Vinili

Black Vinyl

THEODOR BASTARD refuse to stay still. In the five years of relative silence since their previous studio venture, the world music pioneers were searching for a way out of the darkness that’s descended over reality. The path that they discovered didn’t lead back to their home in the harsh northern forest region of Karelia but away from it, into the coldness of the city and a collapsing civilization. By reconnecting with their electronic roots, THEODOR BASTARD are reborn on a new album mysteriously called 'V'.

'V' reflects just how much has changed since the world last heard from the band. While still widely recognized internationally as leaders for ritual folk and world music, THEODOR BASTARD have re-embraced their early electronic impulses because that’s now how modern life feels: cold, sharp, tense. Long-time fans were pleasantly surprised when the pulse-pounding analog synths of “Nebo” first appeared in the award-winning Russian crime drama ‘The Method’, but the album’s lead single is a sure sign that they’re bound for dark new horizons. Like a space shuttle, “Sverkay” rumbles with distorted bass before it’s suspended high above the earth by a trap-like beat.

“Vdokh – vydokh” ("inhale - exhale"), sings a bewitching Yana Veva as she glimpses what’s to come from our dangerous endgame with war, technology and social division. To a world that’s mired in its own deadly trance, 'V' arrives like a much-needed slap across the face. The album was created during a long and trying period for THEODOR BASTARD. It offers little comfort: its anger, confusion and disappointment are hurled at the outside world, which through our own actions, is tipping over the edge. The aggressive “Vedma” surges with black cosmic energy, as if summoning the apocalypse. But the band aren’t without hope. At their core, the ritual spirit remains. “Ostavlyaem” dances as light as a feather, only to transcend this earth for a place amongst the stars.

With 'V', THEODOR BASTARD return with dark electronics for dark times.

For fans of HEILUNG, GARMARNA, WARDRUNA.

Formed in Kraków in 2019, Cursebinder set out to dissolve the lines between extreme metal and just about anything else. The self-produced demo EP (2020) announced the intention; the debut full-length Drifting (Avantgarde Music, April 2023) delivered on it, with forty minutes of haunting atmosphere, nuanced guitar work and shifting rhythms that earned the band a reputation for music impossible to pin down and difficult to forget.

Three years later, Psychohazard is a force with no shape and no mercy. The second full-length by Cursebinder hits harder and cuts deeper than anything they’ve done yet. Their latest release sees the band push for a more introspective, organic and life-affirming direction, circling the existential clash between the urban rat race and the human desire for love and connection.

At its center is raw human experience with all its contradictions; its veins overflow with a burning desire to look ever closer at the intangible forces that drive our lives. The band smashes their way through eight tracks of demolishing riffs dissolving into hazy atmospheres, jazz-inflected drift surfacing from the dark and layered rhythms drenched in pure psychedelic rage, baring their souls to those willing to listen. 

Their commitment to the ideas, unrelenting emotional power and the intensity of their live shows spill all over this record. So does everything else.  Unpredictable, elemental and intimate, Psychohazard is an invitation to ask the questions we’ve been avoiding.