Author Archives: Cliff de Booy

Furda – Bojany (2022)

30 Sep
Cliff de Booy
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I seem to have known Ren (FB) for just as long as I’ve been part of the Alternative Folk scene. I first noticed his talents as he uploaded some snippets of him covering OMNIA songs on Flute. And he continued to do that. Sometimes a cover. Sometimes a doodle he played on a newly built flute, sometimes a sketch he recorded with some new studio equipment he acquired, a bit later also some videos of him working with fire. And every time I was amazed by his talent.

From those first ‘doodles’ on I encouraged Ren to do something with his talent. And boy, did he do just that. In June of last year a package from Poland fell on my doormat. In it was an album called Bojany by the band Furda, a collaboration between Ren and musician/instrument builder Jakub Podskarbi (FB), and it blew me away. Especially the quality and musicianship on it. This was quite some debut they recorded and it didn’t take long before a couple of their songs made it to my personal CeltCast reviewers delights Spotify list. Sadly for them I needed a break from reviewing at that time, so the album never got the attention it truly deserved. Time to make up for it now.

Let’s start by asking Ren (right hand side) how he met Jakub Podskarbi (on the left):
–’ I met Jakub, or cukier (sugar) as we call him, at a Polish folk festival some years ago. We both can’t remember anymore which festival it was.’ He laughs:
–‘ Anyhow, Cukier was playing with his other band at this festival and in the evening we jammed with a group of musicians around a fire probably and that is how we met. After that I worked a while with a member of his other band Sumana (FB), in the end Cukier became involved and that in a way was the start of Furda. Bojany is the first album we recorded together.’

The Album

Well, I’m happy they did as Furda’s music is interesting from the very first beat the recorded. Listening to it with headphones is almost mandatory.

The intro Wdech is an almost improvised percussion piece with added overtone flute. Beautifully mixed by Jakun and Ren, also beautifully mastered by Maurycy Zóltanski (FB).

It’s an intriguing combination of neo-folk with an almost Japanese percussion sauce poured over it. Really cool.

It also has an ‘old ‘ feel to it. As if this song was captured for centuries in the swamps of time and now is suddenly freed again. Like a bubble of methane popping out of the surface.

Title track Bojany

Title track Bojany has that same ‘old’ almost Neolithical feel to it. That feeling is ignited by the haunting sound of the suka biłgorajska: an ancient Polish string instrument, related to the violin but sound wise more similar to the nyckelharpa. It was extinct for a long time, but, like many old instruments in the neo folk scene, was rediscovered and makes its return here.

Ren: –‘Jakub is not only a musician but also an instrument maker who specialises in recreating or restoring old instruments. The instrument you mentioned, the suka biłgorajska is actually made by him. Our goal is to build all the instruments we use ourselves. We also try to achieve an ‘antique’ sound when we record our music, fitting with the instruments we play.‘

Back to the song itself. The deep throat singing, the almost crying duduk, and the before mentioned haunted suka biłgorajska sound make this such a gothic song. With a lovely build up by the way. It keeps growing. An overtone flute solo, a kid running around, (As if Alison Shaw, singer of the Cranes, rushes by). Another old instrument, the jouhikko, makes an appearance as well. You would also think you here some deep synthesizer bass sounds, but Ren tells me that are sounds created by putting the suka biłgorajska through some guitar effects.

–’ We love to do that, take the acoustic instruments and play with them with effects. Because we do it with guitar effects we can reproduce that sound live as well. It’s all part of the improvised live set we play.’

Fooled

Furda made an official video to go with this song and in the accompanying text they explain what the song is about. [or so I thought]
– ‘For quite some time, the scarecrows have been disappearing from the fields. Locals thought this to be a mere prank pulled off by some kids, so one morning they decided to set up a trap for the mysterious jester. No one knows what really happened there, but since that day, all three volunteers, who wanted to catch the scarecrow thief, have not been able to utter a single word apart from B… bo… bo… bo… BOJANY!!!”

Ney Haro

The story, and the overall feel of the album, make me wonder if all the songs on Bojany are based on Polish Folklore. Ney Haro again has that dark feel. This music seems to slowly flow into your living room, caried by thick ‘shards’ of fog. Dark brown from the moors it arose from, black from the branches it past, Greenish wet from the lichen it touched, heavy from the myths it witnessed on its way. Or is it? Looking up the lyrics google translate ended up choosing Bengaly as the source of origin not Polish. I needed to ask Ren about that.

