Svitlana Nianio

This unique and fascinating compilation celebrates the unique and lamentably short-lived scene that centered around Cologne-based producer Guido Erfen and engineer Michael Springer and their Rhenania recording studio (built in a disused grain silo). The saga first began when mail art enthusiast Erfen received a tape from publicist Igor Trushkin in 1990 documenting three bands associated with Kharkiv’s Novaya Scena club. Notably, Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union at the time and that isolation from the west proved to be fertile ground for weird new visions to blossom, as the three bands were inspired by “punk, the avant-garde, dadaism, and even medieval melodies.”

In one sense, that made these bands roughly a decade behind the times by western standards. In another sense, however, they were way ahead of the curve, as they were making arty post-punk-inspired music while many critics were still losing their shit over the mindless mediocrity of the Madchester scene. In keeping with that theme, much of this album is devoted to an artist (Svitlana Nianio) who has belatedly enjoyed a well-deserved renaissance in recent years. Unsurprisingly, one of her tracks totally steals the show, but the band Solar are pretty revelatory too.

Notably, this collection is something of a loose sequel to a long-forgotten 1993 compilation (Новая Сцена. Underground From Ukraine! 14 Bands From Kiev & Kharkov) of Ukrainian underground music released on Hamburg’s What’s So Funny About… label (home to Test Dept. and Einstürzende Neubauten. Curated by Erfen, that collection featured 14 bands from Kharkiv and Kyiv and featured Svitlana Nianio’s former band Cukor Bila Smerť. Sadly, being able to read Cyrillic is not one of my talents, so I am not sure how many other artists make a repeat appearance on Aftermath and Transitions other than Nianio’s bandmate Eugene Taran. I do know, however, that the first compilation was sourced from tapes given to Erfan by mononymous singer/keyboardist Soloveyka and that she was one half of Solar (the other half was Springer’s friend Wolfram Burgtorf). Interestingly, Discogs also has a listing for an enigmatically undated compilation entitled Харьков+Киев (Ukrainischer Underground) that was released on Erfen’s SHM Tapes label, but that may have been an informal early draft of Underground From Ukraine!     

Notably, the big difference between this collection and its predecessor (or predecessors) is that all of these songs were recorded in Cologne, as Taran and Nainio travelled to Germany in 1994 to record music for the dance production “Transilvania Smile” (belatedly released in 2023 on the Shukai label to considerable acclaim). That fruitful trip kicked off “a series of informal recording sessions” at both Michael Springer’s Phanton Studio and SHM studio in Rhenania that “formed the basis of the four different incarnations of the Ukraine-Cologne connection” presented here.

That said, while “four different incarnations” is technically factually true, it is also bit misleading, as seven of these ten pieces involve Taran and/or Nainio and the other three were contributed by Soloveyka’s Solar. In short, this entire scene was made up of essentially three Germans and three Ukrainians, but they were undeniably a talented and visionary bunch. Lamentably, there is a tragic element to these recordings as well, as two of the album’s strongest songs were recorded by the trio of Erfen, Taran, and Nainio, but their recording sessions were prematurely ended by the expiration of the Ukrainians’ visas. Regrettably, that killer trio never managed to reconvene again, but their remaining recordings were eventually released as the “lost album” Frozen Jungle in 2021.    

On the bright side, their short-lived trio certainly slayed while it lasted, as “Whispering Walls” is an absolute stunner that combines floating ethereal vocals with absolutely killer organ motifs, psychedelic chimes, avant-garde piano flourishes, and a wonderfully lurching marching band-like groove. The disjointed, disorienting, and darkly whimsical “Tired River” is a unique piece as well, as it combines increasingly swirling classic Hollywood strings with a dubby bassline.

Elsewhere, Taran and Nainio were joined by Springer and Burgtorf for the album’s first four songs, which land in somewhat more stripped-down and dub-influenced post-punk terrain. While “Fake” was originally a solo Springer piece, Nainio added improvised vocals and keyboard melodies. The other three were “spontaneous live playing with only minimal post-production,” but there are certainly some very cool moments (like the vocal hook in “ManySpace”). Taran and Nainio also surface as a duo on Taran’s melancholy and surreal instrumental “Death and the Bachelor,” which sounds like a hallucinatory seance colliding with an ephemeral saxophone hook and an anachronistic classical guitar motif.  

Speaking of anachronistic stylistic collisions, Solar’s three songs sound like an improbable alternate reality in which Parisian experimentalists Vox Populi! were heavily influenced by trip-hop and the sensuous soul of ‘80s Sade. Weirdly, that proves to be quite a winning formula, as “Your Secret” combines a sexy groove with jazzy vocals, cool hand percussion, warbling Asian melodies, and an absolutely gorgeous violin sample. It also occasionbally sounds like the flutes from a Debussy piece accidentally wandered in, which makes for quite a unique concoction indeed. 

Elsewhere, “Three Steps” is similarly Sade-esque and great, but “August Samba” veers a bit closer to polished Swing Out Sister-style jazz-pop (though there are some cool and surprising Middle Eastern elements near the end). While the latter piece and album’s early post-punk jams do not come close to matching the heights of “Whispering Wall” or “Your Secret,” the entire album is a parade of weird, singular, and eccentric pleasures that may have otherwise been damned to obscurity, so I am a huge fan and will now be excitedly investigating Frozen Jungle as well. Will it be as good as this? Probably not, but if there is another song out there that is anything like “Whispering Wall,” I absolutely need to fucking hear it immediately.  

Listen here.