Foreign View Nick: Nick Hannon (Great Britain, Sons of Alpha Centauri)

Nick Hannon, who is the bass player of British band Sons of Alpha Centauri, shared some thoughts about Ukrainian music and bands with us today. Ukrainian label Robustfellow Prods released their second album "Continuum" last year. 

— What Ukrainian underground artists do you know? How did you listen to them first? Why do you like them?

I think the first Ukrainian band I really got into that I knew were Funestum. I heard their track "Врата Вечности" (Gates of Eon). I was doing a funeral project at the time called Etherius since SOAC never really went too far into the funeral or doom side of things. I heard this epic saga of a track from getting really into the funeral scene – what a track. Up there with Shape of Despair for sure…

Narrow House (featuring ex-members of Funestum) is a cool band and I have their records which were released on Solitude Records. I kind of got into the Ukrainian scene through the funeral doom side of things — I’m not really a "doom head" or anything but the funeral side is so much more orchestral and with interesting time signatures. In fact, I did end up speaking quite a bit with Yegor from Funestum and one day I really want to mix down a live show/video that he sent me.

— Does your personal collection contain Ukrainian releases? Which one?

My absolute favorite Ukrainian band is Starchitect. Their debut album "No" is one of the best debut post metal alums out there. I love those guys! I have their split with Fading Waves which contains their debut release "Home" too — brilliant stuff man. Totally under-rated band.

It would be great to play with them in Ukraine and in return we would hook them up with a show in London!

Starchitect Tour poster 2011

- Do you keep in touch with Ukrainian labels?

Robustfellow to me are a fantastic label. They epitomise everything that encapsulates an arthouse community based label. I think that RobustFest and the DVDs that they produced linked to those shows are incredible and include some really great performances from Krobak, Belzebong and Samsara Blues Experiment. However, it’s not just the festival and the DVDs. One thing that blew me away was the Robust Session 2011 – 2013 tape collection that they did.

I am lucky enough to own one of these and it is the highest quality release I have seen. I have worked with Simple Box Construction through A Death Cinematic when we did our limited split and even with Set Fire to Flames back in 2005 which is like the Godspeed! Crew and Constellation and this is the finest art label production I have seen.

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Playing RobustFest is most certainly a thing that SOAC have on our ‘to do’ list and we really hope to make that happen in the next few years or so. I’m trying to arrange it with Filipp that us and Karma to Burn could do a RobustFest at some stage. We opened the first DesertFest together but now we want to do RobustFest!

- Can you name some interesting releases by Ukrainian labels?

Somali Yacht Club – their album "The Sun" is awesome. Mournful Gust are another funeral band that I love. Soom are cool too, their album came out at a similar time to "Continuum" so I got into them that way.

Thanks so much for your interest and support to Sons of Alpha Centauri – respect to Ukraine, the bands and the labels that keep it alive and real.  

Previously in series: https://www.neformat.com.ua/rubrika/foreign-view

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