Bichkraft — 800 (2018)

Beat and sing it out, play it the way to erase borderlines of continents and ages, joy and sorrow. Give the youth power over what comes out onto paper, what gets free from speaker grid, throat, recording studio, Ukraine, New York, from everywhere, even from your rebellious hearts.

Since 2014 the duet, which has grown to a quartet, and rose to the point of States’ interest as the result, managed to release three albums: "Mascot", "Shadoof" and the last one – "800", in March 2018. With each new release appearance, it is easy to cognize how noise gets more tamed and controlled by guys, dropping back the dirty sound – the apogee of what is reached in "Mascot" and reduces in "Shadoof" – to the orotund in the last work.

After discovering the majority of motherland’s "dungeons", Bichkraft raised their sound, appropriate for the underground scene, from there to organize it in under the auspices of Wharf Cat Records. The label itself is located in Brooklyn, where once were warmly accepted original riffs of Bichkraft. By years this label nurse specific artists of "chamber scene" with the special sympathy for chaos, as, for example, Big French, Holy Motors, their early fosterling La Peste, etc.

The thing people call "this special chance, exact time to…" already pushed two young guys in backs, when Jenia Bichowski and Dima Novichenko met not to waste time anymore. The impetuous union of guitarists-vocalists attracted to it, to the creative beginning, two more members – bassist Serzh Kupriychuk and drummer Jenya Fenec. The trip of the formed complete band all over Ukrainian cities with breweries led them not to the place you must’ve thought of, but on the pages of Pitchfork media.

By the call of Wharf Cat and the fate, recording of "800" LP charges guys two weeks of pure work, in spite of their bar-relaxing states, in which they indulge being in Great country of same great temptations. Some tracks, called "additional" were recorded at home, in Kiev. But the main working process took place in Brooklyn, on Kutch 1 Studios. It is Carl Saff’s (Saff Mastering) name marked above mastering, who is conscientiously in for it since 2000 in America, while producer’s work was on Carson Cox.

Album "800" cannot be sewed up as one piece, there are moods of different days, people, periods in songs – from noises of "Yonder", seeding light alarm around, to beachy carefree "13 Again".

Full of conviction and rude commands, "Yonder" carries listeners on the waves of one tune. From time to time it is intent control of experienced American mentors can be heard in the track, who kept the balance right between clearness and "dirt", to which the collective was used. And while one guitar beats the rhythm of the song, another openly flirts with the copper sound of percussion, working on ripe qualitative consonance.

Afterward not less interesting in terms of composition and coworking "Introducing yourself" continues the album. At the very beginning of it the guys we know are just "afraid to lose", about what the creaking guitars sound under the fear, followed by Bichkraft’s familiar vocals pitch, but at the end of it… something covering and growing to the rebel sound immodestly demonstrates itself through the vocal cords usage – it is Samantha York, one of two appearances of the American comrades on the recordings. Sam brings the punk plume with her here from the WALL band, the member of which once was. The second invited guest is Elizabeth Skadden, from that same WALL and Finally Punk.

The only invariable, that is mark and penmanship through the whole band’s existence – vocals. Let it be a bit faceted by the hand of professional from the moment of its first recording, but the manner remains. The vocals of the person, who might not know, perhaps, about singing, right now, at this moment we are eavesdropping, while he is asking, threatening, immersed into an inner monologue with frequent addressing to the one who’s guilty and all wrong. And with that same voice – more sharp-cut this time, above the melody, not inside it as a hiding thread – musicians go into the associations, memories, descriptions of the concrete subjects once seen in their lives. So it is always the picture of immortal, rich in details youth looms out from here. 

And while the members of Bichkraft talk about the place of joy and music in the life, where politics and wars claim our attention, playing neverending tug of war with everything, that needs time and digestion, we are talking about how lucky Ukrainian experimental scene is to stay young and rising if such representatives still come back to it, through kilometers and miles.

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Bichkraft в соцсетях:

https://bichkraft.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bichkraft