Bah Bah Genesis has been working on their first full-length release since their formation in 2021, shifting into high gear over the recent months. Although the band didn’t drop their debut single until 2024, they have already made a name for themselves with live sets at Brudnyi Pes, the Jäger Music showcase, Lesia Kvartyrynka, Repair Together, Ne.Kulturni, and other major music events.
‘L’eau Nouvelle’, the debut album by Bah Bah Genesis, marks the end of the band’s first chapter and reflects both the musical and personal evolution of its members. Ahead of the album’s release, DTF Magazine spoke with Artem Yelisieiev, Iryna Andriienko, and Andrii Bondarenko about the band’s journey, the pressure of having no music on streaming platforms, their genre-blending approach, and their meticulous attention to detail.
About ‘L’eau Nouvelle’
The album features nine tracks that blend seamlessly into one another, ‘creating the sensation of an unstoppable journey’. Stylistically, the release brings together ‘the full spectrum of Bah Bah Genesis’ musical influences’, ranging from ambient, jazz rock, and fusion to funk, progressive rock, and other subgenres.
According to the band, the title ‘L’eau Nouvelle’ (New Water) carries multiple meanings, including purification, renewal, and life itself. At the same time, for the musicians, it symbolizes a new beginning.
‘In Ukrainian culture, the symbol of water is deeply interwoven. It appears in folk traditions as a symbol of purification, fertility, and blessing, as well as in authored literature. For example, in the works of Rymaruk, water symbolizes eternity and memory. In the lyrics of our songs, water serves as an ‘instrument’. And in the album’s title, thanks to the adjective ‘new’, water becomes, for me, an image of a beginning — like a fresh spring that will flow through life, carving a different, completely new path’, the band’s vocalist, Ira Andriienko, says.
The cover artwork for ‘L’eau Nouvelle’ was created by artist Mariia Zhuikova. The cover consists of eight tiles taken from an underpass in Kyiv’s Obolon district, which, according to the artist, were ‘witnesses to everything that led to the creation of the album’.
‘One of our main goals was to ensure the highest possible quality, even if it turned into perfectionism at times’ — An Interview with Bah Bah Genesis
— The band was founded in 2021 by Artem and Nazar Danylchuk. How did the idea to form BBG come about?
Artem Yelisieiev: Around 2020, I was in my first year of university when I met Nazar. At the same time, I discovered the FUSION JAMS events and talked about them a lot with him. He got inspired and suggested that we jam together.
That’s how we started playing together. At first, it was just jams and attempts to make music that we ourselves enjoyed. Later, I happened to meet Illia Kabanov at a concert and invited him to jam with us right there on stage. Surprisingly, it worked out really well. After that, we immediately booked a rehearsal space. That’s exactly where the instrumental sketch for one of the tracks on our debut album came together.
— Did the project emerge naturally from jam sessions and rehearsals? Or did the band form first, with the songwriting process coming later?
Ira Andriienko: Artem sent me recordings of their jam sessions and suggested we turn one of them into a song. I liked a particular melody, so I recorded a vocal part and wrote lyrics for it, then sent it back to Artem for a vibe check. That’s how ‘Cherry Jam’ came to life. So in the beginning, everything was built around shared improvisations and jam sessions — just for the joy of making and enjoying music together.
— How did your approach to music change after Illia and Ira joined the band?
Ira: We would meet up for rehearsals and basically just jam. I’d record everything on my phone’s voice memos, and then at home, I’d come up with the vocal melody and lyrics. After that, I’d send over a demo recorded in GarageBand, so when we showed up for the next rehearsal, we were already prepared to unpack and refine the skeleton of the song: building the structure, fleshing it out, adding details, and so on.
This process continued right up until we began recording the album. That’s exactly how our songs were born, which is why the album versions are different from the ones we used to perform early on.
— Not much time had passed before you performed at Lesia Kvartyrynka in September 2021. Did you already have a body of material ready by then? If so, how many tracks?
Artem: Lesia Kvartyrynka is my favorite Ukrainian music festival. Back then, it was only our second-ever live show as a band, but we already had a partial live set shaped up — around five tracks. We performed ‘Cherry Jam’ and ‘1715’, both of which later made it onto the album. We also had an experimental intro track called ‘Welcome to Taras Shevchenko Station’. It’s still waiting for its moment and may appear in future Bah Bah Genesis releases.
There was also an improvised jam with jazz guitarist Andrii Ostroushko. On top of that, we played ‘Femme Fatale’ — which was the rawest track in our setlist at the time, but surprisingly, one of the biggest bangers. We’ve since moved on from it and haven’t performed it since around the beginning of 2023.
— After that, 2022 and 2023 were filled with performances at various festivals and events, while your first release, ‘Confession’, only came out in early 2024. Did you feel any pressure from the fact that the project’s audience was growing, but you could only be heard live?
Ira: I don’t think so. We just wanted to document our music and decided to start with that specific track. At the time, it was our most popular song at live shows.
— Tell us about ‘Confession’. What’s the story behind the creation of the track?
Artem: In 2022, back in my personal place of power — the town of Koziatyn — I was practicing on a drum pad almost every day and got completely hyper-focused on a single rhythmic pattern. That pattern eventually became the rhythm you can now hear in the chorus of ‘Confession’.
Later on, already in Kyiv, during rehearsals Illia laid down a hypnotic guitar lick over it — and that’s when we realized we were very close to finishing our next track.
