works include “Polit korshaka” (Kite’s Flight), “Zmia” (Serpent), “Ochi vidmy” (Witch’s Eyes) “Rizdviana balada” (A Christmas Ballade), “Tuman” (Frog), “Mizh nebom ta zemleiu” (Between The Earth And Heaven).
A different kind of non-conformist poet, Andrii Kuzmenko, has enriched the home rock stage with a whole arsenal of poetic findings, which can be seen mostly in the early albums of the band Skriabin, Mova ryb (Language Of The Fish), Kazky (Fairy-Tales), Ptakhy (Birds), Khrobak (A Worm). A crafty adherent of the Galician patois, Kuzma has enriched the treasury of rock music poetry with a hundred of colourful “gems.” The reactive 19-year career of Kuzma and his band produced 20 albums. Taking into account the long-lasting and complicated evolution of Skriabin, their jubilee album entitled Albom (Album), released by Lavina in 2004, can be distinguished as a paragon.
Apart from that, the Gothic folk industrial band called Komu Vnyz looms a real slump in the history of Ukrainian rock music. Andrii Sereda composed his famous hit to Shevchenko’s poem “Subotiv” as a present for his father’s birthday back in 1983. For the entire period since “Subotiv” was first performed at Chervona Ruta’98, people meet this hymn with standing ovation. On the whole, Komu Vnyz features the highest concentration of spiritual strength, originality, and innovation in all aspects of the job performed by musicians, poets, and arrangers. They continue to be placed in a specific niche among high-principled non-conformists, and it’s the only band that has stayed there for so long. They have never tried to adjust to the coordinate systems existing in show-business, but have always been following their own route. Their “classics and standard” is present in the album In Kaktus, 1996.
THE ETHNO-ROCK DISCOURSE
Some eight or ten years ago a new music stream emerged in Ukraine and started to develop rapidly. It can be referred to as ethno-fusion. The adherents of the style and its founding fathers, Haidamaky, Perkalaba, Ocheretiany Kit, and Burdon, are actually the most expressive representatives of the main achievements of the stream. They have many followers, a lot of big regular festivals that popularize the aesthetics of ethno-rock. As for the model audio release, we also have a lot of them, and they are regularly growing in number and quality. According to the well-known logic, “the first shoot is the loudest,” in Haidamaky’s creative work was, again, the debut audio release that did not have any title, but had quite a well-propotioned concept of total revival of eternal, almost forgotten values. Then they managed to draw attention of many people, not only in Ukraine. Today Haidamaky gives the highest number of concerts in Europe of all Ukrainian bands. “Sviat Vechir” (Christmas Eve), “Karpatenska” (The Carpathian Song), “Polissia,” “Bila-bila” (Very White), “Zhnyva” (Harvest), “A vzhe rokiv 200” (For already 200 Years) is only a small part of Haidamaky’s arsenal, which it is successively promoting at home and abroad. The ska punk variation of the ethnodiscourse of the Ivano-Frankivsk band Perkalaba is also represented by their first album Hor-r-ry. Perkalaba is also successfully paving its way in Europe, and at home it is an invariable adornment of numerous ethno-events. Ocheretiany Kit has had a much longer way. At first the band played fairly sophisticated ambient-psychodelic electronic music (Mania), later they performed the original kolomyikas (Kolomyiky) and finally released a super-stylish album Mandrivka v Kosakivku (A Journey to Kosakivka). Of all the three albums that have been released by Lviv’s Burdon, where the world music concept, i.e., medler of the world’s ethnocultures has dominated since the very beginning, a special attention should be given to the last one, Taistra Chuhaistra.
The origins of all modern trends and tendencies, which are constantly swirling in the conditional plane of the contemporary, modern, and very versatile rock culture of the early 21st century, can be found in one way or another in the albums of their predecessors, the stars of the Ukrainian rock stage of the 1980s-1990s. However, sometimes we see a deja vu effect, while sometimes the newcomers provide a pleasant surprise, showing that they have learned their lessons well, and can astonish us with real discoveries and artefacts. But let’s speak about this some other time.