–‘I’m afraid we fooled you on both parts Cliff. Jakub actually made up the story you mentioned. That story that Bojany was based on a Polish Folklore story. [thanks Ren, that takes care of about 5 questions on the subject I had lined up. ] So no, the songs aren’t directly related to any mythical folk tale. Although the village where I live – which is called Bojany – is full of myths and ghost stories, so in a way we were influenced by that. Lisek for instance is based around a Polish nursery rhyme. But most of the stories we created ourselves, just like the story of Bojany.
For your question if there is Bengalese in there. Well no. All the lyrics are either in Polish or -and that goes for almost all of the songs on Bojany– in languages Jakub and me invented. This is something I already do for a long time, even before we started Furda. Almost all the times I wrote a song I would improvise word-like sounds that fitted well with the music , rather than them having a meaning. Its not something I do beforehand. Its more intuitive during the writing process. Only afterwards, transcribing the improvised words I’m singing I discovered that there are similarities in what I sing. That they become sort of an improvised language.’

Fooled again

Well, they got me fooled again it seems. But the song itself is a gem. the build up again is brilliant. It starts with something I can only describe as whispered Neolithical beat boxing. Or to put it differently, as if Gollum mysteriously cloned himself and all the Gollum’s decided to join in just for fun. And this is only the start. One by one elements are added. The suka biłgorajska bass effect sets the dark swamp mood. Gollums beat boxing sets the rhythm. Some humming, some shakers, a frame drum, a xaphoon, one after another shards of music drift into the song. There is no other word for it. And the vocals just finish it of. This is what an Neolithical soundscape should sounds like.

Mythical neo folk fun

An important thing about this whole album: it is fun. That is the really cool part about it all. Although the songs sound dark, like they come from some ancient deep dark Polish primordial wood, they don’t feel black. They have something fun and mischievous about them. Something troll-like.

A song that just screams ‘trollish-mischief’ is Lisek, the song Ren mentioned above. The wailing sound of the suka biłgorajska opening the song is pure genius. You could almost mistake it for the distant chant of a whale. Spooky yet unearthly beautiful. The repeated whispered vocals make this song increasingly eerie. Done like that, the lyrics become the heartbeat the of the song. The rhythm instead of the melody. Trust me, no kid will be soothed by this nursery rhyme. None at all.
Jakub and Ren love to play around with their vocals like this. They use the vocals as yet another instrument to add flavour to their sound. Characters manifest themselves trough their vocals. In this particular case it is as if Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars) joins the trolls for a midnight jam session. The Irish bouzouki riff under the vocal beat is catchy as hell. The soprano recorder and overtone flute solo are the finishing icing on the cake. A cake I gladly skip when the Jar Jar/troll choir picks up speed and ends in a maniacal spiral dance of some sort. This is not music this is a trap. And Furda are luring me in, deeper and deeper. Lisek is easily one of the best songs on Bojany.

Furdana is another of my favourites. Again it starts with a vocal beat indicating the rhythm, which continues throughout the song. The xaphoon -or Sax flute as it is called in Dutch- makes this ballad sound like a beautiful mix of the Nordic folk played by Fuimadane and the Eastern folk melodies we know from Irfan. Ren and Jakub truly created their own musical world. A world slightly dark, a bit gritty, a bit mischievous but with beautiful melodies. And I’m loving it.

Some background

Ren explains about the rhythmical build-up of most of the songs:
–‘ We didn’t get together in the way a band normally would. Actually one day, while we were considering the possibility of maybe doing something together, Jakub just messaged me and said he had arranged a gig for us at a festival. We were due to play 2 weeks later. But we didn’t have a song let alone a set or anything. So we decided twe wanted a two men band, using a lot of our instruments. The only way to do that was using a technique called live looping. A technique were you play a certain melody live and then loop that on the spot, building up a song right there and then as you go. The first gig was a bit hard as we still were learning and we didn’t make it easy on ourselves as we wanted to build up complex songs with many instruments but only played by the two of us and the assistance of those loops. But nowadays it works really well and our live performances are characterized by a lot of improvisation over those loops creating the song base.
Back to that first concert. We met up at Jakubs house in the days before with a lot of instruments and we wrote some song sketches that we rehearsed once before going on stage with them. A rather stressful experience to be honest. After that we worked more on those song sketches and in the end figured out how we could make the whole idea work for us.’
I find it interesting that Ren describe your songs as Sketches, as I have a line in my notes that says: “The music seems to be build up like a painting. First the rhythm – quite often a vocal rhythm – is laid down as a sketch. Then the first melody is thrown down like the base colour of the painting. With that settled, the colours come one by one, brush strokes that add or subtract from the song, slowly but surely building it up to a lovely yet slightly weird piece of musical artwork.”

