The Ukrainian producer and musician Dmytro Tsyperdyuk actually mixes different Eastern European music styles from different countries into a cosmopolitan trans-Carpathian ethno beat music, which he and his band, which emerged from a film music commission, play Luiku offered to a dance-mad audience. But as a result of the war in Ukraine, his band is now also a cultural ambassador for Ukraine in Ampere, which may also create awareness abroad of what the Russian warmonger Putin is trying to deny: namely the independent Ukrainian culture. Seen in this way, they are also Ukrainian soldiers, the singer of the Ukrainian rock band said during his Munich concert months ago Stoned Jesus stressed. Except that he doesn’t fight with a gun, but with a guitar.
A song describes the terrible situation and a singer fights back tears
Luiku’s Eastern European dance music, enriched with electronic beats, is therefore also interrupted in Ampere by more thoughtful songs about the war in Ukraine. In fact, one of the two singers seems to be fighting back tears during the performance. Because this is not an anti-war song, as many dedicated musicians have in their repertoire. This is a song that describes your own terrible situation.
That’s why he enjoys being able to perform in Germany, says Luiku frontman Dmytro Tsyperdyuk. Because here it is warm and light in the rooms, and in the worst case you can see clouds in the German sky. In his homeland, on the other hand, the sky is full of rockets. There is no light in many places and it is bitterly cold. That’s why the band also fulfills another mission that they, like all Ukrainian musicians, were given abroad: During the concert, the band collects donations for Ukraine.
And the concert-goers at the Ampere happily and generously throw money into the box provided on the edge of the stage, while the band happily plays the dance again. Sounds from the Ukraine mix with borrowed music from Romania, Poland, Hungary and Turkey as well as with Yiddish influences.
And sometimes the music of the Roma shines with an almost homely melancholy in Luiku’s sound world, which is reinforced by electronic beats. Dmytro Tsyperdyuk calls the happiness that such a world of sound releases the strongest weapon against dictators. The quartet from Kyiv will offer more Ukrainian music next Monday, December 12th DakhaBrakha in the backstage. World music meets rock music here.