Both at home and in Europe over the last year, ONUKA has shot to critical and popular success. But front-woman Nata Zhyzhchenko’s best success can be fusing Ukrainian antiquity with electronic modernity and giving an answer to the changing times. Zhyzhchenko, the key woman regarding the band ONUKA, is among the pop that is brightest social phenomena of twenty-first century Ukraine. She actually is a musician with the capacity of harmoniously folk that is blending with metropolitan sounds. She actually is an actress whom additionally produces pictures and principles as much as she does tracks. And she actually is one of many heroines associated with the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv, the singer whoever record album “Vidlik” has now reached the maps in ten nations.
Growing up when you look at the 1980’s and 1990’s, Nata’s life had been defined by two urban centers found 150 kilometers aside: Kyiv and Chernihiv. The administrative centre ended up being boiling with loud life, as the more provincial Chernihiv (located near to the edge with Belarus) held greater silence and nature. But both towns and cities had music. Small Nata (she shall be known as “Nata” for the others with this article) had been a soloist in a metal musical organization situated in Kyiv. Along with her grandfather Oleksandr Shlyonchik, a builder that is renowned of instruments, lived in Chernihiv.
A big town in addition to a tiny one, worldwide occasions and life far from chaos, scenes of concert halls and a property where her ancestors worked, the rumbling of rhythm as well as the murmur associated with the chamber melody — these dualities formed Nata’s outlook, which mixes the traditions associated with the hundreds of years in addition to innovations of a epoch that is new. And with this conference of past and future, ONUKA was created.
Your Ex Aided By The Panpipes
Whenever Nata had been four years of age, her grandfather taught her to try out the panpipes. By the chronilogical age of five, she had currently toured with several bands that are local. At nine, she had been doing as a soloist with different orchestras. At ten, she won the “New Names of Ukraine” musical contest. Nata’s moms and dads, additionally artists, encouraged their daughter’s endeavors that are musical.
In early stages, young Nata attracted the adult world’s attention with the standard of her musicianship. People admired and praised her. It had been over these early years, that she started creating her very first works on the synthesizer.
But she had the classic “gifted childhood”: as she expanded older, individuals lost fascination with her. Nata describes the specific situation similar to this: “When just a little woman is really a virtuoso regarding the panpipes, it is cool — there’s a ‘wow’ impact. But once it is a girl that is 15-year-old nobody is interested”.
It had been maybe perhaps maybe not a effortless change for Nata. She had not been straight away capable of getting accustomed the basic indisputable fact that she had been not any longer regarded as a young child and thus people reacted differently to her abilities. But Nata’s teenage years additionally assisted her innovative development various other methods. During this time period, she grew closer along with her elder sibling Oleksandr, who does later on be her bandmate.
Up to the chronilogical age of fifteen, Nata’s life had been full of people music. But Oleksandr launched her eyes to very different phenomena: Pink Floyd and Depeche Mode. It absolutely was then that Nata’s curiosity about modern music formed. Hence, a stage that is new of life began, but that would not imply that the last years had been crossed away. Her reference to tradition never ever stopped. And she maintained connection with the peaceful and city that is cozy of, where she nevertheless arises from time and energy to time.
“We prepare food with grandmoa and now have supper within the air that is fresh the garden”, Nata claims of her amount of time in Chernihiv. That litttle lady whom invested element of her childhood away from the hubbub associated with pulsating city have not gone away. She lives in inside ONUKA; she’s a right component from it.
Picture thanks to ONUKA administration
Electronica and Tomato Jaws
Oleksandr had been eight years over the age of Nata, but their passions along with his social group became a supply of guidance on her behalf. She usually invested time during the recording studio with him, where she learned the entire process of producing contemporary electronic music. Her bro additionally provided her lessons that are DJing. Now Nata started to make records and wished for doing on phase.
In 2005, when Nata ended up being 20, her brother invited her to participate their musical task, Tomato Jaws. The band recorded a record and performed concerts, including some during the renowned Kazantip festival that is rave Crimea. Certainly one of Tomato Jaws’ compositions ended up being also released by an archive label in Ireland. The team toured abroad, and performed regarding the stage that is same such globe electronica movie movie stars like Telepopmusic and Apparat.
During this time period, Nata made the decision: as opposed to trained in vocals during the music institute, she’d learn ethnocultural studies. While examining the depths of contemporary noise along with Tomato Jaws, she additionally learned the origins of Ukrainian tradition. This experience aided her to more subtly and accurately convey the vibrations of her indigenous land in music.
A decade ago despite the success of Tomato Jaws, electronic music was far from mainstream in Ukraine. It took the viewers time and energy to recognize that individuals with laptop computers onstage will also be designers. After having a rise of popularity, Tomato Jaws ultimately dropped into decrease and dissipated. By 2013, Nata had been beginning her very own task.
By that time, one thing essential had additionally occurred: Nata came across the DJ, noise producer and musician Eugene Filatov, creator for the task “The Maneken”. Filatov later became her spouse in addition to producer of ONUKA.
ONUKA and “Misto”
ONUKA was made by three people: Nata, Eugene, additionally the well-known Ukrainian costume designer Lesia Patoka. Their brand new music and image stressed the specific mix reverberating through their tracks: a variety of the archaic together with contemporary. In the 1st photo that is ONUKA, Nata wore her panpipes as being a headdress. No body before her had managed to look therefore urban and fresh, while emphasizing a link because of the people tradition.
Between December 2013 and October 2014, the team circulated its song that is first and video clip, recorded a mini-album, had its very very first concert, and debuted its major record album. On top of that, the war had started in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area and Ukrainian culture started initially to quickly break up numerous areas of its patrimony of Soviet consciousness. A basic fascination with much much much deeper cultural origins begun to develop. The newest generation of young Ukrainians whom just knew the era that is soviet the tales of their moms and dads comprehended ONUKA’s unique rhythms as outside of that history. Lower than a year after being created onuka had been collecting one thousand individuals for the concert.
In contemporary music, the increase of every pop music musician is made regarding the popularity of one or more of their tracks. For ONUKA, that song was pictures of turkish mail order brides “Misto”. It absolutely was created in torment. “At first it had been in English, then in 2 languages. We rewrote the writing 3 x. When it comes to very first time in my entire life, it took me such a long time to select the last version”, Nata describes. Finally, the track ended up being recorded in Ukrainian. A month or two later on, it may be heard everywhere — regarding the radio, to get, on trains and buses, booming away from vehicles from the street.
ONUKA’s music became a brand new channel that is cultural connected Ukraine along with the rest worldwide. She talked to her audience in English and Ukrainian. But her interaction ended up being understandable without any interpretation: through rhythms, melodies, timbre, pictures. The echo of historic musical kinds resonated using the noise of this twenty-first century, connecting the current to your future additionally the future. Such a note is understandable without terms. And, into the summer time of 2015, ONUKA successfully performed in Budapest at Sziget, one of several biggest festivals in Europe. ONUKA had been going west.
Picture due to ONUKA management
Chernobyl and “1986”
A cataclysm of global significance that haunts the country to this day in April 2016, Ukraine commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. For Nata, it absolutely was an event that is extremely personal. Her daddy participated in “eliminating the effects for the accident”, to make use of the previous Soviet euphemism for the cleaning work. The city that is now dead of near Chernobyl, evacuated following the accident the most appealing places on the planet on her behalf. “On a worldwide scale, human being progress is evil”, Nata claims. “In every individual relationship with nature there is certainly a side effect that is negative. Just it acquires a scale that is different on which technology has been used”.
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