Exhaustion and carpentry; a very special recording session

The start-up of Furda as a band was a strange one, but the recording of Bojany also wasn’t without its own difficulties Ren explained:

–’ It was in the autumn of ’20/21 that we decided that we wanted to record an album. I live in a wooden house in the forest and we decided to record the album there, taking just two weeks’ time to do it and build a recording studio in my bedroom with Jakub sleeping there with me. Now I can tell you, recording an album in two weeks straight is fun but extremely tiring. . All though the creative part itself is really fun, we won’t do it like that again. As a speedrun like that, waking up, composing, recording, only interrupted by eating and sleeping is extremely exhausting. What made it even harder was that the walls in a wooden cabin are quite thin and my dad’s workshop is right next to my bedroom. And he is a carpenter. So we had to arrange our recording times around his working times to prevent all kinds of weird machine or hammering sounds getting on our sound recordings.’

SeeDish feel

This story reminds me so much of the story of SeeD’s first album. Just going out and recording it in the middle of a forest. In a way Furda and SeeD share this whole ‘forget-about-the-rules-we-just-do-it-like-we-feel’ attitude. They also share that mischievous element in their music. When we come to Zwiędły the similarities become even bigger. This song has something truly SeeDish about it, mixed with an Arabesque flavour for good measure. Ski’la Va is more Trolska Polska meets SeeD featuring Irfan – yes I know, it sounds weird, but trust me, it is there – whereas Skeya Rokha takes me to the early days of OMNIA – especially the Irish Bouzouki part – with Koen (SeeD) on lead vocals.
To be clear these are all just references to give you a sense of the musical diversity that makes up the musical world of Furda. Ren and Jakub let their musical imagination run loose and created a wonderful neo folk world of their own. A world that is unique, intriguing and truly theirs.

Cliff

In this review I used parts of an interview I did with Ren. The whole interview can be found here.

The artwork is from the 1869 reproduction of ‘the drolatic dreams of Pantagruel’ by Louis Perron of Lyon.

Furda can be found here:

An interview with Bolesław Ren Rygiel,
playing Scarecrow with Furda

07 Sep
Cliff de Booy
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I have known Bolesław Ren Rygiel (FB) for a long time now. All the way back to 2012/2013 when I was involved with the World of OMNIA fan group. I first noticed Ren when he uploaded a cover version of an OMNIA song he played on flute. A very good version actually and from that moment on I always encouraged this young Polish musician to do something with his talent. That went on for about ten years and then, in 2022, a package fell through my letterbox from a new Polish neo folk duo called Furda (FB), and one of the members was Ren. That album, Bojany, has become a firm favourite in the de Booy household. I actually consider it to be one of the best debut albums I’ve heard since I’ve started listening to neo folk music, so it is high time I catch up with Ren and ask all about the CD Bojany and his band Furda.

So how did you and your fellow band member Jakub Podskarbi meet up?
– ‘We met at one of the Polish folk festivals but we are not sure anymore which one it was. Jakub (FB) was playing a gig at one of these festivals with his other band Sumana (FB).

Afterwards we just jammed around a fire and we met like that. From then on me and Jakub started to talk about maybe doing some project together.’

And that was the start of Furda?
– ‘Well that is sort of a funny story actually. As I said we were sort of talking talking about working together and at one point in 2021 Jakub just messaged me like: ‘Yo, we are playing a concert in two weeks or something.’ Ren continued laughingly: -‘ So he invited me to his house to talk things through and we decided we needed to make some material. We also decided we wanted to use live looping techniques so that we could use a lot of our instruments, just the two of us.’

I did notice you and Jakub use an impressive range of historic– and neo folk instruments. All sorts of recorders, a xaphoon, a Bulgarian kaval, a kalimba, a darbuka, and the kantele to name just a few.

– ‘Yes that is true. Besides being really active in the local neo folk scene. Jukab is also an instrument maker who specializes in creating some extinct or rare instruments such as the Polish traditional fiddle, the suka biłgorajska.

