Dakha Brakha one of Ukraine’s musical treasures is set to unleash its wild fusion of authentic village folk, punk, hip hop and tribal trance in a genre they call “ethno chaos” at the 2016 Womadelaide Festival.
Dakha Brakha first appeared at Womadelaide in 2011 to rapturous applause. Since then they have appeared at major festivals around the world including the UK Womad, Sziget and Bonaroo. Rolling Stone magazine called them, “The best breakout band of Bonaroo,” while commenting on their mournful accordion and apocalyptic cello sawing”
DakhaBrakha were formed at the avant garde Dakh Theatre for Contemporary Arts in Kyiv under the visionary guidance of the innovative director Vlad Troitsky. They are Marko Halanevych – (a philologist and actor by training who brings a sense of the theatrical to the group) and Iryna Kovalenko, Nina Garenetska, Olena Tsibulska – all graduates of the Ukrainian Folklore and Culture Faculty at Kyiv University.
Their sense of theatre has seen them collaborate with visionary directors for the Gogolfest as well as providing the musical backing for adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet at London’s Barbican Theatre. They also provided the musical score and occasional live backing for the digitally remastered Alexander Dovhenko 1930 cinema masterpiece “Zemlia” or “Earth”
Their sense of dramatic tension naturally led the girls to initially wearing stylised wedding dresses and imposing fur hats. While the fur hats remain, the wedding dresses have now gone and have been replaced by colourful costumes which bear motifs created for their “Karpatsky Rap” video clip by Sashko Danylenko.
Their willingness to experiment has seen them participate in some wildly successful collaborative projects. The New Zealand produced television show Making Tracks invited Dakaha Brakha to cover the Concord Dawn electronic trance anthem “Morning Light,” while Finland’s master of psychedelic accordion, Kimmo Pohjonnen shared the stage with Dakha Brakha at the UK Womad Festival. Closer to Ukraine, DakhaBrakha released a CD with The Belarus experimental folksters, Port Mone and recently performed concerts with Ukraine’s official entrant to this year’s Eurovision, the Crimean songstress, Jamala.
Real life dramatic events have not escaped the band, and they performed music in support of the 2004 Orange Revolution and the recent Maidan Revolution of Dignity. Ash Akhtar’s review of their 2014 UK Womad concert for musicOMH, highlights the “extra poignancy, given recent events in their home country. Oddly beguiling, occasionally deliberately atonal, their incredible vocal harmonies collide with furious drumming. Their music takes on an electronic shape, the tent becomes a church – the crowd push to rave. Ukranian raps and accordions deliver a crescendo that stuns WOMAD to a moment of rare silence.”
Frontman, Marko Halanevych has this to say about the band and their mission,
“For over three hundred years Ukraine didn’t exist on the political world map. For a long time our people were divided between two empires. We thank God and all the generations of people who have fought for our independence and took part in keeping of our songs, language and our traditions. The task we set ahead of us now is to reveal Ukraine to the world and more importantly to ourselves – Ukrainians.
The root of our music is the songs of our ancestors, some of which have pre-historic roots. In these texts and melodies lies the identification of our nation. At the same time, we dare to experiment with art, combining our ethnic style with various instruments, rhythms and melodies of other music cultures of the world giving new sound and life to the old songs.”
Mariana Sadovska, folk singer and daughter of the legendary Ukrainian artist Victor Morozov, had this to say about the recent DakhaBrakha concert in New York City, “So much light and so much power. Listening to DakhaBrakha tonight in NYC made me feel so happy and full of hope!”
DakhaBrakha are extraordinary live performers as they beat out wildly percussive rhythms and then send you into a mesmerizing trance with their soaring polyphonic harmonies. Their most recent claim to fame was an appearance on the BBC’s iconic “Later…with Jools Holland” .In the immortal words of Australian rock, do yourself a favour and see for yourself what the music community around the world is raving about.
Dakha Brakha will be performing on Friday at 9.30 pm on the Novatech stage and Saturday at 4.00 pm on the main Foundation Stage.
Dakha Brakha will also be appearing at the Port Fairy Festival in Victoria.
Rostyslav Becker
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