To Sing, to Fly
Listening Post 382. On their tenth album, the gifted artists of Vedan Kolod channel humanity’s fascination with the singing, flight, beauty and vigor of the winged creatures that share our world. The family band—Valerii Naryshkin, Tatiana Naryshkina and Alisa Naryshkina—is devoted to the musical tradition of Siberian Russia, and on Birds they perform newly composed and historic works, some going back to shamanistic times, highlighting the avian presence in the folklore of their vast region. With haunting harmonies and dramatic dissonance, they blend voices with a dazzling collection of instruments, some restored and some virtually resurrected. The album’s eight tracks feature birds real and allegorical: Peahen (Пава, video 1), the opening track, evokes rituals involving cradles, feathers and wreaths; while Cuckoo (кукушка, video 2) breathes an air of penetrating sadness. Singing isn’t the only activity that birds and humans share: Aviatrix (летчица, video 3) pays homage to Lydia Litvyak, the first female Soviet pilot ace, who flew 66 combat sorties in World War II before she was shot down. In the more contemporary title track (video 4), birds hover over a battlefield, noticing not the opposing flags below but only the dead; and in a country waging war, the stark aerial view risks being an allegory too far. Shortly after releasing their new album, Vedan Kolod themselves—already on a Russian government blacklist—chose exile, relocating to Serbia. Though not ostensibly concerned with the dawn of music, the album explores a trail far more ancient than its eight songs suggest. Sages from Aristotle to Kant to Walt Whitman have been captivated by the inspirational link between birds and humanity: It’s more than plausible that our earliest ancestors learned to sing from our feathered friends; there’s also a body of opinion that song paved the way to spoken language, rather than the other way around. Embedded in a single culture, Birds has common roots—across continents and back through time—with all. (CPL-Music)

Vedan Kolod: Birds / Вeданъ Колодъ: птицы
Tatiana Naryshkina: Vocals, bouzouki, vargan (Jew’s harp), shaker, mandolin, drum, gusli, kalimba
Valerii Naryshkin: Vocals, Scythian harp, bouzouki, vargan, svirel (flutes), guitar, kalimba, wooden horn, zvenelka, tambourine
Alisa Naryshkina: Tambourine
Daryana Antipova: Manager

Related post. Vedan Kolod: Wild Games, Listening Post 267, Aug 25, 2020 https://worldlisteningpost.com/2020/08/25/vedan-kolod-wild-games/

Peahen / Пава (Pava)
Lyrics & music: Traditional

(From the Russian lyrics)
In the forest, on the yellow sand/Holy evening to the good people
The peacock was flying and wounding the feathers/Ninochka came and collected the feathers, and put them into the cradle
She put them into the cradle and knitted wreaths

You’re panovna, you’re a queen/I am not panovna, not a queen
I am pannochka, Ivan’s daughter/Holy evening to the good people!

Cuckoo / кукушка (Kukushka)
Lyrics & music: Traditional

Oh, don’t cuckoo/Cuckoo in the garden, pockmarked
Oh, in the garden and the pockmarked one
Oh, don’t whine my dear heart
Don’t whine, my zealous heart

Aviatrix / летчица (Lechitsa)
Lyrics and music: Valerii Naryshkin

A gray-white arrow tore the dark sky with a line/A fast snow-colored falcon disperses the clouds
The insidious Snake, hidden by a cloud, decided to have lunch with it/and waited for the wind to destroy the falcon faster
Here the snake rushed from above, howling in the wind/And pierced the falcon’s back with a chiseled claw
The white feathers are stuck together with blood, it’s impossible to continue the flight/The serpent rejoices, the bird has toppled, it is about to collapse on the ice
But I can’t fall like a stone without letting go of death/And I gripped the steering wheel in my hands, pointing the roaring propeller skyward
My flight was not too long, I did not return, although I could have become a white bird that died in the battle with the Snake

Birds / птицы (P’titsy)
Lyrics and music: Valerii Naryshkin

Birds fly to a distant land/Their flapping wings cut clouds
The people below are going to die/They have a different emblem on their shields
The armies are moving toward each other/Flags fly at the will of the winds
Faceless death is coming soon/There are no emblems in heaven
Birds look down at people/They see battles of different colors
They don’t see great ideas/They only see dead people
Birds fly to a faraway land/They wave their wings to the bloody earth
To the people below who have died, who looked at the sky when meeting their fate