medukha by medukha / медуха

The story behind this album is in part our origin story: an idea run amuck.

Pandemic restlessness had us asking, “what if?” What if we took the Ukrainian village tunes we’d been studying and added a little guitar? Over the next three years, that “what if” evolved into “why” and the impulse to “add a little guitar” became part of a larger interrogation of our immigrant experiences.

While questions of national and cultural belonging aren't obvious in the album, they’re the backdrop of the band’s existence. This project so far has been a pursuit of ways in which the folk material that colors our heritage can resonate with us on a personal level. A wedding song from Southeastern Poland becomes a curbside conversation with a bird (chmara idzie); a Central Ukrainian standard makes way for a psychedelic trip (kozak p’e); a melody with disputed origins becomes fertile ground for a new language (dorogoi).

This album would not exist without the efforts of Ukrainian Village Voices, to whom we owe our exposure to many of the Ukrainian vocal traditions that inform our work. Additional thanks to the creators and keepers of Polyphony Project, the most comprehensive digital archive of Ukrainian village music around; the YouTube channel Funked Up East for providing a steady drip of inspiration from our homelands and beyond; and the family, friends, and fans who’ve helped a childish idea mature into a life-defining project.

Here are some words by a dear friend and fellow musician, Matt Genkin (You Want Milk, Rhymes with Orange) that make us blush:

“Medukha's music resolves the following contradictions without effort: grief and playfulness, historical depth and currency, professionalism and vulnerability, bedroom lo-fi and Eastern European folk. To anyone with Eastern European heritage who is alive in today's culturally ambiguous globalized world, this music is especially healing.”

the recipe for medukha involves steeping the antics of a rock band in a pitcher of third culture confusion

add polish and ukrainian folk melodies to taste

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