At Oz Arts
DakhaBrakha Redux: The Triumphant Return of the Ukrainian Quartet
In 2023, a year and a day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, DakhaBrakha performed at OZ Arts here in Nashville. With their fusion of folk, rock, funk, blues, and even speed rapping, they had been acclaimed Bonnaroo 2014’s “best breakout” act by Rolling Stone magazine. Now, ten years later, they headlined OZ’s 2024 International lineup. Once again, Nashville is the only Southern date on their calendar.
Having reviewed their first OZ performance, I was curious to see how DakhaBrakha might have evolved. After all, their war with a major superpower, which was expected to last only a few months, has now lasted over two and a half years.
The group still dresses in traditional Ukrainian clothing consisting of brightly embroidered linen shirts for the man and lace dresses with masses of necklaces for the women. All wore the towering sheepswool papakha hats.
In that prior concert, varied images of folk and modern art, sometimes animated, alternated with photos and videos of traditional Ukrainian life and life in modern wartime. At that time, several of what I then termed “bold, unadorned, unapologetic statements” like RUSSIA IS A TERRORIST STATE were peppered throughout the projected images. This time only one word image was shown, but it was a powerful one:
Around 19,000
Ukrainian Children
Were Kidnapped by Russia
In Occupied Territory
Otherwise the images were similar, including childlike animated figures of the group itself. In fact, a charming painting of one of these images was auctioned toward the end of the program.
Musically, DakhaBrakha, their name meaning “give and take,” was still at the top of their game, but with slightly less intensity, as if the sprint energy of the last performance had given way to the determined perserverance of a marathon, mirroring the challenges facing their homeland.
That said, the program was at turns fierce, funky, and fanciful, remaining true to their distinctive style of mixing folk and popular musics from around the world atop a ground bass of Ukrainian musical traditions—not surprising from a group where all the women have engaged in formal studies in ethnomusicology.
All DakhaBrakha members sing and play percussion instruments, but each of the four-member ensemble has one main focus: Nina Garenetska plays cello; Iryna Kovalenko, piano; Olena Tsybulska, drums; while Marko Halanevych is typically on accordion, but also plays concertina, cajon, drymba (jaw harp), and harmonica.
A program, or announcement of the songs would have been helpful, but since most songs came from four of their six CDs, it was possible to recognize the span of their work from the earliest recordings in 2007 through more recent compositions. Some were old friends, while others were less well-known to the audience, but still eagerly welcomed.
In “Ой у Києві [Oh, in Kyiv]” from Yahudky (2007), the sliding cello drone seems to guide the sound of heavy ocean waves or winds through the forest, as drawings of shepherds pass by. This lament begs the earth to rejoice as it describes a church with three windows. The sun shines into the first, the moon shines into the second, but for the last, Jesus floats in, sits on the throne and sheds a tear.
I was glad to hear one my favorites, “Carpathian Rap” from Light (2010), a playful song that basically translates as “a good man is hard to find,” played with a mouth harp, a funky drum beat, and jazz chords and improv on the keyboard, while the women alternate the complaining chorus with rapping as an patter-song ensemble worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan.
“Птах [Bird],” with text by Ukrainian poet Serhii Zhadan, is not yet released as a recording. This sweetly delicate elegy is built of smoothly nesting choral harmonies supported by gentle sporadic keyboard chords as Marko narrates a tale from Ukrainian mythology:
We existed in different places
When we needed each other so much
That’s not a bird in your hand, you are the bird
High in a strange sky, somewhere beyond the horizon
Starting pianissimo, the song relentlessly crescendos in passion and instrumentation until the cello and drums add an ostinato groove for the accordion chords once the music reaches rock audio levels.
“Bird,” destined to join the pantheon of DakhaBrakha’s greatest works, is already being viewed as an alternative Ukrainian anthem aimed at saving a culture Russian leaders claim does not exist. Musically, it is a perfect example of their ability to fuse styles, in this case a funk bass line, rock drumming, Eastern European vocal dissonances with periodic acapella sections from the trio of women, and Marco’s rapping. But the true creativity comes from combining all these influences into a finished product that seems musically inevitable.
On the lighter side, “Весна/Vesna [Springtime]” from Na Mezhi [на межі…On the Border] (2009) was a crowd favorite with its wacky bird calls, though this now-signature trait was absent from the original recording. Another lighter song, “Baby,” one of the popular tunes from their 2023 performance, served as a finale. From Light (2010), it uses a Motown-style falsetto and girl-group harmonies for the sole words, in English, “Baby, show me your light.”
This performance, a somewhat bittersweet celebration of their twentieth anniversary, balanced whimsy with earnest dedication to the culture of their homeland and cultures across the globe, DakhaBrakha once again welcomes the world into their world. For 2024-2025 tour dates, see this webpage.
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Y Kendall is a Stanford-educated musicologist, specializing in dance history who recently earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Columbia University, studying nonfiction writing with Ben Ratliff and Margo Jefferson. Kendall’s diverse works have been published in Alchemy: Journal of Translation, Columbia Journal, Mitos Magazín, The Hunger Mountain Review, and The Salt Collective, among others. Born and raised in Tennessee, Kendall now lives near Nashville, freelancing as a flutist and writer, while caregiving for relatives.
