A new album by Ukrainian electronic musician, sound designer and Next Sound festival founder Andrey Kiritchenko has been released on the British label Touched Music. MARIA consists of 14 tracks and is dedicated to the life and work of artist Maria Prymachenko
Andrey says that the album’s story began with his performance at the Bouquet Kyiv Stage festival in 2020. At that time, he used Prymachenko’s paintings reimagined by Kyiv studio BLCKBOX for the visual accompaniment of his concert ‘Dyvosvit Khymer’ within the event.
The impetus for the album was the events of the full-scale war in Ukraine. On February 25, 2022 during the offensive of russian troops in Ivankov village in Kyiv region, a local history museum burned down. Among other things, about 25 works by Maria Prymachenko were stored there, only 10 of which were saved.
‘With this album, Andrey wants to draw additional attention to the systematic destruction of the Ukrainian cultural code due to russian aggression’, the MARIA album description reads.
The titles of 14 singles from the album refer to the titles of Maria Prymachenko’s paintings, such as Black Beast and Autumn Is Riding On Horseback.
‘Prymachenko’s ‘naive art’ images appealed to amazing archetypal spaces, reproducing both national identity and Maria’s personal aspirations, belief in the power of love, goodness and all the beautiful things around us, — the musician says. — In her works you can find visual attributes of rural life, Ukrainian ethnicity, strange animals, flowers and even starry celestial bodies. I feel the powerful echoes of her approaches in my own philosophy and strive to create an amalgam of sonic textures that can convey this to the listener’.
You can purchase MARIA on Bandcamp. Half of the funds raised from release sales will be donated to a cancer foundation, and another half will be distributed among funds supporting Ukraine.
Andrey Kiritchenko presented a special musical program Sound tribute to Maria Prymachenko at the Bouquet Kyiv Stage festival held in Georgia in 2023.
