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What DakhaBrakha ‘gave’ and what I ‘took’

Photo by Amy Sawyer
Photo by Amy Sawyers

DakhaBrakha means ‘give/take’ in the old Ukrainian language

There’s no doubt that music influences us everyday. It comprises a huge part of our lives — it’s expressive, it’s translatable, it’s transmissible and contagious. It inspires artistic liberation among individuals along with creating and introducing new cultural experiences that can be shared with other parts of the world. And DakhaBrakha is the perfect example of this.

I had the great fortune to see this band through the Arts Village, and in result, I became completely engulfed in the musical experience. Their sound was primal, raw, innovative, rich, authentic and tangible — it definitely reverberates in you. Gorged with genuine ardency, soul, and intelligence, their music had this limitless capacity to deliver unexpected, enriching experiences that left me entirely breathless and in absolute awe.

The ARTS Village surrounds DakhaBrakha for a memorable photo.
The ARTS Village surrounds DakhaBrakha for a memorable photo.

What I respected about DakhaBrakha was their skillfulness and musicality, and the versatile use of live percussion and strings in harmonious combination with their own vocals. But I became even more appreciative of their craft when the reality hit me that their music is played strictly from them rather than putting their sound through digital treatment.

We live in such a technology-advanced world that the music industry is mostly digitized, which I believe can potentially cause electronic music to eventually lose its artistic value and meaning. Don’t get me wrong — I do enjoy electronic music and I willfully listen to it on a daily basis, but sometimes it is good to get away from it, to explore outside of my comfort zone, to be absorbed into something culturally different and broaden my musical interests.

DakhaBrakha simply has this unparallelled ability that allows you to engross yourself in the moments created by the liveliness of their sound. A friend of mine became so inspired by their live performance that he went straight to work on his songwriting. A guitarist and a lyricist, he agreed wholeheartedly that their sound was invigorating and refreshing to the ear. Not only that, many of the Arts Villagers had a blast at this concert!