Hvarna - "Koła Viartańniaŭ" [2010]

Artist: Hvarna

Title: Koła Viartańniaŭ

Genre: Folk, Ambient

Country: Russia/Belarus

Release date: 2010

Track List:

1. Soŭniejko
2. Viasna, dzie buvała
3. Arechavaja Čaša
4. Poŭnia
5. Na našym dvary
6. Ziaziula Myja Sieryja
7. Pierapiołačka
8. Za tumanam
9. Jak siała młada…
10. Carkoŭka
11. Vietach

"HVARNA is a project of Andrus Palauchenia (OSIMIRA, Pragnavit) and musicians from the band "Obereg". Based on the songs and tunes of Kryvia (Belarus), Finno-Ugric nationals and the territory of Russian North, Hvarna is decorated with improvisation play and vocal. The peculiarity and the uniqueness of this project is the intermingling of the two sacred instruments: krivian-lithuania duda and Russian psaltery. Musicians carefully and skillfully combined these two «opposites». It gave the music a special solemnity. HVARNA remains the lyrics intact, but gives them special musical interpretation and retains the magical atmosphere of a sense of the universe of their ancestors.
Hvarna in Avestan culture is the supreme divine reward, grace, holiness, the gift of fate, charisma, talent. Hvarna enables to move beyond the cycle of our world, to change your own destiny and the destiny of other people and to move to a new level of development.

Andrus Palauchenia - kryvian-lithuanian duda, vocal, kantele, wind-instruments, percussion.
Maxim Anukhin - gusli (psaltery), vocal, percussion.
Yekaterina Yelkina - vocal, percussion.
Yevgeniy Yablonskiy - keybords, vocal
Dmitriy Terekhov - percussion" (Bandcamp)

While this album turned out to be a bit less interesting than I initially thought after reading the description above, I still would recommend it to anyone who's into neofolk, and the bands like Moon Far Away in particular. It's also worth mentioning that while the lyrics are technically in a language that I have never learned, I still understood everything (or, well, almost everything :))