Yagody

We highly recommend checking out this fantastic article and interview in the Albuquerque Journal about Yagody’s debut US tour and five dates in New Mexico.  It’s really fascinating.  You can also hear the band on KUNM’s Studio 505 recorded on their previous visit.

DakhaBrakha fans rejoice! Yagody brings equally intriguing layered female harmonies and theatrical presentations from Ukraine.

Each moment in a person’s life has its own song, says Zoryana Dybovska, who founded Yagody in 2016 in the West Ukrainian city of Lviv, together with students from the local theater faculty. The four traveled through different regions of Ukraine to explore the musical traditions of the people there. With this huge collection of songs about love and life, Yagody create their own exciting sound, supported by musicians on drums, guitar, accordion or the drymba, a mouth harp of the Hutsul people from the Carpathians. Since Yagody are active in the world of theater, they realize their musical stage show according to dramaturgical principles; a concert is like a performance in one act. As the showmaster announced the nameless band at their first concert, he spontaneously presented them as “Yagody,” which means “berries.”

Yagody’s repertoire consists of poetic songs from Ukraine and some regions around. The musicians build a very diverse and energetic world of melodies, rhythms and themes, which they blend uniquely. A concert with Yagody is a ritual. It is about listening to the inner self. And to the mythical sound of our ancestors, like the breath of the wind in the field. The concert guests are completely captivated by Yagody’s dance of voices, which form the eternal pulse of being human. Yagody’s songs are like love letters from the past that haven’t arrived yet. Yagody is undoubtedly one of the most charismatic Ukrainian folk bands!