It is an instrument that had been extinct for over 150 years and now is the core of our sound essentially. The cool part of it is he made that suka biłgorajska himself .
Quite a lot of the instruments we use are either made or modified by us. At the moment I personally don’t really use many instruments I made myself but that is what I ‘m aiming for in the future. ‘

So you wanted to try and use all those instruments at that very first concert?
– ‘Yeah we thought it would be a fun idea to make something that was musically complex, using a lot of different instruments, but only with us two playing, so live looping was the way to go. We sat down at Jakubs house and jammed with a lot of different instruments and a looping effect.
We came up with a couple of song sketches that day that we then polished in if I am not mistaken one more rehearsal.’ Ren says with a smile. –’And yeah, then we played our first gig. Which was quite unsuccessful to be honest because we weren’t fully prepared for what we were hoping to achieve technically. So it was a rather stress full experience. After that we kept making music together. figuring out how to make the live looping concept we wanted work. How to be more consistent technically and how to make it a fun experience for everyone involved.’

That explains the way the songs on Bojany are build up. Did any of those first songs make it to your debut album?
– ‘Yes, most of the song sketches on Bojany come from that first rehearsal and that first gig we played. In the autumn of 2020 we decided we wanted to record an album. So Jakub came to stay at my home. I live in our family house, a nice wooden house my grandma build for us all in the forest. So we set up a studio in my bedroom and we just settled down for over two weeks and recorded every single day. We would wake up, eat breakfast and start recording We did for two weeks in a row. Every single day! Recording, recording, more recording, mixing, composing and recording again. I have to say, it were a rough couple of weeks.
Why? Well when you try to speedrun the recording of an album like that, day after day, and do it in one recording session it is very exhausting. It ended up being a very tiring experience. But a fun one none the less because it is a creative process and creative processes are fun. But , laughing, there were some obstacles on the road. For instance, as I said the studio was set up in my bedroom. Well my dad is a carpenter and his workshop is right next to my bedroom and there is essentially no walls and no doors between my bedroom and his workshop. So you can imagine there would be quite a few electric carpentry devices like saw blades and stuff , that made a lot of noises that we didn’t want on our recordings. So we had to organize a schedule that would work for both my dad and us as well. So yeah, it was difficult to pull it all off but luckily we did.’

You recorded and mixed the album together, did you also do the mastering yourself?
– ‘No, when we had the album somewhat ready we went to a friend of mine, Maurycy Żółtański (FB)(middle), who I used to go to school with. He now is a professional producer. He did the mastering for us and he gave the album a more Polish and a more sparky sound.’

The first video single you uploaded is of the title song Bojany. In the description under it you explain it is a local Polish folk tale collected in an unpublished book by Oskar Kolberg, a Polish ethnographer, folklorist, and composer. Are all the songs on the album based on Polish folkore?
At this point Ren starts to laugh out loud : – ‘I’m sorry Cliff, but actually Bojany is not based on polish folklore at all. The story that you refer to, was actually made up by Jakub, he improvised that post on the go. I think he just felt it was a fun way to introduce our music. Using a mystical story. So I’m afraid it is actually made up, although Oskar Kolberg was indeed a very renowned ethnologist and researcher of the polish folk culture and its mythology, so the story was certainly inspired by him.
So although most of the songs on Bojany are not directly based on Polish folklore, there is one exception: the song Lisek. That song is based around a well known Polish nursery rhyme. Other then that the songs on Bojany aren’t inspired by Polish folk tales as such, but it was recorded in the village of Bojany, the village where I live, and I have to say that Bojany in itself is a very interesting place. It is a very mystical area, with a lot of local folk tales. Lots of ghost stories actually and other things that are on the verge of the metaphysical. It is a place that is quite rich in those, shall I say weird forest myths and ghost stories. It would be safe to say this area definitely had some impact on us and the music we were making as we were recording it.’

Lisek taken from the album Bojany, released by Furda in 2022

When I was trying to translate the lyrics, the program I used found some Bengali in there. Did you really use Bengali lyrics on Bojany?
– ‘No there is no Bengali on the album, all the lyrics are either in Polish or -mostly- a made up language that me or Jakub created. That idea is something that goes back a long time, even before we started Furda. Whenever I would make a song I would quite often improvise some intuitive, made-up language, supposed to just match the song; the vibe or the feelings of that song.
It is not something that is really think through in that sense I don’t t usually write the made-up language lyrics out beforehand. Usually they come to me on the go and then transcribe them afterwards.
An interesting thing I noticed is that whenever I transcribe made up languages there seem to some similarities between them. Like some words that will come up often among these intuitive lyrics. Sometimes I try to piece it all together and create like a full on language created by me. I am not the only on in Furda doing that. Jakub created some intuitive phrases created as well, one example is the song Skeya Rokha.’

