Vodograi - "Водограй" (Мелодия – 33 С60-09399-400) 1978

Its a shame that we are going to be deprived of the Russian entry in the next Eurovision Song Contest. Held in the lively Ukrainian town of...Liverpool(?) substituting Kiev, for obvious reasons? However we will have another fine Ukrainian entry to make us all wonder if we're on the wrong side in this increasingly pointless war....er...i mean, Special Military Operation. The horrible winning entry earlier this year, was from.....you guessed it....Ukraine! An awful amalgam of Eastern European sub-hip hop with clothes resembling a car crash between The Black Eyed Peas and Teletubbies' Fuzzy Felt chic...with added Rapping...or raping if you're a Russian 'soldier'.

It got the sympathy vote of course, and cost the UK their first Euro-win since all the former Soviet republics were admitted in 1991.

So to compensate here's another Soviet Ukrainian attempt at cold war entertainment from groovy commie combo ,Vodograi.

This type of break-beat laden cheesy listening got me through the nineties (hard times musically),allowing a humanitarian corridor through all that 'orrible house crap leading to many a chill-out oasis in the depressing clubs and repurposed discotheques of local clubland.

The singing may empty an already empty room of all it's sub-atomic particles, but these cheesy grooves could even get a legless Russian Special Military Operation veteran dancing till his stumps bleed. Spelling out "Thanks Mr Putin" in his blood while swaying Ironically to the heartfelt and jawdroppingly unironic ballad called "For The Motherland".Ahh, the unbridled joys of Nationalism.

Tracklist:

1 Запроси До Танцю = Invite Me To Dance
2 Незване Моє Кохання = My Unexpected Beloved
3 Дiвчина Мила = Darling Girl
4 Путешествие = Journey
5 Несла Дiвчина Воду = Once A Girl Was Carrying Water
6 Тебе Назло = Just To Spite You
8 Вишневый Рассвет = Cherry-red Daw
9 Воспоминание = Memory
10 Родине = For Motherland
11 Голубой Вагон (Музыкальная Шутка) = Blue Car (Musical Joke)

DOWNLOAD from a motherless motherland HERE!

Vizerunki Shlyakhiv - "Візерунки Шляхів" (Меlodia – С60-06699-700) 1976

Funky Vizerunki Shlyakhiv was a folky,funky,but very latin sounding, 'Ukrainian vocal-instrumental ensemble',as described in Soviet newspeak, from the lovely city of Kyiv,.....yeah that place we now know is pronounced 'Keev' rather than 'Key-Ev', since they kicked the butt of the Russian invading force/farce earlier this year.
Dunno if any of Vizerunki Shlyakhiv took out any tanks,but they seem to resemble a bunch of handy chaps with State approved Flares to match.I have no doubt that these swarthy Slavs know the right end of a Panzerfaust 3 and how to use it.

There's a Ukrainian Folk tilt given to some of these smoking workouts that would please the local communist commissar bastard,backed up with a song about local commie hero Shcors to ensure no-one got sent for re-education in a Siberian gulag anytime soon.

State Label Melodia has rarely been cooler....which isn't saying much.Unless its referring to temperature of course.

Tracklist:

1. Пісня Про Щорса / Song About Shchors
2. Камінь Сонця / The Sunny Stone
3. Я Люблю Твої Тихі Затоки / I Love Your Backwaters
4. Гуахіра / Guahira
5. Коло Млина Калина / A Guelder Rose Grows By The Mill
6. Марійка / Mariyka
7. Весна I Ти / You And Spring
8. Била Мене Мати / My Mother Beat Me

DOWNLOAD swarthy men in flares HERE!

Various Artists - "Soviet Ukrainian Funk" (Goat Goat Grooves – GG02) 2015

Steaming Hot Cold War Caucasian Jazzy funk from the Caucasus Back from the days before every Ukrainian band was a metal act,and Vladimir Putin was a joyless Stasi clerk Twat in Dresden. They were secretly Funky Mo-fo's;but,Funky as in Elevator's,libraries, and shopping centres, but nonetheless Funky.

Rather than try to work out whether these hieroglyphically named Soviet era musicians were actually Unkrainian and not Russian, or more commonly when it comes to music, Estonian.Here is a handy mixtape that has done the hard work for us,concentrating solely on our Ukrainian chums,gettin' the groove on, albeit in a TV cop-show library music kind of way,from the 70's and 80's.

Just to make it even more amusing for us Anglo-Saxon types, I have translated the Ukrainian tracklist into Chinese restaurant English,giving us such titles as "Let me, father, at the wedding","Oh, I will throw a beech on the pit", and the probably illegal in CCCP..."You Smiled?".

The Vladikavkaz peoples ministry of democratic Funk released a statement back in 1975 forwarded to the British gutter press:

"You Anglo-Saxon Western Pigdogs think you have a monopoly on 'The Funk'don't you with your arrogance? Well,we morose Eastern fuckers have got the funky rhythms too,bigger and better funky sheet than your capitalist freedoms could ever hope to equal.You have this James Brown agent, we have Nazariy Yaremchuk, you have zis secret Bootsy Collins weapon, we have Tatyana Kochergina, and Nile Rogers is no Yuri Bogatykov by any stretch of your western propganda's imagination.Directly as we speak,the Sofiya Rotaru Ensemble have been super-glued to a nuclear missile and sent to our Moon to perform a seriously funky version of her 'Hero of the Democratic Socialist Peoples Republic' award winning number "Ballad of two violins".We have fully loaded Kalashnikov's that say we're funkier than you,and are prepares to use everything at our disposals to prove it....we are NOT bluffinks!

