Style: Free folk, drone (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Natural Snow Buildings, Anna Von Hausswolff, Wardruna (Skald)
Country: Ukraine
Release date: 30 May 2025

One of the most lamentably forgotten arts is giving attention to ‘boring’ things. A certain magic can emerge from focusing on an otherwise unremarkable space that gently invites instead of demands your attention. I recently glimpsed this magic while sitting by a pond with a friend—at first glance, it was a fairly still swath of lily pads accented by longleaf pines in the background. However, after staring into the mud for long enough, the mind becomes acclimated to the space and the pond suddenly bursts with life unseen. Damselflies skitter from pad to pad and myriad groups of frogs croak a call-and-response while the water ripples with activity below, tiny specks of detail that are missed by a cursory glance at the vista. Often, the depths of minimal music are reflected similarly, as the subtle changes in quiet and still pieces suddenly feel intense and stark once one is accustomed to their space. Such is the experience with Гільдеґарда (Hildegard), a collaboration between Ukrainian artists Heinali and Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko which extends the emotions from a split-second reaction to traumatic wartime events into lengthy compositions. What sort of life emerges in their subtle, buzzing mix of drone and free folk?

Comprised of two twenty-minute pieces¹, Гільдеґарда is strikingly skeletal in design: the only instruments used are Heinali’s synthesizers and the vocal work of Saienko. Heinali’s previous work is dedicated to modern recontextualizations of Medieval musical tradition, and Гільдеґарда is no exception. The synthesizers at times possess a flute-like timbre, and intrigue is added to each track through Saienko’s performance of pieces by Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval polymath and composer. Saienko polymerizes the modern-ancient performance through Gregorian chants and Ukrainian musical tradition, often slipping into open voice and adorning the slowly-performed pieces with plentiful ornamentation.

The spartan instrumentals immediately draw attention to Saienko’s performance. Hildegard’s compositions are known for challenging performers through huge interval jumps, but Saienko makes the performance seem effortless as she glides from note to note. She particularly shines when utilizing open voice, adding a stunningly rich and contemplative color to the Gregorian chants through ornamentation. Heinali’s synthesizers lay the groundwork for a meditative state; Saienko’s vocals lift the music to ascension. The core of each piece is the droning keyboards that begin imperceptibly and are rendered inescapable by the end. On “O Ignis Spiritus”, gentle and quiet synthesizers replicate a subdued flute, pulsing in tandem with the rapturous vocal performance. Across the track’s runtime, the synths lose their woodwind sensibility and take on a crunchier feel. By the halfway mark, Saienko’s performance reaches a head with the intensifying thrumming; her sudden howling fades away to an extensive keyboard solo that itself gets swallowed in the inevitable wall of sound. Гільдеґарда’s pieces are monolithic glaciers, growing and evolving at an imperceptible clip, with enough force to scar the surface of the Earth as they move steadfast across the horizon.

“O Tu Suavissima Virga” utilizes a similar structure to “Spiritus” but with an even more understated and subdued approach. The electronics are almost inaudible whirring pulses that stubbornly maintain their stead while approaching an impending crescendo. Saienko’s performance is hushed and diaphanous, taking on a delicate affect for an overwhelming majority of the track. The impact when she finally pushes her voice is powerful, but the journey requires considerable patience as most of the track’s twenty minutes sit in a singular compositional space. Additional stillness is invoked by the piece’s monochromatic nature: the electronics maintain an unwavering hum and the vocals use little to no ornamentation until a full twelve minutes in, and even then, Saienko’s projecting melodicism is ephemeral at best. Her voice, like everything else, is swallowed whole by the synthesizers shortly after. “Virga” pushes the limits of Гільдеґарда’s subtlety, coming together as a powerful whole but spinning its wheels a bit too long in places. The comparatively short collaboration between Heinali and Saienko, “Zelenaia Dubrovonka”, exemplifies that a similarly powerful effect can be incited in a more concise runtime.

Song duration aside, there is a sobering stillness that is engendered by Гільдеґарда. The two pieces were inspired by the split-second reaction to a missile striking nearby Heinali’s studio in Kyiv. In contrast to cacophonous and maximalist music, which has potential to fill the gaps in our minds and bludgeon any sense of inner exploration, the stripped-down and minimal approach of Гільдеґарда is a mirror held up to the listener. Through its ample room for contemplation, “Spiritus” and “Virga” conspire to necessitate a summoning of one’s inner turmoil. Despite my desire for a more compact runtime, extending these pieces is a necessity to give room for safe exploration of the emotional space the record embodies.

Гільдеґарда is a record of few movements and incremental development, all done with great purpose—its minimalism exists for the listener to fill in the negative space themselves and open up their mind for emotional exploration and healing. The record exists not to coddle but to give a gentle-yet-assertive courage to confront stresses head-on through its patient evolution and rich, ascendant vocal performance. Gaze into the mud of Гільдеґарда—you may be surprised what life you’ll find.

Recommended tracks: O Ignis Spiritus
You may also like: CHVE, Pelt, De Mannen Broeders, 58918012, Širom
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Unsound – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

Heinali is:
– Oleh Shpudeiko (keyboards, electronics)
In collaboration with:
– Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko (vocals)

1. Heinali and Saienko penned a third (and considerably shorter) track as part of their collaboration, “Zelenaia Dubrovonka”, but this isn’t considered part of Гільдеґарда. ︎

The post Review: Heinali, Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko – Гільдеґарда (Hildegard) appeared first on The Progressive Subway.

