The Industrial Twilight: November 2026

Wednesday, November 4, 2026

Oyme - "Mastorava vol.1" [2023]

Artist: Oyme

Title: Mastorava vol.1

Genre: Folk, World Music

Country: Russia

Release date: 2023

Track List:

North Tolava
Vaya
Kalyadki
Borazh velesj
Shakshata
South Vedyava
Vai, Mashura!
Matyryanj Aldanyasj
Wings of love
Kelu
Mastorava
Genesis (bonus track)

And finally, here's the Erzyan/Mokshan folk band that was mentioned on my blog more often than any other - Oyme, presenting the first part of their concept album "Mastorava", released in late 2023 and summing up more than 10 years of their creative work. The album is supposed to consist of 4 parts reflecting the traditional number of directions and nature elements, of which two are present on this volume. While at its core it's modern folk/world music inspired by Deep Forest (as I've probably already mentioned, they did a collaboration with Eric Mouquet of DF a few years ago), their music is very rich in various influences including even rap (yes I admit that rap is everywhere nowadays and I'm annoyed by it as much as the next person, but they did it only as a little experiment in one track that turned out surprisingly good) and lyrics in 4 different languages. Their best-known song "Vaya", based on traditional Erzyan bridal songs, is what I'd call industrial folk:

The "Oyme Fest" festival, showcasing their work of collecting the folklore of Mordovia, took prace a month ago, and included an ethno-fashion show and a premiere of a documentary film. It was the 4th time I've seen Oyme performing live, and for the second time I've met their frontwoman Ezhevika Spirkina (who was already mentioned on my blog quite a few times as well), who was happy to see me too. Not long ago she has married Andrey Chegodaev, the leader of an international 80's style hard rock revival band The Blackfires, who organized the festival together with her. Shout-out also to the other vocalists of Oyme: Ksenia Kudinova, Larissa Zybkina, and Yulia Avrutskaya (who joined the band relatively recently) and all the accompanying musicians including the drummer Ilya Yagoda who was wearing a Myrkur t-shirt during the concert :3 By the way, right now Oyme are performing in Moscow, and even if I'm there, I hope I'll see them live many times more in the future:

<a href="https://navigatorrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mastorava-vol-1">Mastorava vol. 1 by OYME</a>

About this blog

I created this blog mostly because I wanted to practise my English skills, and to showcase the industrial, gothic, punk, metal, neofolk and progressive rock scene of Russia/ex-USSR and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary) in the meanwhile.

As you can see, this blog doesn't take itself seriously enough, but I hope I'm doing good enough with my reviews even if my proficiency in English is limited. Along with the aforementioned stuff from Eastern Europe, I occasionally post some classic and rare albums that aren't to be missed, and generally whatever I want. Other categories of note:

* finno-ugric rarities - various music (including pop) in minor Finno-Ugric languages which I'm interested in because of my heritage. The music from Hungary, Finland and Estonia can be found under the respective categories;

* lo-fi - various poorly recorded demos from before 2000 that are of historical importance. Most of these demos come from the USSR era, so you might want to check out the USSR category as well.

As of now, I try to post only music that has already been made free by the artists themselves, or the rare old releases that are out of print. But if you're an artist and would like me to remove the download links of your work, just contact me using the form below.

Sorry, I don't do reviews by request, I don't have the time. Moreover, I think the bands that feel the need to advertise themselves by sending their demos to as many blogs as possible are usually just plain boring. If you want to contact me for any other reason, use the contact form below.

It should be obvious enough that reviewing anything on here doesn't equals endorsement of artists' personal views. This especially concerns neofolk and martial industrial. It'd be fair enough to say that I have the same approach to the political and religious topics in these genres as Laibach do.

Many of the female musicians featured on my blog are amateur models, and in many cases their modelling work is no less interesting than their music. Right now I'm working on giving it a separate section of the blog (just in case if anyone wants my review to be only about their music and not their looks). The work is in progress, check back later if you're interested.

The title of my blog comes from a song by The Kovenant (album "SETI", 2003).