As the situation in Ukraine grows increasingly dire, music from this region continues to be both vital and indispensable. In only a couple weeks, Gianmarco Del Re will mark the previously inconceivable fourth anniversary of the invasion in the sombre Ukrainian Field Notes LII. One of the standout interviews comes from radio host Kvitoslava, whose Кияночка series is excavating the past and gracing it with vibrant new life. While our readers will have to wait to read the interview, we are happy to share the first broadcast now, billed under the name kyïvite.
The broadcast incorporates sixty-year-old archival recordings of the Transcarpathian Folk Choir under the direction of Mykhailo Krechko. Lightly processed and adorned with crackle, the music pulses with life. One can hear the record spinning in “a violin plays in the street,” the needle hitting the same pop on each rotation. A droning chord surges forward; the choir erupts. An early phrase loops over a stuttered beat, but this is not dance music; this is music of remembrance and honor. The fact that the modern version resembles a march is no coincidence, given the conditions of war; but the final minutes are laden with grace. Seemingly out of nowhere, the choir reappears, holy and ebullient, and even the drums stop to listen.
Older music has always lived on in new forms. Songs are recorded and heard, memorized and sung, passed down generation to generation. Scores are written and stored, and new renditions composed. But what if the scores and records are destroyed along with the collective memory of those who have sung and played them? In such cases, the songs live on as ghosts, in fragments of remembered lyrics and melodies. “dear highlands” captures such fragments, reassembling them to create a new whole, underlining the importance of cultural preservation in the face of those who would eradicate it.
The slow and mournful “a bird flew by” sounds like an elegy, especially in its abraded setting. The soloist reaches to the very bottom of the soul, the title implying a dream of liberation. Ukraine has been under assault before, and survived, but this music imagines a time when it might reach even greater heights, transcending its history and its circumstances, with every cage opened, every voice channeling those of generations before, bathing in their accumulated strength. We can’t wait for more of this series; 09/01/26 is a stunning start. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 