Made under wartime conditions with a stated narrative of self-actualization, VOVK‘s new bilingual two-songer Tiger/Tyhr is out today ahead of the trio starting an Eastern European tour alongside Ukrainian countrymen Stoned Jesus. The band’s atmospheric take is wrought through start-stop riffing and a relevant perspective on creativity that of course extends beyond just the idea of someone leaving their comfort zone, though it’s fitting that the music should find the revamped three-piece pushing themselves outside their own as well. Someone smarter than me once said that, whatever else it does, all art tells the story of its own creation. So here we are.

Best wishes to VOVK on the upcoming tour, and as American attentions turn toward domestic unrest rather than, let’s face it, aiding Ukraine in what’s for us a proxy war against Russia — not our first of this still-young-ish century — it’s crucial to remember that this conflict of aggression drags on regardless of what the news cycle here is covering. Hey did anyone hear about some schmuck buying Twitter? Again, so here we are.

Tiger/Tyhr is out today on various digital outlets. Support:

The Ukrainian band VOVK presents double single Tiger | Tyhr

Available here: https://vovk.bandcamp.com/album/tiger-tyhr

On November 8th 2022, Ukrainian prog/post-hardcore band VOVK presents their latest double single Tiger | Tyhr and a lyric video accompanying it. It’s a first for the band that releases in both languages: English and Ukrainian, and will be a part of a future album. The song was written 2 years ago and had only an English version, but after a successful DakhaBrakha cover, the band decided to switch to Ukrainian.

The song is about a person that is too afraid to get out of their comfort zone. They are not committing to important deeds due to a constant fear of failure, which leads to undervaluing their own successes. In times of war, people frequently feel that their help or donations are too little or even meaningless, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single bit of help brings us closer to victory.

The song was being worked on by the new VOVK line-up, which consists of Oleksandr Kuts, joined by Yevhenii Khrulov (Pustosh, Ooze), and Yehor Druzenko (Ooze). Due to constant power infrastructure bombings from russia, recording process stalled and the band was forced to push the release over and over again, and frequent power outages prevented smooth mastering of the track.

Recording, mixing and mastering was made at Lizard Audio studio under Roman Bondar’s watchful eye.

Lyric video was shot by Nataliia Ivasiuk, and edited by Dmytro Koshyk.

Right after this release, VOVK is going on tour with Stoned Jesus visiting Eastern Europe and collecting donations for Ukrainian volunteers. First concert is on November 10 followed by 11 concerts in 7 countries of Europe.

VOVK w/ Stoned Jesus:
10.11 Kablys – Vilnius, LT
11.11 Sveta Baar – Tallinn, EE
12.11 Vagonu Haal – Riga, LV
13.11 Lemmy – Kaunas, LT
14.11 Drizzly Grizzly – Gdansk, PL
15.11 Pod Minoga – Poznan, PL
16.11 Hybrydy – Warsaw, PL
17.11 Fuga – Bratislava, SK
18.11 Form Space – Cluj-Napoca, RO
19.11 Mixtape 5 – Sofia, BG
20.11 Expirat – Bucharest, RO

https://facebook.com/vovkband
https://instagram.com/vovkband
https://twitter.com/vovkband
https://vovk.bandcamp.com/

VOVK, “Tiger” lyric video

Not sure a case really needs to be made for this one. This is Igor Sydorenko from Stoned Jesus, Olexander Kuts from VOVK and Kostyantyn Kalachikov of Shiva the Destructor — three killer Ukrainian bands, the first of whom also just released new music — in a room jamming. They don’t mention it in the info below, but the Jam for Victory session that results in Vol. 1 below — you’ll note immediately that they allow for future collaboration to take place — was an off-the-cuff jam that took place on May 13. The Russian invasion of the nascent trio’s home country has been going on for nearly 100 days, and I guess after a while you find comfort wherever you can. For artists, that should absolutely be in art. So here we are.

The recording is what it is. They say it’s on an iPhone and it sounds like it. But if you’re going to begrudge these dudes five Euro that’s going to local charities on the ground in a frickin’ war zone — really, even if they were keeping the money and buying liquor and drugs with it, which, again, they’re not — then I’m not sure I have anything for you. If you can’t see the point of this, you may be willfully blind, and you might want to look into that.

War on any side, for any purpose, is not a thing to be celebrated. Peace as soon as possible:

JAM FOR VICTORY was an idea by Kostyantyn Kalachikov (SHIVA THE DESTRUCTOR, ASTRONAUT DUCK KILLS) – just to get in the room with some fellow Ukrainian musicians to try and remember what it is to be a musician in these terrifying times. Olexandr Kuts (VOVK) and Igor Sydorenko (STONED JESUS, ARLEKIN, KROBAK, etc) were the first people he decided to jam with, they said “let’s do this!” and coupla days later their first and so far only jam session happened.

But before they played a note, Igor proposed to record their spontaneous performance just in case – and lo and behold, now you can listen to it as it was! All proceeds go to local Ukrainian charities, so feel free to support us in any way possible. Enjoy and share!

