Svitlana Nianio is a Ukrainian avant-garde singer-songwriter. In today’s world, that makes me want to embrace her and her music all the more.
As far as I’m concerned, when a person, country, religion, or corporation pursues its ends by murdering innocent people, those ends are necessarily evil. And I say that as a simple-minded agnostic who follows the do unto others approach when it comes to moving through time.
From the liner notes:
“Kytytsi’ is Svitlana’s very first solo album. The aura of her voice and simplicity of her compositions suggest folk roots.
However, its base is in fact derived from musical avant-garde of today. Straight from the heart of ancient folk songs comes the tenderness in her voice; Svitlana frames it with sounds of pure New York minimal tradition. Deeply rooted in primeval myths, her music creates a world of magic realism, in which the temporal dimension and the other world constantly move and permeate.
Magic realism or magical realism are terms typically associated with literature and the visual arts but I find ordinary life to be magical enough on its own. When you get down to it, we all believe in things that evade proof.
Kytytsi by Svitlana Nianio, recorded in 1998 and released in 2018 by Poland’s KOKA Records who specialize in Ukrainian underground and traditional music, is beautifully human music leaning heavily into the folk/roots tradition while taking the present firmly into account through its meditative minimalism (think Terry Riley).
Credits:
Cello – Bolesław Błaszczyk (tracks: 3, 4, 7, 9, 15)
Electric Guitar, Steel Guitar, Percussion, Other [“Shovkopryad”], Other [“Souvenir”] – Serhii Hotyachuk
Electric Piano [Fender Rhodes 73 Mark], Flute, Harmonium, Piano, Synthesizer [Casio MT-200], Voice [Voices] – Svitlana Nianio
Let’s hear from Svitlana:
“I look for some lightness and strange beauty of combinations and timbres of sounds.” Nianio shared in an interview on www.noweidzieodmorza.com
Kytytsi‘s strange beauty is exactly where the magic happens.