CD / Digital Download, Kvitnu 2006
Long Play collaboration by Kotra & Zavoloka.
Credits:
Music by Kotra and Zavoloka.
Mastered by Dmytro Volkov.
Design by Zavoloka.
Release notes:
24 swinging and jazzing tracks that sound quite different from each artists solo works. Explosive broken beats, slow motioned melodies, raw uncutted pieces - more than two years of improvising and constructing in one release. Bass, empty vinyl player, blank CD matrixes, voice and other machines. Swinged and jammed in Kyiv mostly during summer and autumn of year 2006, also in winter and spring of 2005.
In press:
WIRE
Kotra (born Dmytro Fedorenko) and Kateryna Zavoloka represent the vanguard of Ukrainian electronics, and their third collaborative release, the two are found jubilantly smashing the attributes of 50s computer music, 70s jazz fusion and contemporary electronica within the crucible of granular synthesis. Wag The Swing jumps all over the place through the album's 24 tracks dotted with semi-obliterated audio samples which Fedorenko and Zavoloka constantly scrub across a revolving set of digital filters. There's a playful exuberance to their scattered bitstream, even when their immediacy and spontaneity with these squeaks and whirls become far more coherent and less self-indulgent when grounded upon their broken electronic breaks and angular bass guitar grooves...
DE:BUG
Ich freu mich schon eine Weile drauf, diese CD zu hören, weil sie einfach so sagenhaft gut aussieht in ihrer Obergröße und mit dem feinen urainischen Golddruck. Und die Musik ist - jedenfalls für das, was ich als Vergleich heranziehen kann - auch sehr goldig. Plinkernd leicht fast, Digitales wirkt hier eher am Rande, das Schreddern geht eher auf in melodischen Parts und auch wenn das stellenweise schon ganz schön abstraktes Puppentheater werden kann, hat man nie das Gefühl, dass die einen einfach nur beeindrucken wollen. Es ist allerdings definitiv die vielseitigste Platte, die ich von dieser Kombination bislang gehört habe, und die Waage zwischen dezenten Grooves, waghalsiger Avantgarde und stillem Klang unter der Lupe ist exzellent.
Conexxion Bizzare
... The other aspect of this album that really strikes a chord with me is its tongue-in-cheek attitude (like the eleven-second track, "Long Story Short"): Kotra and Zavoloka are more than creating music, they are actually playing it, and enjoying every minute. Also, the presentation of the album - both in its superb, clear mastering and its playful, unique packaging - is a great reflection of the energy and drive they bring to experimental music. This recording is definitely worth investigating further, especially for fans of glitch and IDM, or just connoisseurs of everything avant-garde.
Cracked
... Then there are funky moments that simulate heavy minimal electro, straight bass lines working fervently against the rhythm of the noise basis underneath or beside (most prominent on a track entitled „swing you, swing me“ which brings up pictures of the bassplayer in one room and the noise producer in another with no audio connection between them), sometimes working with it heavily („moonlight in mirror“) and even glitch noises.
Trying to take in the whole album as one big piece of music the most impressive fact is the sheer number of ideas and the clean cut production. ... „Wag the swing“ is irritating and startling due to its jumpy incoherence which renders it a mixbag of tracks, but if you focus on detail and try to detect the overall lines that hold it together (you won’t be able to and if you find them you’re probably mistaken, but trying to find them is the main chore) it is a fascinating travel.
LOOP
... They are 24 cuts of experimentation and sonorous improvisation in which converge digital errors, the digital manipulation of some instruments like bass and guitar and addition to synthetic sounds that are recomposed, creating broken and repetitive beats, that in some cases are close to jazz, others to funk, techno and rock. Although this album has an abstract character Fedorenko and Zavoloka also they go into a song format structure. This is an amazing search for a new language.
VitalWeekly
... Some tracks are rhythmic, almost in a swing like mood, but throughout they add a strange element to the tracks, to add something unusual to the music. Of course there are also some more abstract pieces. It all makes the music very vivid. Combining the best of microsound, electro-pop and serious composition, this is a highly enjoyable CD, which comes in a cover that made me think they have money to burn.