The compilation album released by the Kyiv-based label Iriy Records is titled ‘Nyzovyna’ (Lowlands) and spans two years of the label’s work with experimental Ukrainian bass music. The release features 17 tracks across four bass subgenres
Iriy Records explain that ‘Lowlands’ ‘works as both a snapshot of the scene and a link between the label’s earlier releases and what comes next’.
The compilation brings together artists ‘closely connected to Iriy’s journey’ who work across various bass music styles:
Industrial bass — pants (‘Unrun Citizen’), Demian Feriy (‘Vcherhove papliuzhat’), worse (‘Headshot’).
Post-club — Geyera (‘Short’), Bakunn (‘Vsi novyny huiovi’), drvwncvnt (‘No Connection’ (Iriy Mix)), evil iseeshine (‘Sprayed’em’), Panghoud (‘Putaria’).
Ethereal та ambient bass — nizhna (‘Inspiration’), kvitka (‘Dungeon та Atoms’), kate lizzerd (‘Iron Orb’), Khrystyna Kirik (‘Afterimage’).
Glitch bass — Cymbal (‘cultcode’), uniq_id (‘LLM’), Native Outsider (‘Magnesium Beat’), NFNR (‘Everything Dissolves’).
Describing the title of the release, Iriy Records explain that it refers both to the concept of bass in music as a whole and to locations in Kyiv that are significant to the Ukrainian bass scene.
‘Geographically, it describes areas surrounded by higher ground — like Podil in Kyiv, where key spaces for Ukrainian bass culture and Iriy’s own history are based (Otel, 20ft Radio). Sonically, it points directly to law frequencies and bass pressure. In Ukrainian culture, ‘grassroots initiatives’ refer to artistic movements that exist outside mainstream promotion — low as in underground’.
The label’s team add: ‘The name also connects to the myth of Iriy. While Iriy is often linked to birds, these creatures feed on what lives below the surface. Iriy becomes a space for both what flies above and what remains hidden beneath. ‘Lowlands’ is situated precisely between these levels’.
About other releases by Iriy Records
In April, Iriy Records released the debut album by Kyiv-based electronic musician human margareeta. On ‘Broken’, the producer explores personal states through ‘anxiety, inner dissonance, and fragmentation’.
The seven-track release, written during the full-scale invasion, conveys a sense of uncertainty that has ‘become a constant backdrop since 2022’. However, according to the artist herself, the album ‘is not about reacting to external events — it is about inner transformation and how the experience of war changes the body, rhythm, and ways of thinking’.