Style: Neoclassical darkwave (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Björk, Lingua Ignota, Anna von Hausswolff
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 21 February 2025

The approach to intimate topics in music is as varied as musicians themselves. Artists such as The Mars Volta like to bury their ideas under layers of symbolism, urging listeners to pry deeper and piece lyrics together themselves, while artists like Mount Eerie couldn’t be any more direct in their painfully raw prose. Maud the Moth, moniker of Scottish composer and healthyliving vocalist Amaya López-Carramero, aims for a balance of these two approaches on latest release The Distaff, exploring her emotions in a way that is at times arcane and at other times steamrolls the listener with powerfully blunt sentiment. Does her brand of lyricism reach through to the listener, or does The Distaff leave us spinning up our own interpretations into wool?

A sharp surrealist bent envelops The Distaff’s neoclassical darkwave, manifesting through López-Carramero’s use of voice effects (“Canto de Enramada”), abrasive industrial sounds (“Exuviae”, “A Temple by the River”), and morphing, non-linear song structures (“Despeñaperros”). A pithy elevator speech for the album would probably say something like ‘a soul-bearing operatic recital set in the middle of a fever dream’. Most tracks indulge in loungey, serpentine piano swirling around López-Carramero’s extensive vocal range, reaching powerful climaxes that tap into heavy and doomy guitar distortion. At other times, the piano channels an otherworldly atmosphere and tonality similar to that found in Alora Crucible.

In the opening moments of “Canta de Enramadas”, juxtaposition is established as a central songwriting tenet: López-Carramero’s operatic, howling, and vocoder-laden performance counters the amorphous and swirling electronic backdrop in a way that terrifies yet feels utterly relatable in its intensity and pain. Later, “Exuviae” features tweeting birds and piano flourishes that are intermittently carved through by wailing industrial noises, conveying an impassioned search for pastoral catharsis that is haunted by the harsh and abusive machinations of mankind. López-Carramero takes virtually every opportunity to set up ideas of ‘polarity’, utilizing her stunning vocal range and a bevy of textures to paint compositions in a stark gray.

Juxtaposition is even evoked in The Distaff’s lyricism. Verses are wont to oscillate between crystal-clear mental imagery and inscrutable symbolism while still retaining an intimate feel. Lines like ‘Kindred bodies dissolve / Dehooved and mute in the barn’ from “Fiat Lux” and ‘Bewildered, he entered the bodies of both of them / Poisoned vine / And the ditch chokes the vine / Black plague at the root’¹ from “Canto de Enramada” recall the visceral uncanniness found in, for example, The Mars Volta’s Frances the Mute. On the flip side, “A Temple by the River” repeatedly calls out ‘My body is not enough’ in woeful capitulation, a striking and heartbreakingly concrete lament, while “Exuviae” proclaims ‘Inside me there’s a crack / Where the light can never reach’, heavily infusing The Distaff with sentiments of inadequacy and unworthiness.

Despite the relative simplicity of its compositions, The Distaff showcases a remarkable density in its winding Impressionist ideas. The waxing and waning of “Despeñaperros” is undoubtedly cinematic, bringing together dramatic doomy climaxes and plaintive piano through a narrative of death and change. Whereas “Despeñaperros” wanders far from its beginnings, “A Temple by the River” takes a more circular approach, returning to its home idea after a dramatic string-led adventure through marsh and prairie. While this is by and large a positive for The Distaff, pieces like “Burial of the Patriarchs” wander a bit too much, its individual parts pleasant but difficult to follow. When paired with dense and cryptic lyricism, it’s easy to completely lose your footing and be pulled out of the experience entirely for a moment. Additionally, some tracks unsatisfyingly stay in the same place for too long: “Siphonophores”, for example, sits in a lilting piano idea for most of its duration that leaves too little to grab onto or follow, even with the inclusion of its harsh industrial flourishes and decent climax near the end.

Occasionally challenging and always dense, The Distaff is a work that revels wholly in juxtaposition. Amaya López-Carromero is eager to evoke a deeply personal internal sorrow but reticent to reveal it all at once, casting a shroud through surreal-yet-intimate imagery and Impressionist-yet-heavily-textured songwriting. Many of The Distaff’s passages feel borne of something wholly inhuman and yet still manage to effortlessly strike at the soul through a clever balance of dreamlike intangibility and material prosody. Though its ideas occasionally get lost in themselves and leave little for the listener to glean, The Distaff is willing to open itself up to you as much as you open yourself to it.

Recommended tracks: A Temple by the River, Despeñaperros, Exuviae, Fiat Lux
You may also like: Ophelia Sullivan, Mingjia, Alora Crucible, healthyliving
Final verdict: 7.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Maud the Moth is:
– Amaya López-Carromero (vocals, piano, psaltery, percussion)
– Scott McLean (guitar, moog, saxophone)
– Sebastian Rochford (drums)
– Alison Chesley (cello)
– Fay Guiffo (violin)

1. This is a rough translation from Spanish. Here are the original lyrics: ‘Fuera de si, se adentró en el cuerpo de las dos / Sarmiento envenenado / Y la acequia ahoga la vid / Peste negra en la raíz’ ︎

The post Review: Maud the Moth – The Distaff appeared first on The Progressive Subway.