DakhaBrakha / ДахаБраха

Three very different releases are on offer from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev/Minsk. Whatever their stylistic disparities, though, they all draw upon the power of landscape and its ability to counter modernity's failures.

The Wild Mint Festival, hosted outside Moscow, is arguably the nation's most important folk music event. One of the headliners this year was Anna Pingina, whose view of "traditional" performance is rather unique...

The ensembles under discussion here all make direct and profitable use of folkloric tradition. They do so, however, in ways that allow for greater experimentation - without falling to iconoclastic silliness. In careful, considered patterns, custom is used to engender novelty.

Three projects from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are currently offering some new interpretations of folklore. Tales of the countryside become tales of fantasy: landscapes become dreamscapes