Thank you for your time....what you have left, that is."

Back in the day,these records were the go-to place to find obscure beatz to sample the fuck out of. Luckily I have a couple of these, courtesy of the Ultima Thule record shop bargain bin section in the mid-nineties.....comin' up. 

Tracklist:

SIDE A:

Intro - MC Alex Pervin (aka Sahlim Quick)
01. Viburnum - Three trembitas
02. Nazariy Yaremchuk - Ozovysya
03. Arnika - Let me, father, at the wedding
04. Sofiya Rotaru - "Chervona Ruta" - Ballad of two violins
05. Kobza - Vodogray
06. Smerichka - Vodogray
07. Ensemble "Vodogray" - Three trembitas
08. Sofiya Rotaru,"Chervona Ruta"-Pisnya will be a part of us
09. Smerichka - Two Rings
10. Sofiya Rotaru, ensemble "Chervona Ruta" - Fairy Tale
11. Kobza - Na Ivana Kupala
12. Sofiya Rotaru, ensemble "Chervona Ruta" - Two rings
13. Nazariy Yaremchuk - You smiled?
14. Kobza - Oh, I will throw a beech on the pit
15. Kobza - Dudaryk
16. Nazariy Yaremchuk - When the blue mountains fell asleep

SIDE B:

Intro - MC Alex Pervin (aka Sahlim Quick)

01. Tatyana Kochergina - Play, Violin, Play (cut)
02. Patterns of the Ways - Circle of the Kalina Mill
03. Vodogray - Maiden Mila
04. Kobza - Wait
05. Arnika - Spring (fragment)
06. Vatra - How I Slept on the Seine
07. Arnica - How I Slept on the Seine
08. Vodogray - Puteshestvye
09. Kobza - Ishov Kobzar Clean Field
10. Vodogray - Vospominanie
11. Patterns of the Paths - Guajira
12. Yuri Bogatykov - Quiet Water
13. Arnika - Silver Ships
14. Vatra - Verkhovyna Lullaby
15. Arnika - Lviv Evening

DOWNLOAD these dirty ass-kickin caucasian elevator muzak classics HERE!.....or be shot!

Various Artists – "Music Of The Ukraine" (Ethnic Folkways Library – FE 4443) 1951

Its got sleeve art like a Swans album,adorned with a black and white photo of what appears to be soviet Ukrainian relatives of Blitz era Spandau Ballet,yet it sounds like the soundtrack to "O'Brother Where Art Thou? 2", and showcases a glaring error, much repeated by us ignorant Westerners, referring to Ukraine as 'THE' Ukraine....It's just 'Ukraine' in fact, no 'THE' involved,or,indeed, needed.

There must have been a sizable influx of Ukrainians ,fleeing pogroms or revolution to the Appalachians in the first half of the 20th century,as this Ukrainian Folk could easily be some weird bluegrass from Harry Smith's anthology of American Folk. It's just lacking a few Toothless Donbas Dumbass Hillbillies,or some moonshine damaged hick called Blind Lemon Shevchenko dueling balalaika's and banjo's with Dock Boggs. There was certainly no British folk that sounded like this anyhow......not enough senseless slaughter going on in those sceptered isles it seemed, at least up until the potato famine that is; after which the terrors of Irish pixie dancing music were deliberately exported to the fledgling USA by the British governments attempt to starve Irish Dancing out of the empire for good.....then Michael Flatley happened and now its too late to do a Potato Famine two....we're stuck with it!

I'm struggling to locate any contemporary Ukrainian music that isn't generic and western via Moscow leaning.....but this shits weird! Get it before Putin erases the tapes and removed anything vaguely Ukrainian from the planet,while moaning about 'Cancel Culture'. Betraying a very well hidden literary intellect, this jawless,joyless, dwarf,intellectually and physically,desperately accuses the British Government of trying to cancel Harry Potter! That bunch of twerps are responsible for many things, but tragically not cancelling all things J.K.Rowling.They couldn't even get that right!? I honestly despair of them. Tax cuts for the Rich funded by eye watering borrowing requirements,and sweeping welfare cuts for the poor,yet they don't have the balls to cancel Harry Potter!??? What is this world coming to?.......a heavily irradiated ending it seems?.....but at least Harry Potter will cease to exist along with the rest of us? Happily there's a bright side before the Electromagnetic wave of thermonuclear destruction wipes all hard drives and all data that proved we ever existed......but if those who inherit humanities position as super selfish food chain toppers,and string two extra brain cells together, ever find an intact copy of "Music Of Ukraine" hidden in a lead lined nook somewhere....with a record player of course? Then they are gonna have a funny idea that there may have been a mysterious civilization who, once upon a time, left this molten highly radioactive landscape to the next bunch of self-destructive morons.

Just like those mysterious chaps on Easter Island...what was going on there then?

Tracklist:

1. Gutsul Kolomyika Dance-Song – Oleska Suyhodolyak With Bagpipe Acc.
2. Kozachok Dance-Song – Ivan Martishchuk With Bagpipe Acc.
3. Huculka Dance – Carpatho Ukrainian Village Orchestra
4. Country Dances – Carpatho Ukrainian Village Orchestra
5. Wedding Melodies – Hutsul Ensemble Of Folk Musicians
6. Hutsulka And Kozachok Dances – Hutsul Ensemble Of Folk Musicians
7. Folk Song - The Wind From The Field
8. Folk Song - One Half Of The Garden Blossoms

DOWNLOAD the folk music from a people and a place that, according to a certain autocratic dictator,doesn't exist...find proof that it does...HERE!