Paris To Kyiv. Fragmenti.

Alexis Kochan was born and lives in Canada, but for already a lot of years she has been studying, creatively comprehending the musical culture of Ukrainians. The issue is, actually, authentic music, folk singing. Her first solo album was released in 1982, and afterwards the international project Paris to Kyiv was formed around Alexis. The album "Fragments" is the fourth one in discography of the project – and its first international release. What could I say – from the first minute you start regretting that the previous works by the group were not released in Ukraine... It is just extraordinarily beautiful music – deep, transparent, illuminating meditation of sound. In it, there harmoniously revolve round Ukrainian melodies and lyrics – the Asiatic guttural singing, Southern percussion, bells and electric guitars. Although the violin, and pan-pipe, and bandura also live here – but their sounding also, starting from the Ukrainian root, leads us either to Latin America, or to Central Europe. However, these trips and transitions are easy, and hints are almost conditional, that is why all mentions about any kind of geography also become conditional. There is a mainline, all the rest are petals, patterns, semi-real dreams... The music of "Fragments" is as though green noise of an unhurried life, in which the voice of water and the voice of light matter not less than singing of the wind, and the sound with which grass grows is the same as sounding of your smile, the flow of a quiet look... You listen – and understand: strange is this world, and its wonders are – joyous.

Anton Jozhik Leyba (Hedgehog)

Alexis Kochan – vocals
Richard Moody – viola, violin, guitar, vocals
Julian Kytasty – bandura, sopilka, vocals
Christian Dugas – percussion
Rodrigo Munoz – percussion, guitar
Paul Yee – bass, guitar
Alan Schroeder – overtone vocals