All About A Quick Biography Of Ukraine’s Hottest Musical Icon

Throughout the last 12 months, ONUKA has shot to critical and popular success both at house as well as in European countries. But front-woman Nata Zhyzhchenko’s accomplishment that is greatest might be fusing Ukrainian antiquity with electronic modernity and giving an answer to the occasions. Zhyzhchenko, the key woman regarding the band ONUKA, is among the brightest pop social phenomena of twenty-first century Ukraine. This woman is a musician effective at harmoniously blending folk traditions with metropolitan noises. She actually is an actress whom additionally produces pictures and ideas just as much as she does tracks. And she actually is among the heroines regarding the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv, the singer whoever record album “Vidlik” has now reached the charts in ten nations.

Growing up within the 1980’s and 1990’s, Nata’s life ended up being defined by two urban centers positioned 150 kilometers aside: Kyiv and Chernihiv. The administrative centre had been boiling with noisy life, even though the more Chernihiv that is provincial near the edge with Belarus) held greater silence and nature. But both populous towns and cities had music. Small Nata (she will be known as “Nata” for the remainder of the article) was a soloist in a metal musical organization positioned in Kyiv. Along with her grandfather Oleksandr Shlyonchik, a distinguished builder of people instruments, lived in Chernihiv.

A large city along with a tiny one, worldwide occasions and life far from chaos, scenes of concert halls and a home where her ancestors worked, mail-order-bride.net – find your turkish bride the rumbling of rhythm plus the murmur associated with chamber melody — these dualities formed Nata’s outlook, which mixes the traditions regarding the centuries as well as the innovations of the brand new epoch. And out of this conference of past and future, ONUKA was created.

The Lady Aided By The Panpipes

Whenever Nata had been four yrs old, her grandfather taught her to relax and play the panpipes. By the chronilogical age of five, she had currently toured with a few 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 musical endeavors.

In early stages, young Nata attracted the adult world’s attention with the grade of her musicianship. People admired and praised her. It absolutely was during these very early years, that she started composing her very first deals with the synthesizer.

But she had the classic “gifted childhood”: as she expanded older, people destroyed curiosity about her. Nata describes the specific situation similar to this: “When just a little woman is just a virtuoso from the panpipes, it is cool — there’s a ‘wow’ effect. However when it is a 15-year-old woman, no body is interested”.

It absolutely was maybe perhaps perhaps not a transition that is easy Nata. She had not been instantly in a position to get familiar with the basic indisputable fact that she had been no further viewed as a kid and thus people reacted differently to her abilities. But Nata’s teenage years additionally aided her creative development various other means. In those times, 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 ended up being full of people music. But Oleksandr launched her eyes to phenomena that are completely different Pink Floyd and Depeche Mode. It absolutely was then that Nata’s curiosity about modern music formed. Therefore, a brand new phase of her life started, but that failed to signify the earlier years were crossed out. Her experience of tradition never ever stopped. And she maintained connection with the peaceful and cozy town of Chernihiv, where she nevertheless originates from time for you time.

“We prepare food with grandmoa and also supper when you look at the air that is fresh the garden”, Nata states of her amount of time in Chernihiv. That young girl whom invested element of her youth out of the busyness associated with the pulsating city has not yet gone away. She lives in inside ONUKA; she’s part from it.

Picture due to ONUKA management

Electronica and Tomato Jaws

Oleksandr had been eight years avove the age of Nata, but their passions along with his circle that is social became supply of guidance on her behalf. She usually invested time during the recording studio she learned the process of creating modern electronic music with him, where. Her sibling additionally offered her DJing lessons. Now Nata started initially to make documents and wished for doing on phase.

In 2005, whenever Nata ended up being 20, her brother invited her to become listed on their project that is musical Jaws. The band recorded a record album and performed concerts, including some during the popular Kazantip rave festival in Crimea. Certainly one of Tomato Jaws’ compositions had been also released by accurate documentation label in Ireland. The group toured abroad, and performed in the exact same phase as such globe electronica movie movie movie stars like Telepopmusic and Apparat.

During this period, Nata made the decision: as opposed to trained in vocals in the music institute, she’d learn ethnocultural studies. While checking out the depths of contemporary noise as well as Tomato Jaws, she also learned the origins of Ukrainian tradition. This experience aided her to more subtly and accurately convey the vibrations of her land that is native in.

A decade ago despite the success of Tomato Jaws, electronic music was far from mainstream in Ukraine. The audience was taken by it time for you to realize that individuals with laptops onstage will also be designers. After having a rise of appeal, Tomato Jaws ultimately dropped into decrease and dissipated. By 2013, Nata had been beginning her very own task.

By that time, something essential had additionally occurred: Nata came across the DJ, noise producer and musician Eugene Filatov, creator associated with the task “The Maneken”. Filatov afterwards became her spouse in addition to producer of ONUKA.

ONUKA and “Misto”

ONUKA was made by three individuals: Nata, Eugene, while the well-known costume that is ukrainian Lesia Patoka. Their brand new music and image stressed the specific mix reverberating through their tracks: a mix of the archaic as well as the contemporary. In the 1st ONUKA picture session, Nata wore her panpipes as a headdress. No body before her had been able to look therefore urban and fresh, while emphasizing an association with all the folk tradition.

Between December 2013 and October 2014, the team circulated its very first track and music video clip, recorded a mini-album, had its very first concert, and debuted its major record. At precisely the same time, the war had started in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas area and Ukrainian culture started initially to quickly break up numerous elements of its patrimony of Soviet awareness. A basic fascination with much deeper cultural origins started to develop. The brand new generation of young Ukrainians whom just knew the era that is soviet the tales of their moms and dads recognized ONUKA’s unique rhythms as outside of that history. Not as much as a 12 months after being launched onuka had been collecting a lot of individuals for the concert.

In contemporary music, the increase of any pop music musician is created in the popularity of a minumum of one of his / her tracks. For ONUKA, that song was “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 way too long to pick the last version”, Nata explains. Finally, the song ended up being recorded in Ukrainian. A couple of months later, it may be heard everywhere — regarding the radio, to get, on general public transportation, booming away from vehicles regarding the road.

ONUKA’s music became a brand new cultural channel that connected Ukraine along with the rest worldwide. She talked to her audience in English and Ukrainian. But her interaction had been understandable without having any interpretation: through rhythms, melodies, timbre, pictures. The echo of historic musical kinds resonated using the noise regarding the 21st century, connecting the present to your future additionally the future. Such an email is understandable without terms. And, during summer of 2015, ONUKA successfully performed in Budapest at Sziget, among the biggest festivals in European countries. ONUKA was going west.

Picture thanks to ONUKA administration

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 had been a incredibly personal occasion. Her dad participated in “eliminating the effects of this accident”, to make use of the previous euphemism that is soviet the cleaning work. The city that is now dead of near Chernobyl, evacuated following the accident the most appealing places in the field on her. “On a worldwide scale, peoples progress is evil”, Nata claims. “In every individual discussion with nature there was a negative side effects. Just it acquires a scale that is different upon which technology will be used”.