Alla Zagaykevych and Electroacoustic’s Ensemble
Alla Zagaykevych and Electroacoustic’s Ensemble - Nord/Ouest (2012)
Recorded on June 12 2010 at Studio Arkadiya, Kyiv, Ukraine
Recording engineer - Arkady Vikhariev
Mixed and mastered at Electronic Music Studio
of Kyiv National Music Academy by Alla Zagaykevych
cover by Alex Vorodeyev
“Geo-poetical” project by Electroacoustic’s ensemble lays an emphasis on primitive mystery and “elusiveness” of the folklore of North-Western region of Ukraine, famous Rivne Polissya, on its “free” and at the same time very “closed” nature. “Cultural vector is nord/ouest” (G.Debord), in this piece it means not so much “natural spreading” of culture, as it means rapt “listening” to “sounds” and “signs” of nord/ouest. Structural idea of the piece is based on creating an original heterophonic ensemble, combining electronic and instrumental means with folklore material.
The piece is composed by request of the Second Festival of Tradirional and Avant-Garde Music (II Festiwal Tradycji i Awangardy Muzycznej) KODY (2010, Lublin, Poland).
Electroacoustic’s Ensemble:
Alla Zagaykevych - composition, programming, live electronics, vocal, theremin
Iryna Klymenko - vocal
Sergiy Okhrimchuk - violin, vocal
Vadim Jovich - percussion
Alla Zagaykevych (b.1966) - Ukrainian composer, she studied composition in Kyiv National Music Academy and the Institut IRCAM (Paris). List of Zagaykevych’s works include symphonic, instrumental and vocal chamber music, electroacoustic compositions, multi-media installations and performances, chamber opera, music for films.
Electroacoustic’s Ensemble is a group of musicians, specialized in performance of electroacoustic music of different genres. It was created in 2009 in Ukraine by composer Alla Zagaykevych as an international ensemble with changeable cast, a “transformer” project; depending on conception it includes academic, national authentic or “new improvisation music” performers
Alla Zagaykevych and Electroacoustic's Ensemble - "II (excerpt)" (Nord/Ouest) - text by By Adam Strohm
I don’t know much about Ukrainian arts and culture. Sad but true, even though I live in a Chicago neighborhood full of Ukrainian immigrants and their descendants, minutes away from the foremost exhibitor of Ukrainian art outside the borders of the former Soviet state. I’m a negligent interloper into a cultural enclave, perhaps, though I plead in my defense that traditional Ukrainian music has never really had its time in the sun. Plenty of people know the sound of Bulgarian vocal choirs, Tuvan throat singing, and Balinese gamelan, but Ukrainian folk styles are probably an unknown to all but the most intrepid of ethnic music explorers. For that reason, there’s a part of Nord/Ouest that’s liable to soar right over the heads of many non-Ukrainian listeners. The proclaimed “geo-political” music was inspired by the folklore and physical environment of Ukraine’s Rivne Polissya region, an amalgamation of modern electronics with traditional sounds from Ukraine’s northwest. Even if one can’t pick up on the specifics of what Alla Zagaykevych and Company are doing, the contrast at the core of Nord/Ouest is easily apparent.
Alla Zagaykevych is the founder of Electroacoustic’s Ensemble and Nord/Ouest’s core contributor. Her electronics are the album’s constant, the ocean on which the rest of the music floats. Vaporous clusters of tones swoop and swirl in colorful auroras, littered with a miscellany of other electronic emissions and occasional theremin -- squiggly spurts like a foghorn amidst the sometimes murky haze. Vadim Jovich’s percussion plays at the music’s outer edges, providing textural support and arrhythmic splatters, in league with Zagaykevych’s electronics in setting the scene for Nord/Ouest’s leads. On the first and third untitled tracks, Sergiy Okhrimchuk’s violin plays at center stage, scratching and scribbling in messy tangles, arresting itself before it engages in any activity that might be construed as too melodic. There’s attention paid to an overall ambience, but Nord/Ouest isn’t an album that aims for cohesion or an overly homogenized sound. This becomes most apparent on the second track, which features vocals from Iryna Klymenko, with accompaniment from Zagaykevych, and Okhrimchuk. It’s in the singing that Nord/Ouest ’s link to Ukrainian folklore is at its most obvious. Even when it’s echoed or effected, the strident voices ring out as Electroacoustic’s Ensemble’s human element, that which keeps the album’s conceit from feeling too academic. When Klymenko duets with Zagaykevych, the effect can be chilling and I find the music fading into the background; when one or the other sings alongside Okhrimchuk’s violin, the album comes as close as it will get to conventional beauty. There are hints at what I assume to be traditional Ukrainian songs, signposts to those in the know in a language that few in America will understand. Incomprehension makes them no less arresting.
