Recommendations from the Kyiv Independent: Hyphen Dash (Patreon)

Dear Kyiv Independent community members,

This is Elsa Court, audience development manager at the Kyiv Independent. I love being able to talk to my colleagues in person, so I am happy we have an open-plan office here in Kyiv. There’s one clear disadvantage with this environment, however — it’s really easy to get distracted. For that reason, my colleagues almost always see me with headphones on. So I thought I’d give you a recommendation based on what I’ve been listening to lately to keep me focused, for anyone else who likes to listen to ambient music while on their laptop.

One artist that I keep coming back to is the Ukrainian band Hyphen Dash. Blending jazz, electronic, and instrumental styles, Hyphen Dash likes to mix influences and collaborate across genres — in fact, the band’s drummer, Myshko Birchenko, is also the drummer for Ukrainian singer Dorofeeva (one of Ukraine’s biggest pop stars right now).  

Together with another founding member of the band, Yevhen Puhachov, Birchenko is also known for helping grow Kyiv’s jazz fusion scene through a series of concerts called Fusion Jams, where artists are encouraged to improvise in front of a live audience. My colleague Kate actually wrote about this scene in an article last year. 

Hyphen Dash has also recorded music in unexpected places. In 2019, they recorded their EP live at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv. Their latest album is called Basement 626. It was recorded in the basement of a military base in Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast, when the band went to visit some of their friends serving in the army. 

Birchenko said they didn’t have a plan for the album, but just wanted to capture the feeling of the moment. A personal favorite is “Sunrise on tericons,” using the Ukrainian word for the mining slag heaps that litter the landscape around Donetsk Oblast (the Ukrainian word apparently comes from combining the Latin “terra” for earth, and the Greek “cone”). Another song is called “Yevhen is waiting for pizza.” I think this captures some of the mundanity and absurdity that comes with living through a war, which is often quite hard to describe to those who haven’t experienced it. Even when bombs are falling nearby, you can still get pizza delivered and record an album with your friends. 

You can listen to Basement 626 on YouTube, Spotify, and other music streaming platforms.