Ole Lukkoye – Dyatly
(CD/DL from www.trailrecords.us)
Hailing from the northern city of St Petersburg, Ole Lukkoye have been evolving and developing since 1993. Here we have two original members of the band; these being
Boris Bardash – vocals, keyboards, guitar programming and gluckophone as well as Frol – bassoon and keyboards. Newcomers to the band are Ness Yanushkovskaya,
Yuri Lukyanchik, Alexander Vahivski and Tatyana Kalmykova.
The CD arrives in a trifold card case adorned with some subtle graphics and deep muted colours. This theme is continued on to the cd label itself, doing little to prepare the listener for the drama and impact of the music itself.
The first track ‘Kommuna Ra’ starts with the haunting sound of a distant wolf howl this pursued by some excellent percussion before the introduction of the even more evocative vocals of Ness, the powerful beat continues as the track builds and fades throughout as layers of instrumentation and vocals are added and fade away, the bassoon making occasional appearances to bring a further edge to the sound; the second track ‘Dyatly (Woodpeckers)’ is, at over 17 minutes the longest on the album, starting with soft electronic susurration before the pulsing of the percussion picks the pace up making way for the powerful Russian vocals of, in turn Ness and Boris, along with the rather beautiful sounding gluckophone adding a hang drum type sound. Gentle harp introduces us to ‘Bela Dama’ a mellow hypnotic track with the signature percussive beat tempered beautifully to the deep vocals of Boris, echoed by the notes of the bassoon, whilst ‘Just Wind’ starts out with breathy vocalisation and synthesiser to bring a very psychedelic feel to things, the psych feel continues throughout but with a deep dub rhythm as the vocals merge in with a couple of verses from A. S. Pushkins’s 1882 poem “The Prisoner”, all the while being driven along by the percussion, and punctuated with fuzzed guitar and synthesiser. The final track ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’ at just under four minutes is the shortest on the album starting out with the sound of rain with added synthesiser and soft vocals which rounds the album off beautifully as it brings you safely and gently back down to earth.
The sound is very difficult to categorise comprising old world Siberian folk, modern day trance, shamanistic chanting and heavy psychedelic overtures but with an
immersive earthy primal depth and feel. Imagine a late night jam session with Neu, Korai Orem and Amon Duul with a bit of Deep Forest thrown in for good measure.
In conclusion this is an excellent album that stands out as being significantly different and a very rewarding experience for the listener.
Steve Judd, Terrascope, June 2015