Year: 2007
Genre: Electronic Glitch Orchestration
Label: Kvitnu
TRT: 24:34
When this album came up in my listening queue, it had been some time since I'd acquired it, and I didn't remember anything about it or why I had picked it up in the first place. So when I imported it into my media player of choice, I was not pleased to see the pre-loaded tags associated with the album. The ubiquitous and criminally undescriptive: "New Age". I rolled me eyes and cleared the genre and re-tagged the album in the same manner I tag all my digital collection. The song titles did nothing to assuage my doubts, nothing but a variation on that well known pop culture phrase: “Breath In, Breath Out”.
In short, I was already pre-disposed to dismiss this album out of hand before hearing the first sound it contained. The tones of the brief first track seemed only to confirm my thoughts on the matter. But then I listened to the rest of the album, and completely changed my mind. Threw out every assumption I had so hastily made.
Kateryna Zavoloka is a Ukrainian musician, who is always looking for a way to push the boundaries of sound. On this release, she combines glitchy and experimental electronic beats with traditional Ukrainian folk instruments, such as the fiddle and violin, playing in a manner inspired by traditional folk songs from her home country.
The result is a very unique listen, reminiscent of Saltillo’s Ganglion, but darker and with more of the emphasis on the beats rather than the orchestrations, and with a less structured approach.
All in all, she’s created quite a satisfying little slice of digital pie...for a girl.
01 Inhale
02 Exhale
03 Inhale
04 Exhale
05 Inhale
06 Exhale
07 Inhale
08 Exhale
09 Inhale
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