So Ney Haro and Skeya Rokha have ‘intuitive’ lyrics?
– ‘Yes Bojany, Ney Haro, Skeya Rokha, Ski’la va, Furdana they all have made-up lyrics although on Furdana there is not a lot of lyrics there beside ‘furdandandandandanda’ -laughs- which is just a twist on the bands name. Jakubs inspiration behind these ‘lyrics’ were the buddhist meditation chants, were they monks often use throat singing too. Those chants become very trans like because of the repeated phrases for a long period of time and we tried to recreate that in our own way.
We do have some polish lyrics as well. There is Lisek, which is based on this Polish nursery rhyme and then there is Zwiędły, which is written by me a couple of years back. These are the only two songs in polish on Bojany, but there is more to come on the next album.’

Oh cool! A new album! how far away is that?

– ‘The next album is quite far away actually. Jakub was very eager to play as many concerts as possible and if you play a lot of gigs you don’t have a lot of time to record new music, but we are planning to start recording some new songs. But we are not going to do it in one session again. We will do it one song at a time this time. Currently we have around four new songsketches for new album tracks that we perform live. With two of them we are almost done recording them.
I can already tell you these new songs will be a bit different. They are more acoustic driven. We want to go for a more live feel this time. The songs on our debut album Bojany are mostly quite slow paced and very atmospheric. When we play them live they become much more dynamic, more dancy. With the next album we want to go for this more dynamic more energetic approach as well. So the new album is gonna be a bit more wild then the first one. Do we already have a release date? No not yet. We hope to have the album out before next season if all goes well.’

Furda has its very own quite unique sound. Which bands would you say inspired you both?
– ‘ Our musical inspirations? For me that would obviously be OMNIA and quite certainly Heilung as well. We were both actually quite heavily inspired by Heilung at the beginning stages of Furda. Jakub’s main inspiration was an electronic music project called Lorn.
That’s where he took the idea for the deep bass sound that is present in a couple of our songs from. So in other words Furda is a mixture of a bit of ruff ambient sounds mixed with nice folky melodies and some electronic bass and percussion.
Something I didn’t mention before and maybe is not that obvious is that those very deep bass sounds like in the end of Skeya Rokha are actually not electronic sample or synthesizer sounds, It is actually the sound of the suka biłgorajska, put through a bunch of different guitar effects.

The fun part is we do try to use these ‘electronic’ sounds, especially in our live gigs, but we do it by manipulating the sounds of the different acoustic instruments we use with effects. That’s a big part of our sound it live gigs I would say, improvising and playing around with sounds.
With Furda what we just try to make music that stands out. It is somewhat rooted in folklore but what we go for is creating music that is open for interpretation. We don’t want to make music focused on a specific style or genre or cultural region or anything. So our music is a pretty crazy amalgamation of different ideas, cultural references and musical inspirations.
But we do try to make it feel a bit, ahm, ‘antique’. We do this with our choice of instruments and with the way we approach our music. It is pretty raw and played on a concert very improvised. When we play live we do have the general framework of how a song is supposed to go. However we do go for improvisation quite a lot. In my opinion this is the fun part of being a musician. That you get to create things and improvisation is just pure creation. We love doing it because it is just a lot of fun and makes every concert unique.’

Are the songs on Bojany also improvised then?
– ‘Well as I said most of the songsketches come from that first improvised jam session and are based on these improvised loops and song ideas we had. There is certainly some degree of improvising during recording. We normally don’t, you know, write our music, like – laughs – we don’t plan it out a lot. Usually we get a quick idea and we hop into recording and see what comes out. So our workflow is– laughing- very much impulse driven. We just have a crazy idea, we hop into the studio, work on it and see what happens.’

It sounds like fun is a big part of the band. I even saw you say you play ‘scarecrow’ with Furda according to your Facebook page?
– ‘Yes I do have ‘scarecrow with Furda’ written on my Facebook page and yes this band is certainly about having quite a lot of fun. We try to not take ourselves, and our music to serious. Everything with a little humor.
Obviously the scarecrow is a reverence to the Bojany video where we put on these crazy scarecrow costumes that Jakub made.’ He laughs: These costumes weren’t very comfortable to walk in actually. It was barely possible to move around in them but we were able to pull of the music video and survive for the day so all was good in the end.’