For quite a while, the two of us just played it as an instrumental because the other band members weren’t in Kyiv. During live shows, the bass parts were played by our friend Heorhii on a Korg MS-20. Eventually, we started playing the track with our full lineup.
— The work on it lasted for about two years: the track was recorded in a professional studio, several different musicians tried out for the saxophone parts, and the cover art was created using linocut. Tell us about that experience.
Artem: It was our very first studio recording experience — a real challenge (though not as massive as working on the album). For the recording, we brought in two saxophonists: Bohdan Burmich, who was a member of BBG at the time, and Oleksii Riabyk. Without the experience of making ‘Confession’, we wouldn’t have been able to create the album at the level we were aiming for.
— Most musicians try to release their first music as quickly as possible, whereas you chose a more deliberate and professional approach. Why? And what have been the advantages and disadvantages of that decision for you personally?
Andrii Bondarenko: We weren’t under pressure from a label because we released the record independently. Yes, it’s very important to have music available on streaming platforms early on, but since this was our first release, we understood that you only get one chance to make a strong first impression. That’s why we tried to ensure the highest possible quality with the resources and experience we had at the time.
— What changed after the release of ‘Confession’?
Artem: Before that, you can play plenty of live shows, jam, and have your own material, but until you release something, the band seems to exist mostly within the local scene and among the people who have seen you perform live.
Confession became our first real step into the wider world. We actively promoted the track, and thanks to that, people started writing about us, and we began to gain more recognition beyond Kyiv’s underground scene. It wasn’t some dramatic breakthrough, but it was definitely an important step forward for the band.
— Two other important milestones in your journey were your performance at Brudnyi Pes in 2024 and your appearance at the Young Blood Live showcase as part of the Jäger Music Awards in 2025. Tell us about those experiences. Did they have any impact on your visibility or on the way people perceived the band?
Artem: Performing at Brudnyi Pes was a great experience. It was an honor for us to play on the Fusion Jams stage — the very project that had originally inspired the creation of the band.
The Young Blood Live showcase was also a great event. It’s hard to say exactly how much these performances contributed to our visibility, but they definitely introduced us to a new audience.
— In March of this year, two years after ‘Confession’, the rollout for ‘L’eau Nouvelle’ began with the release of ‘Doom’. Why was there such a long gap between the singles, and why did work on the full-length album take so long?
Andrii: This was our first project on such a scale. On top of that, we spent a lot of time experimenting with production and mixing, trying to make each track sound as unique as possible. On the one hand, that’s a strength, because no two songs on the album sound alike. But at the same time, it significantly slowed down the process and prevented us from relying on any universal mixing approaches borrowed from other tracks. One of our main goals was to ensure the highest possible quality, even if it turned into perfectionism at times and slowed the work down even further.
— In your opinion, looking back at the band’s journey and evolution, do you feel that ‘L’eau Nouvelle’ is coming out at the right time?
Andrii: ‘L’eau Nouvelle’ consists of almost all the songs we wrote in 2021 and 2022. While we were preparing to record the album, they evolved — sometimes changing dramatically, other times just growing and becoming more fully developed over time. By releasing these songs, we are effectively bringing the first chapter of our creative journey to a close.
We’re also, in a way, letting go of all the emotions we experienced while writing and recording the album — almost like in a meditation. But you have to make room for new emotions and new ways of experiencing them. So yes, I think the album is coming out exactly when it needs to.
— Officially, BBG is classified as an alternative rock band, but in practice your music blends a dozen different genres — from ambient to jazz rock. How did this sonic symbiosis come about?
Andrii: In general, it comes from a sense of uncertainty. Each of us has a completely different musical background. I listen to almost everything, but heavy music is what I love most. Artem leans more toward hip-hop and fusion. Ira is into R&B, neo-soul, and indie. And Dzhemil and Illia are mostly into jazz and all its different shades. Because each of us brings a piece of our own musical background into the band, the result is this eclectic blend of genres — a real musical melting pot.
— And when it comes to the themes of your songs, what are they about? And who drives that lyrical direction?
Ira: I’m the one who chooses the lyrical themes and writes the lyrics. But the decision on what a specific song will be about actually takes shape during our jams and rehearsals. If a melody is melancholic or written in a minor key, the theme tends to follow that mood. We have songs like ‘The Sea’ and ‘1715’, which sound quite depressive, so their themes reflect the atmosphere of the music. On the other hand, ‘Blind’ has a fairly aggressive sound, so the lyrical persona there is venting her anger at an ex-partner over a betrayal.
— If you had to describe Bah Bah Genesis’ music in a single phrase, what would it be?
Andrii: I would call ‘L’eau Nouvelle’ an eclectic and, to a certain extent, maximalist record in terms of its presentation.
— How do you envision people experiencing ‘L’eau Nouvelle’? And what, in your view, can listeners expect from the future evolution of BBG?
Andrii: More than anything, we hope people enjoy the album — that’s the main thing for us. As for what comes next, we want to keep growing musically and push our experimentation even further in future releases. We’d also love to collaborate more with talented artists. Looking ahead, we plan to write either entirely in Ukrainian or in a mixed format — with some songs in English and others in Ukrainian.
Artem: When we held a listening session for the album and received such an incredibly warm and enthusiastic response from the audience, it was hugely inspiring. So our ultimate goal now is to keep creating high-quality, compelling music that excites both us as creators and the listeners.
