Ignorance is bliss

It seems that the industry here is burying its head in the sand. In a conversation I had yesterday with one of Ukraine's best informed music critics, Oleksandr Yevtushenko, I discovered that the Ukrainian group Haydamaky is more appreciated beyond the borders of Ukraine then at home.

At the 20th Womex (World Music Expo) held in Seville Spain last October, the group made it into the top 20 World Music CD's with their album Ukraine Calling, the European release on Berlin-based EastBlok Music of their Ukrainian album Perversii. Ukrainian media was pretty well silent regarding this achievement, not to mention that the band had also made it into the top 100 World Music Albums on the European World Music Charts at 35th place. What surprised me was to see the name Bruce Springsteen at 29th place for an album called The Seeger Sessions. It seems that ignorance is bliss when it comes to the Ukrainian music industry being able to recognize the achievements of their own.

It seems that EastBlok understands how to promote the band, while there is little I can say about the work done by Haydamaky's label here. I just simply wasn't impressed by the way the head of the label presented himself at the release party held at the Warsteiner Pub in Kyiv on December 14, 2005.