The official music video for Bojany by Furda

You already told us about that ‘first’ gig that didn’t go so well. What was your coolest gig then?
– ‘Then our first real gig as Furda comes to mind. It was in 2022 at Grajdół Festiwal, a very interesting Polish folk festival in the mountains.Very unusual actually as it is located on top of a mountain! It is pretty much impossible to get there as it is such a remote location. The only way really is by foot, climbing up this mountain. The organization have some very strong jeep-like trucks to stuf to the top of that mountain and they used those powerful Jeep trucks to get all our instruments and ger up there. Its a very nice festival organized by a very nice group of young competent people.

The atmosphere there was just amazing. It was one off the most magical festival experiences I had, maybe ever even, just because of how remote and wild this location is. So it was a great experience, although, the fun part is that we were scheduled to play around 24:00 at night, but as with almost every festival there were some delays in the program.
Now although I still uphold that the organization is very nice and capable, the delay was so severe we ended up playing four or five hours later! So we didn’t play at midnight but started when the sun was starting to come up. We had a hard time keeping our energy levels up till we could play the gig. Also the sound guy had a bit to much to drink and got lost in the woods so it was -laughs out loud- -an adventure. A very difficult but also really fun gig.
We played there again this year, on top of a different mountain, and this time it all went really smoothly. Definitely a magical festival to play at Grajdół Festiwal. If the CeltCast readers ever get the change they should go there.’

Furda can be found here:

A new review: Du​š​e by the Czech neo-folk band Ďyvina

24 Aug
Cliff de Booy
0 Comments

The Magic of Castlefest.


It has been talked about many a time. It was the magic of Castlefest that got me in the scene. It was the magic of Castlefest that got me back into band photography. It was the magic of Castlefest that got me volunteering for CeltCast. And now that same magic pulled me back behind the desk as a CD reviewer again. The enticement already started watching Brisinga  play their new songs from their new album Mooncult. It became even stronger looking at the awesome concert Sowulo played, knowing their new album Wurdiz has already been out for a while. But it became irresistible when a new neo-folk band from Czechia entered the stage on Saturday and mesmerized all who were there with their music, including me and musical editor Ilona.

It was there and then I decided this band deserved all the attention I, no we from CeltCast, could give them. It was then that I realized I still wanted to do something with the passsion I have for music, especially the passion for alternative folk music. It was there that the magic of Castlefest did its thing again. So I’m back. With a heap of CDs I wanna talk about. But starting with the one that pulled me in again. the beautiful album Du​š​e by the Czech neo-folk band Ďyvina. Just follow the link and find the review right here.

You can find Ďyvina here:

Ďyvina – Du​š​e (2023)

24 Aug
Cliff de Booy
0 Comments

Saturday the 5th of August, 11:30, Meadow stage. I was watching a Czech neo-folk band getting ready for their gig. One of the many new names on Castlefest this year. Their EP Po​č​va (2019) had made quite an impression on me beforehand, but nothing – and I do mean nothing- could have prepared me or the other members of the crowd for what we were about to see: A performance with the impact, the energy, and the spirituality of the awesome Sowulo concert just a year before, or the mind-blowing live stream concert Irdorath recorded in 2020.
But there was one small difference. Instead of performing in front of a full Village Stage field; instead of blowing away a full live-stream crowd, this band was playing at 11:30 for 100+ people at the most.
It was then and there, halfway through the gig, as lead vocalist Vitus Pribylus was pouring out every ounce of his soul toward the sky, that I decided the world had to know about this band. I had to tell people about this. I just had to. And so my retirement turned into a sabbatical. A sabbatical I’m breaking right here, right now! And Ďyvina is the reason why! What a band! Castlefest please put them on a bigger stage and a better timeslot next year. They so deserve it!

Before I even start talking about the music on Du​š​e I have to mention the CD booklet. The wooden (!) front is fully hand-crafted by Ďyvina mastermind Vitus Prybilus. It is a beautiful piece of art in its own right. In the ‘old ‘days’ – showing my age here- there was always a moment of beauty, of calmness, of preparation when carefully removing an elpee from its sleeve. You did it with care. It slowed you down, emptied your mind, and in a way prepared you for the music you were about to hear. Removing the leather binding tying the Booklet together does exactly the same thing. Putting a CD in a CD player suddenly becomes a magical moment again.

I asked Vitus who designed the booklet:
-‘Richard Hladký designed the wooden front cover and generously provided me with his self-made CNC machine. Every single cover is handmade, sanded, stained and oiled. Noemi Valentiny, who you saw doing backing vocals and hand drum during Castlefest, designed all the graphics found in the booklet – whether it’s the CD print, front cover, and she also edited all the texts and lyrics.’