Tracklisting:
1. I-5 05:47
2. I-4 06:34
3. I-8 05:55
4. I-3 03:29
5. I-6 05:21
6. I-9 03:25
7. I-1 07:19

Jam for Victory:
Kostyantyn Kalachikov – drums, idea
Olexandr Kuts – bass, artwork
Igor Sydorenko – guitar, recording, editing

https://jamforvictory.bandcamp.com/

Jam for Victory, Vol. 1 (2022)

I like to think that usually when I put something up like this, it might catch eyes from a range of people, or if not, at least I don’t have a specific person in mind. This is not one of those posts. This post is made for one person in particular, and whoever you are, you all know that person. They’re the ones who piss and moan about how everything new sucks and there’s nothing good coming out like when they were 12 or whatever and nothing is cool and blah blah blah. Everyone knows that person. Sometimes I think we’ve all been that person, but there’s never been less of an excuse for being that person than there is now. New music is everywhere. Everywhere. Not only is it waiting to be discovered, it’s pretty much throwing itself in your face and screaming “HERE I AM AND ALSO I’M PROBABLY FREE AT LEAST TO STREAM!”

Short of new music showing up at your doorstep carrying a tray of warm blueberry muffins, I find it hard to think of ways in which it could be made easier than it is in this day and age. It’s one of the fringe benefits of the apocalypse in which we reside.

Case in point, here comes Ukrainian imprint Robustfellow Productions with a 42-track/three-plus-hour label sampler bringing together past releases with exclusive songs, upcoming stuff and a whole mess of styles rammed together for your, well, sampling convenience. Frankly, if you — yes, you — make it past Eternal Elysium and Thunderchief and are still complaining there’s nothing good out there, the problem isn’t the rest of the world, but even if they’re not your thing, there’s a ton of stuff here and I won’t even pretend to know it all. It just takes the smallest amount of digging through, that’s all.

So go on. It’s waiting for you:

Robustfellow Prods. is happy to present FREE music sampler featuring finest representatives of the robust scene for the recent times. Listen to the highlights form Robustfellow’s roster., Robust Digital releases that being streaming during this year plus a preview of what’s to grab in Robust Shop for next year.

Cup of robust tea full of psychedelic, sludge, prog, stoned, grunge, death, metalcore, black metal and all the celebrated genres.

https://robustfellow.bandcamp.com/album/robustfellow-sampler-2019

Cover artwork by ????????? ?????
Design by Konstantin Bikmulin
Sounds “AS IT IS”

Robustfellow Prods., 2019

Robustfellow Samper 2019
from A to Z:

Backchat [Kyiv, UA] War and Plague
Cold Shell [Kyiv, UA] You Think Too Much About Death*
Death Pill [Kyiv, UA] Go Your Way*
Dépaysement [Kyiv, UA] Ground Arms*
Doomed City (previously 5R6) [Kharkiv, UA] No Heroes
Eternal Elysium-official [Nagoya, JP] Burning A Sinner*
Ethereal Riffian [Kyiv, UA] Unconquerable
Freeky Cleen [Kyiv, UA] Done Time*
Gamardah Fungus [Dnipro, UA] Fetus Crying*
House Of Flowers [Dnipro, UA] Dawn
??? [Kharkiv, UA] ???
Knifeman [Kharkiv, UA] ?????
??ntur [Kyiv, UA] ??, ???? ??????? ???????
La Horsa Bianca [Kharkiv, UA] Da cao
Love’n’Joy [Kyiv, UA] Come about
Merzotna Potvora [Kyiv, UA] ?erne?*
???? [Kyiv, UA] ?.?.?.?.
NoT [Kharkiv, UA] A Penny (????????)
????? [Uzhgorod, UA] Ad Civitas Solis
One Magic Megawatt [Kyiv, UA] Die Every Night*
OOZE [Vasylkiv, UA] Backend
Pustosh [Vasylkiv, UA] Nespravzhni
Pyraweed [Baku, AZ] Man of the mountain
Red Eyed Hyena [Ivano-Frankivsk, UA] Tale of Marvin Heemeyer
Septa [Odessa, UA] The Tin Man
Shiva the Destructor [Kyiv, UA] Nirvana Beach*
Slice & Dice [Mykolaiv, UA] Filthy Basement
Sons of Alpha Centauri [London, UK] SS Montgomery (James Plotkin Remix)
stonefromthesky [Kyiv, UA] Confined
Straytones [Kyiv, UA] Dark Lord
Swörn [Turin, IT] Electric Saint
The Anchor Stones [Kyiv, UA] Love It
The COW [Kyiv, UA] PLATO
The Glober [Kharkiv, UA] Space Harmony
THUNDERCHIEF [Richmond, Virginia, US] Stone House
Tungu [Chernihiv, UA] ???????? ?????????*
Urgalia [Cherkassy, UA] GhostFloor*
Volver Stone [Zhytomyr, UA] Wasteland
VOVK [Kyiv, UA] The Last Ship Above the Sky
Vykroutas [Kyiv, UA] ??????? ???i? – ????? ?? ?i?*
Warningfog [Kyiv, UA] II. The Cow
We The Censors [Kyiv, UA] Keep It Up

* – ex?lusive tune

Enjoy the Eclectic Flight !

https://www.facebook.com/RobustfellowProds
https://robustfellow.bandcamp.com/