Kotra & Zavoloka
Wag The Swing!
Kvitnu

The Ukrainian alternative electronica scene seems vital, being a garden bearing many colourful, tasty and some strange fruits. Innovative sounds, from artistic angels, and with neat design and cover art wrapping. Wag the Swing! is a project by Kotra & Zavoloka, a pair I don't know anything about. As the web site says this is : Bass, empty vinyl player, blank CD matrixes, voice and other machines. And, yes, artwork is done by Zavoloka.

Wag The Swing! holds 24 tracks and is a long album, clocking in at almost 64 minutes. It's about samples, cut'n'paste, minimalism, avant electronica. Or as the Kvitnu.com site states: "24 swinging and jazzing tracks that sound quite different from each artists solo works. Explosive broken beats, slow motioned melodies, raw uncutted pieces - more than two years of improvising and constructing in one release." The disc is interesting and exciting, but it's a very long listen. I suggest and recommend to check it out in portions, as I feel the whole disc is way too long. It's quite demanding and you need both patience and focus when listening. Some tracks are more melodic and organic than others. There are many a surreal, abstract, atonal moment. Among the tracks I like the better are the opening "Out of Nowhere", which makes me think of the band Xiu Xiu, the warmer sounding "Analogue Tender" and "Swing You, Swing Me", which is more on the 'amusing' side.

I'll need some more time to dig into this one. Maybe you should be digging along as well.

Tech: CD, cardboard eco-pack, 500 copies edition. Check: www.kvitnu.com

Copyright © 2007 Håvard Oppøyen