I have to admit that I was left a bit confused about the status of Ďyvina​ after reading your background info. When I watched you at Castlefest I was convinced Ďyvina​ was a band. But reading into the band I’m starting to wonder if Ďyvina​ is your personal project?
-‘Both actually. The origin of Ďyvina was more of a personal project, but from the beginning, I was always leaning a bit half-half towards a real band. Our guitarist Anděl actually co-founded Ďyvina​ with me. I’ve always had the intention to play the music live, so I have always been open to work with other musicians. The line-up you saw on Castlefest is quite new. We first played in this line-up a year ago.

Primarily all of the live members are my friends. We all knew each other even before I asked them to join Ďyvina. I got to know our guitarist Anděl through my former work as a sound engineer in a theater where he performed. Our singer Noemi I know since high school, we studied at university together and also played together in our former band Pilgrim. Our drummer Siwa and flutist/bowist Joan – she is Siwas daughter- I met at our first Ďyvina gig, where they wanted to discuss hurdy-gurdy. Siwa plays hurdy-gurdy just as me. (We actually have three gurdist in Ďyvina, besides Siwa and me, Noemi played hurdy-gurdy in our former band).’

Are those the same people that helped you record Du​š​e?
-‘Mostly not no. Jakub Gabriel Anděl Rajnoch added a few guitar parts, particularly fingerpicking, at which he is a beast!

Lenka Jeducha Ondráčková played a few of the drum sections and the gudok (an ancient Eastern Slavic string instrument somewhat similar to a lyre, played with a bow). Martina Morgyš Lamschová added precise whistle parts. Zora Matulová played the harp sections, Johana Joan Rybenská nyckelharpa, and Barbora Števanka Kadlíčková the violin.

Noemi Valentíny (left) who I named before provided the second voice of the hurdy-gurdy in Nevolja and played the piano. She also composed the beautiful piano outro you find at the end of Duše.
Ján Garláthy arranged the brass section of three talented individuals: Lukáš Brázdil (French horn), Marek Bukovjan (trombone), and Martin Cupal (bass trombone).

Most of the people mentioned above also lent their voices to Duše. The complete list of vocal contributors includes: Jeducha, Jakub Rajnoch, Morgyš, Liliana Heczková, and Noemi, along with a few other hosts – my dear friends from the band Ragojka: Kateřina Stavinohová, Eva Paličková, and Jakub Vaněk. Also Jeducha’s children: Vít & Tonda Sydor, and my own dear grandma Hildegarda Panašová.’

Could you tell me a bit about the lyrics of the songs? Looking at the intensity of the Castlefest performance, the historical instruments you use, and the stage props, I would say you are a pagan band. Do you agree?
-‘I’m very enthusiastic about the traditions and folklore of Ancient Europe, but I don’t really consider myself to be a pagan. Sometimes that is my personal struggle with Ďyvina’s music as it is labeled pagan folk due to its sound and the instruments used while it is not. Rather than trying to celebrate the beliefs of our predecessors, I use it in my lyrics just as a metaphor for the actual themes I’m dealing with in my life. That’s why I call our music neo-folk, or maybe post-paganism. That’s an idea that arose in my mind the other day — the idea of post-paganism. What do I mean by that?

It comes from my ponders about my beliefs and whether Ďyvina is really playing pagan folk. As I said, I do not consider myself a pagan, nor atheist, nor any other ‘labeled’ believer. I like the old traditions, the old way of thinking and I like folklore, but have I ever genuinely believed in gods? To me, gods are simply names for different natural energies. I don’t perceive gods as supernatural beings. This is where my path somehow diverges from nowadays neopaganism. But this strong connection to nature and some kind of primal energy persists in my mind. This is where the term ‘post-pagan’ emerged. A person highly connected with nature and our ancestors, while acknowledging the reality of living in a modern urban society with a contemporary mindset and present-day demons. This is what I truly relate to, and it’s also what in a way Ďyvina’s music represents.

As for explaining the song lyrics. That’s a bit of a hard question for an introvert like me, but actually, if you take a look at our YouTube channel, there are acoustic versions of our songs performed just by me – every video starts with an introduction where I try to talk about the particular song and all the songs have English subtitles. You can find the link here.

