The album of the band “VV” Dance will be released on vinyl

In 2023, the legendary album “Dances” of the band “Vopli Vidoplyasova” will finally receive its first official release. Three compositions from the upcoming release of Org Music have already been made freely available to Ukrainian media. These are “Dances”, “There Were Days” and “Politrock”.

Also, a book about the album “Dances” will be presented.

“Dances” is a real time capsule from the late Soviet Kyiv, where Ukrainian punks rebelled against the repressive rule of the Kremlin and opened new horizons of opportunities for Ukrainian culture“, the publishers wrote.

The album “Dances” began its life in 1989 in the form of a semi-official cassette, recorded in one night in Kyiv. Then the fans of the favorites of the Soviet punk scene “VV” copied the tape “by hand”. The new life of “Dances” began in in 2019 during an interview with an American musicologist Maria Sonevytska with the band’s former bassist Oleksandr Pipa. The original session tape was then rediscovered and the original tracks remastered at Infrasonic Sound.

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Sound engineer Dave Gardner, who was directly involved in this task, commented on his work on the project in this way:

“It’s hard to explain what it meant to me to be involved in this project. My family lived in Ukraine and Belarus before some of us immigrated to the United States, and the rest were dispersed by the Holocaust. My respect and love for Ukraine and the people of Ukraine have only grown over the past decade thanks to personal friendship, my sympathy and extreme admiration for the way Ukrainians overcome the challenges they faced. I really put my heart into the work on this record.”

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On April 22, 2023, the album “Dances” will be released on vinyl for the first time before Record Store Day 2023 on Org Music, a label from Los Angeles, California, in a limited edition of 2,000 copies worldwide.

When in in 1989 “VV” recorded their “demo version” of “Dances”, then for connoisseurs of Soviet punk, the record quickly acquired the status of a cult due to the driving songs that satirize life in the USSR in the last years of its existence. “The world was paradoxical. We just showed this absurdity,” – said the soloist of “VV” Oleg Skrypka about the band’s activities in the late 80s.

“It was an honor and excitement for me to work on the first official release of the album “Dances” of the band “Vopli Vidoplyasova”. When I first heard about the album and met Maria Sonevytska, I immediately understood that this is a project that needs to be shared with the world. It is a miracle that the cassettes were found, and that Maria was able to transport them from Kyiv,” – this is how he commented on the release of the album “Dances” Andrew Rossiterhead of the label.

An electronic version of the English-language book will also be presented on April 22 “Dancing” publishing house Bloomsbury. This is a thorough musicological study Maria Sonevytska, who is now an associate professor at the University of California.

In the book, the author used the memories and comments of musicians. In particular Evgeny Hudzthe frontman of Gogol Bordello, recalls his teenage years when he was a VV superfan.

“When I first heard BB, I was just in awe. When they started playing, it really hit me, like this is it, you know? That it’s finally taking things to a new level. All this metal, blues-punk, blues-alternative music plus ethnic music, it was a fusion. A hybrid. The damned vitamins I needed,” Gudz said in an interview for the book “Dances.”

He spoke about the book Yury GurzhyJewish-Ukrainian musician, Berlin-based DJ and composer, originally from Kharkiv.

“Although the end of the year is still far away, I already know that “Dances” by Maria Sonevytska is definitely my Book of 2023. An exciting story about a milestone of modern Ukrainian rock music, an early demo recording of “Vopliv Vidoplyasov” is a story about four young punks who were to become the most important band of the first decades of Ukrainian independence.This is a great study and interesting to read – I think both for those who have never heard of the band and for people like me whose life was completely changed by this album “, – says Gurzhi.

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