I probably wouldn’t make many friends jamming Nord/Ouest out on the streets of my neighborhood, but I imagine that someone from or familiar with Rivne Polissya might enjoy or understand the album in ways that I don’t. Still, the broad stroke collisions that constitute the album are easy to understand. The dichotomies between old and new, electronic and acoustic, human and inhuman, are at the crux of what Zagaykevych and her compatriots are exploring. It’s no coincidence that the segments of the album that concentrate on the electronics, well executed as they may be, pale in comparison to Nord/Ouest more heterogeneous intersections of sound. Like the inexplicable possessive in the Electroacoustic’s Ensemble’s name, this album leaves the listener with some questions, but Nord/Ouest is often at its best when it’s most mysterious.
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Цей запис, замішаний на переосмисленні фольклору Рівненського Полісся - дійсно дивна подорож по закинутих місцинах і забутих спогадах, містична і прозаїчна водночас. Прозаїчна - бо після 1986 року Рівненське Полісся невпинно спустошується, тож тут справді йдеться про покинуті села і здичавілі землі. Містична - бо, з одного боку, фольклор саме цих місцин не раз вражав глибиною коріння, яке сягало значно далі, ніж просто дохристиянська доба. З іншого ж - ця місцевість, опромінена в результаті Чорнобильського вибуху, постає як генетично модифікований жорсткими зовнішніми впливами носій зерна пост-ядерної культури, в якій доісторичне і новочасне може сплавитися, злитися в єдину спіраль, аби вийти за межі історичного мислення і структурованої культури. У всякому разі, така можливість є - і альбом "Nord/Ouest" можна розглядати як один з варіантів її озвучення. Не менш дотепний, ніж, скажімо, "Опромінені звуки" Олександра Нестерова (власне, перший подібний експеримент в українській музиці). Алла Загайкевич - майстер ясного і незручного вислову, що його неможливо проковтнути, не доклавши зусиль до розуміння. Це свого роду виклик, провокація небайдужих. А до байдужих, мабуть, і байдуже.. Антон Йожик Лейба
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Electroacoustic’s Ensemble - коллектив, специализирующийся на исполнении электроакустической музыки разных жанров. Созданный в Украине Аллой Загайкевич в 2009 году ансамбль является международным коллективом с изменяемым составом, проектом - «трасформером», когда в зависимости от замысла концертного проекта исполнительский состав включает «академических» исполнителей, музыкантов народного аутентичного исполнения или музыкантов “new improvisation music”. Среди участников ансамбля - Сергей Охримчук, скрипка (Украина), Илья Белоруков, саксофоны (Россия), Владислав Макаров, виолончель (Росся), Максим Шалыгин, баян (Украина), Амир Хатаи, сантур, томбек (Иран), Вадим Йович, перкуссия, видео-арт (Украина), Ирина Клименко, пение (Украина), Алла Загайкевич, компьютер, программирование, терменвокс (Украина).
NORD/OUEST (2010)
Следующий после “SUD/EST «гео-поетический» проект Electroacoustic’s ensemble акцентирует на хтоничности и «непойманости» фольклора северно-западного региона Украины, знаменитого Ровненского полесья, его «свободной» и одновременно очень «закрытой» природе. “Вектор культуры - nord/ouest» (Г. Дебор) в этом произведении означает не столько «свободное распространение» культуры, сколько - сосредоточенное «прислушивание» к «звукам» и «знакам» nord/ouest. Структурная идея произведения базируется на создании своеобразного гетерофонного ансамбля электронных и инструментальных средств с фольклорным материалом.
Произведение написано на заказ Международного фестиваля «Традиции и авангарды. Коды» в Люблине.
http://testone.fotostyle.msk.ru
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