Be it Post-Paganism or Neo-Folk, this album just oozes quality, from beginning to end. I’m not gonna review every single song but pick out a few of my personal highlights. The first of them being the epic power ballad Jezd​ě​c. That intro alone is beautiful. Full of cool sample effects, and dramatic drums before the hurdy gurdy slides in. Like the whole album it is a beautiful mix of acoustic Slavic- and Nordic folk. As if the Belarusian ethno folk band Troitsa met up with Skáld for a recording session. Listen to those beautiful Slavic melody lines,and those impressive Nordic folk drums. Deep, low and powerful. Just as deep and powerful as Vitus voice. I come to that later. For now I want to focus on the power of it all, on the choir pulling me in a dark Scandinavian night. A wolf tribe surrounding me as we chant away with them. The haunted flute pulling it all together. The emotional tension in the vocals. The build up to its climax. An epic song from beginning to end.

Vl​č​í M​á​k carries on with that same epic strength. An acoustic guitar; a sample of water; a soft drone in the background; whispered vocals, flowing into a Native American feel with the low whistle and driving drums. Such a cool mix. Again reminiscent of the band Troitsa. This time mixed with the whispered vocals of Vladimir Irdorath and Ivy Leaves on flute added for good measure. The song itself is a powerful love ballad expressing loss and pain in a way that is breathtaking. Truly breathtaking. Especially when the song builds up momentum and Vitus lets his emotions go in a full on scream. The full baritone melody line Vitus produces right after it tears me up every time I hear it. Pure beauty.

I just need to showcase Vitus’ voice at this point. And no better song then Vrane Krila to do it. This song, that started life as a piano ballad, features Vitus’ voice in every aspect of it’s capability. I already mentioned the impressive whispered spoken word parts. His singing voice can only be described as pure awesomeness. He has that rich deep immense sound that only Slavic people seem to use. Sure there are more men singing contemporary music with a baritone voice. But so rich. With such depth, warmth and emotion. That is rare in these western parts. When Vitus opens up his lungs in full voice it sounds like he has hidden a whole neolithic cave in it. The sound comes from somewhere deep down in the earth and seems to reach to the eagles flying over the highest mountains’ trees. That’s how big his voice is. You need some impressive core strength to pull a voice like this off and he has it through his whole range. From his lowest notes, through his belt into his equally strong head voice. And he is not doing it once. No, he is blessing us with this awesome sound, song after song after song. Amazing!

Combine that voice with the deep sounds of the drums; the raw sound of the low whistle; the beautiful addition of a choir and you get something truly impressive. But he also knows how to pull back. The piano outro written by Noemi is the perfect counterbalance for the epic sound we heard just before. That goes for every song on Du​š​e. They are beautifully written songs that build up and slow down with a wonderful flow. From majestic to really small. From tender to out of this world large. A compliment has to go to Vitus his sound engineer skills, and Max Morton’s mastering of the music. Together they made this album sound awesome. It equals the majestic sound Fieke van den Hurk can produce, and the outcome can only be jaw dropping. Song after song after song.

I tried to keep this review short, but the music got hold of me I’m afraid. Listen to V Maskah. That cool percussion intro. Vitus and Max are nicely playing with some nature samples and stereo effects there. While also playing with some more drone like soundscape effects that remind me a lot of the Finnish folk band Gói, who have that same ability to seamlessly combine ancient instruments with modern sounds and samples. The shamanic drums that follow have to be played as loud as possible. There is no other way. Much to the dismay of my cat and the neighbours downstairs I must add. The chant in this song is ridiculously catchy. The children and Vitus’ grandmother joining in on the spoken word part is a stroke of musical genius as is the Native American chanting at the end. As if Taloch Jameson (The Dolmen) himself joins in for a moment of free expression. Wow! Just wow.

Po​č​va has something Irfanesque about it and has become another firm favourite of mine. The song is so strong, so powerful, so enticing, yet the cool thing is that within that immensely powerful sound; Within those bigger-than-life emotions pouring out of Vitus; the melody lines are actually quite catchy and upbeat. I found myself singing along rather quickly with many of the songs. Only to be held back by my lack of knowledge when it comes to the Slavic language.

Ďyvina in an older live band setting at Veligrad in 2021

All in all Du​š​e is a brilliant debut. From the way it looks, to the way it sounds. Brilliant neo-folk songs. A beautiful mix between the rich beauty of Slavic folk and the dark shamanic sound of Nordic folk. An album that gets better and better the more times you listen to it. It does something with you every time you play it.

I didn’t mention it yet, but within all that emotion pouring out, it is actually a cheerful album. It invites you to dance and celebrate. I would highly advice you to do just that. With this album, or seeing them live. Because there is just one thing better than Ďyvina​ on CD: seeing them live on stage!

Cliff

Ďyvina can be found here:







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