Edwin Durant Kovtun has two names you might know and one that you might not, unless you’re from Ukraine. Readers of this space are already aware that Colin Edwin and Jon Durant make up the formidable instrumental duo Burnt Belief, but their musical curiosity sometimes takes them far beyond the sleek, ambient prog-fusion of their long-running project together.
Edwin’s work with Ukrainian vocalists began well before Ukraine itself had attracted international attention for its long-running struggles to remain free from Russian domination. Not long before the Donbass region erupted into conflict, Edwin began collaborating with the Ukrainian female vocal duo Astarta and in 2016 he made the album Astarta Edwin with Astarta members Inna Kovtun and Yulia Malyarenko, with Durant helping out on guitar. A couple of years later Edwin, Durant and Kovtun worked on a record together, a process that started remotely as Kovtun sent the vocal melodies to Durant and Edwin, who add their parts to fit around hers, followed by more back and forth. Like the earlier Astarta Edwin, Edwin Durant Kovtun is expressly intended to be a melding of traditional Ukrainian folk music with contemporary Western sonics and harmonics.
These and other related recordings make up the Astarta Edwin Bandcamp page, but the London-based Astarta Edwin is much more than a Bandcamp page, it’s an artistically focused appeal for raising funds on behalf of the British Red Cross Ukrainian Crisis Fund. Simply go to the page, pick out the music you want to download and put in your contribution to help the millions of Ukrainians displaced by Putin’s brutal invasion.
My first pick was that Edwin/Durant/Kovtun collaboration and I found it to be much more than a fundraising vehicle, this is seriously legit music regardless of the sad circumstances that led me to it.
Kovtun vocals fronting Burnt Belief brings me back to another fascinating alchemy of the occidental with the Slavic: When Aram Bajakian and Julia Úlehla sought to recreate the folk music of the Czech Republic’s Carpathian Mountain region while infusing their own peculiarities for Dálava. Úlehla is an excellent vocalist because for this material, you have to be. The same goes for Kovtun and Ukrainian folk music.
There’s a lot of vibrato involved in the singing, requiring more control, especially since the vocal has to project; it creates a passion that requires no understanding of the language in order to be felt. That’s the eastern European aspect of these recordings, complemented by Durant’s signature “cloud guitar” textures combined with Edwin’s resolute and rich bass quality.
To American ears, Kovtun’s intonations may come across as exotic especially at first, but each go around with this record, the combination of two distinct cultures gets more natural. Credit Colin Edwin and Jon Durant for adapting around Inna Kovtun’s ideas while retaining everything we like about Burnt Belief. Ievgen Zharinov adds to the Slavic flavor with various Ukrainian wind instruments and Roberto Gualdi’s drums complete the instrumentation.
The standout track is saved for last. “Interference” unfolds over nearly nine minutes, enough time for the Westerners to create otherworldly ambient backdrops that perfectly complement Kovtun’s layered harmonies and taking its time before introducing a particularly deep groove that repeatedly pauses to give the front stage back to those affecting vocals that come at you in waves.
Edwin Durant Kovtun can be obtained from here, and I highly recommend that you do. Enrich your ears with a perfectly hybridized version of music from a great culture while at the same time provide a little help to preserve that culture.
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