https://mdmmusic.bandcamp.com/album/-

Music artists are often believed to be ambitious persons, conscious about extensional expansion of their works. But underground is just a scaled-down model of the general musical movement, and aside from its own international stars there’s a wide range of local artists who have their satisfaction from the creative process itself. There’s one more class of musicians, making music mostly for themselves and sharing it through friendly mails. Unknown isn’t synonymous with unskillful in that case: sometimes seamy side of musical industry produces rare gems, tempted to keep in private collections for years, to savor as a delicacy and to recommend to the true devotees – even if their circle is hardly wider than the author’s one.

On of those examples is the 2015 split “Чагарники Вогняних Пісень”/“The Scrubs of Fiery Songs” from two introspective ukrainian one-man projects – Дім Потаємного Сяйва/The House Of The Hidden Light from Kyiv and Чорнавідьма/Tchornavidma from Zaporizhzhya. It’s a short-spoken pleasure dipping into the world of gothic literature and ghost stories – particularly by Belarusian writer Ivan Barshevsky and his more famous compatriot Vladimir Korotkevich. Every note of this musical canvas emanates the preciosity of the romantic past, balancing between the conservative rationality, those modern era’s harbinger, and the ineradicable archaic craving for the unfathomable, unexplainable, unnamable.

First five tracks from The House Of The Hidden Light are the tribute to the epoch’s aristocratism with its deliberate high society rituals and deep respect to ethics and aesthetics. Even the inexorable passing of time, those famous killer of the traditions, doesn’t allow to surrender unconditionally to the modern world’s demands. So the ghosts are still dancing in the dusty halls that have long ago forgotten the sumptuous receptions, while a peal of bells and waltz steps echo in empty dismal galleries (Старосвітські руїни/Old World Ruins, Маєток Пані М./Mrs M.’s Estate). The stalk of heroic past thunders with timpani and brass, rattles armors in Гайнарський сад/The Garden of Hainar and shades the worrying trombone statements with the watchful harpsichord coloration in Жовті могили/Yellow Graves. But the most splendid track here is Інфернологія та демонознавство/Infernology and Demonology, a strange macabre procession into the ages, where pizzicato measures out the death pace, while xylophone, piano and woodwinds intercept the creeping theme, and light voices entwine with the brass, stating the mournful but proud departure.

Tchornavidma continues the story in a contrastive but surely not counterbalanced way. Second half of the split catches the otherworldly mood and begins the inexorable catabasis into the irrational. There is nothing definite but the uncomfortable sound and distorted rhythms. From the very first track, Викарбувано світлом/Carved with the light, we find ourselves in the world of dissonance, where the atmosphere is het up by both abstract clinking melodic colorations and remote unearthly voices. Зик з поламаного хреста/Loud cry from the broken cross proceeds the immersion with a chain of ghostly chords accompanied with a clear heartbeat. Something ominous, evil and revengeful watches the listener from the dark, and all the melodies coming up from the harmonic mist are intentionally awkward and convulsive. However, the beginning of Палаючий моноліт/Burning monolith can surprise you with its instant major mode and simple flute melody, along with the lullaby-like bandura harmonies and rhythmic tambourine rustle. It’s not so simple, of course, and the last third of the track returns to chaotic dissonant plunks, confirming the victory of supernatural over the living.

The high point of Tchornavidma’s release half is Воно зникає у мармуровій куряві/It vanishes in marble dust, full of eerie knocks, whispers and creaks wedging in disturbing and obscure melodic passages and leading to the unexpected final drop – silently waiting for the inevitable accident. The whole release ends by the wonderful track Скляний небіжчик/Glassy decedent – the name provides an in-depth insight into the image, visualizing fearful and unnatural movements of a creature whose mere cold presence outdares the usual warm everyday life.

The Scrubs of Fiery Songs is the kind of release that may never become the province of the wider public, but that fact will only raise its value. It’s a true discovery for collectors of lost history and those brave travellers to the other side, ready for the strangest and most dangerous discoveries. Sometimes the point is to get a better look at the world, so that it begins to reveal its most beautiful and unknown sides.

https://mdmmusic.bandcamp.com/

https://tchornavidma.bandcamp.com/

https://thehouseofthehiddenlight.bandcamp.com/