One-woman dark neofolk project Ols, featuring Poland’s Anna Maria Olchawa has released new single ‘Pustka-Wschód’, from her recently released fourth album Pustkowia.
Translated the title means “void-east” and you can check out the video for it right here at RAMzine.
Commenting on the track, Olchawa said: “Initially, this piece was supposed to be about the Low Beskids Mountains and their abandoned villages. ‘Pustka-Wschód’ was written just after the release of the previous album, and over a year ago I asked my Ukrainian friend to record a recitation of a poem by Bohdan Ihor Antonycz. Antonycz came from Nowica, a village in the Low Beskids, but he was educated in Lviv and wrote in Ukrainian.
“When the war broke out a few months after the recording, I even thought of removing Pustka-Wschód from the album altogether, because after what had happened, it was obvious that no one would be able to listen to a Ukrainian poem about deserted villages without thinking about current events. In the end, however, the song stayed and I’m glad that I made such a decision. Now it’s multi-dimensional, and – unintentionally but rightly – joined the group of songs that comment on reality, leaving no doubt which side I’m on. “That is not only light that is born in the east, the darkness comes from there”.
“Pustkowia takes the project to the next level and brings more of what Ols stands for. It is darker, heavier, bolder and more varied, but also sadder, more emotional and extremely personal. The common denominator linking all the compositions is emptiness: abandonment, dying out and decay, both in the literal sense (abandoned places, deserted settlements, ruins consumed by greenery) and metaphorical (emotional emptiness, rejection, exclusion).
Musically, each track on the album is different; from metal-like pieces, through disturbing ritual chants, to mesmerising, trance-like lullabies. As on the previous records, the song arrangements are based on polyphonic vocal parts, accompanied by a whole gallery of instruments. On Pustkowia, typical dark-folk instruments with ritual drums, a brass section and drone bass have been enriched with solutions from the metal yard, and in the vocal parts include growls, screams and shrieks, emphasising the emotional nature of the songs.
Pustkowia is available from Pagan Records here and here.
