ДахаБраха

Folklore and Faith: Port Mone, DakhaBrakha, Komba Bakkh, and Kira Lao

Not long ago we looked at the work of Port Mone, a trio from the city of Minsk: Aleksei Vorsoba, Sergei Kravchenko, and Aleksei Vanchuk. As we mentioned during that first visit, these Belarusian musicians turn the traditional harmonies of the accordion, for example, into what they call a "mix of ambient, noise, experimental, and classical/traditional" forms. From a fixed heritage emerges novelty.
Even from those opening words it's clear that folk music is being pushed to the very edge of convention. "Sometimes their compositions depart from traditional Russian or Slavic melodies through recourse to a surprising minimalism, in fact to the point where the original composition can't be recognized. Awesome!" The form changes, but the thematic content stays - one of constant departure.

DakhaBrakha –Ukraine’s World Music sensation performing at WOMADelaide

DakhaBrakha –Ukraine’s World Music sensation will be performing at WOMADelaide March 11^th – 14^th in the idyllic outdoor setting of The Botanic Gardens.

DakhaBrakha who were formed at the avant garde Dakh Theatre for Contemporary Arts in Kyiv and derive their name from the old Slavonic words for give and take are the foremost exponents of “ethno chaos” music which combines the elements of order and structure inherent in traditional and folk music and combine this with the chaos of free form experimentation and improvisation.

All the world's a stage in Dún Laoghaire

Ukrainian group DakhaBrakha, Nina Garenetska. Iryna Kovalenko and Olena Tsybulska during an impromptu performance in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, before the opening of the annual Festival of World Cultures yesterday. The line-up features a range of global music, markets, arts, crafts and food.

Peter Culshaw with Dakha Brakha in Ukraine.

I mentioned I was heading off this week to the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine for a strange folk event: the Sheshory Festival. At the last minute, they changed the venue...

Dakha Brakha Ethno Stand-outs Look to Future

Dakha Brakha is an exciting Ukrainian ethnic music band that consists of three girls - Iryna, Olena, and Nina – and frontman Marko. They’re a project of Kyiv’s innovative Dakh Contemporary Art Centre,directed by the local theatre stand-out Vlad Troitsky, who’s also the man who organised the popular Gogolfest cultural event for the last two years...