Martes 31 Jul 2012, 11:39

This article is dedicated to ukrainian traditional music album Українська традиційна музика (2004), produced by the project "My Ukraine. Bervy" and its influence on ukrainian dark music scene.

This CD indeed comprises the epoch in many ukrainian folk music genres, and this is coined not by my single attitude (however positive it is), but by the widespread usage of its motifs among the most prominent ukrainian metal and rock bands.

Here I will try to sum up all these usages, I have run into.

To start with, Hate Forest. In 2004 this legend of ukrainian black metal issued an album Battlefields, which mixed up the tracks in two genres: 3 raw black metal songs interlaced with 4 ethno-folk ones, performed by traditional grannies' chorus. These four included:
1. Ой у неділю рано - У Неділю… (On Sunday early in the mourning)
2. Проведу я русалочки (I will see the mermaids off…)
3. А-а, люлі-люлі - Колискова (Lullaby)
4. Голосіння - Поминальна (Lamentation)

Nokturnal Mortum kept pace with their fellow counrtymen and included another Bervy's track in their album Мировоззрение:
5. Дудочки - Печаль родных земель (The Sorrow of Motherland).

A year later this tradition was followed by another ukrainian legend of black metal - Drudkh. In 2005 they produced an album The Swan's Road, dedicated to Taras Shevchenko's poem "Hajdamaky" and set upon Shevchenko's lyrics. The 6th track, however, is a traditional lute song ('duma'), taken from the Bervy album:
6. Дума про руйнування Січі - The Song of Sich Destruction

The next year А-а, люлі-люлі was mixed into the Intro to Munruthel's pagan-metal album Aquarius' Epoch. In 2005 Munruthel also used Проведу я русалочки in his neofolk/ambient project Коло.

In 2008 another black metal band from Ukraine Gromm remixed Голосіння in raw black metal style and placed it in its album Sacrilegium:
9. Голосіння - Руины Живого (The Ruins of Alive).

But not only did black metal bands show interest in Bervy's compilation. A dark folk band Вій used Bervy's Якби черепеньки as an intro to their song Як летіли бугаї (As the bulls were flying).

To be continued in case of new findings…