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ONUKA

Vidlik

The title track of ONUKA's 2016 EP, a countdown dedicated to the Chornobyl disaster: Nata Zhyzhchenko's commanding voice over a repeating figure of electro-brass and Ukrainian folk colour.

By korczis 3 min read
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Review

Genre and Mood

ONUKA made Vidlik sound like an emergency. It is electronic music with folk and world roots, built by a Ukrainian band that pairs traditional instruments with programmed beats, but there is nothing pastoral about it. The mood is intense, dark and haunting: a hard, repeating figure, warning sounds and a voice that gives orders rather than confides.

Song Summary

Vidlik is the title track of ONUKA’s 2016 EP, and the word means countdown. The EP is dedicated to the Chornobyl disaster of 26 April 1986 and its effects on Ukraine and the world; its last track, 1986, even uses a real recording of the control room. Nata Zhyzhchenko has a personal reason: her father fought the disaster, so she grew up with its stories. For the EP the band added the cimbalom, the lyre, the buhay and the theremin to their usual folk palette. On the title track The Singles Jukebox heard an aggressive electro-brass minimalism.

Musical Breakdown

Intro

The opening swarms of sound, which one critic likened to Justice, set the alarm before the main figure lands; this EP version runs about four and a half minutes, a minute longer than the music video’s edit.

Main Section

The core is a blunt, repeating synth-brass riff, which critics compared to tuba blasts, trading places with alarm-like sounds. Zhyzhchenko recites over it with what one reviewer called terrifying militance.

Interlude

A short, vaguely operatic passage, a choral voice among them, breaks the pattern and briefly lifts the track.

Outro

The figure returns and the track does not resolve so much as stop, abruptly, as if the count has run out.

Concepts in Focus

Vidlik is driven by an ostinato, a pattern repeated persistently while other things change around it. Here the repetition is the message: a countdown is a loop with a deadline. Listen to how little the main figure varies, and how the voice and the alarms, not the pattern, carry the drama. Compare the same nerve-wracking principle in Mount Sims – Restless.

That figure is also a riff, and an unusual one. Instead of a guitar, a rounded brass sound played on synthesizer delivers it, which ties the track to the band’s trombones and French horns while keeping it electronic. Brad Shoup of The Singles Jukebox heard the synth-brass riffs alternating with alarm sounds, a call and answer between music and warning.

Artistic Context

ONUKA was founded in 2013 by Yevhen Filatov and the singer Nata Zhyzhchenko. The name means granddaughter in Ukrainian and honours her grandfather Oleksandr Shlionchyk, a maker of folk instruments; the band’s sound mixes bandura, sopilka and trembita with electronic drums and brass. Vidlik, their second EP, came out in February 2016, about two months before the disaster’s thirtieth anniversary.

Impact and Reception

The Singles Jukebox gave the track an average of 7.29 out of 10 in May 2016, with scores from 5 to 10: praise for its menace and its voice, doubts about its repetition. A year later ONUKA performed with the NAONI folk orchestra as an interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest final. Listen with the volume up and count along.

Learn from this track

Intermediate

What you will learn

  • Recognise an ostinato and explain how a pattern repeated without change can create dread rather than calm.
  • Hear how a brass-like riff, played on synthesizer, can carry a whole track in place of a chorus.
  • Explain how folk instruments and electronic production can serve a historical subject, here the Chornobyl disaster.

Listening guide

  1. the riff Rounded, tuba-like synth-brass blasts that keep returning, heavy and blunt, the track's main hook.
  2. the alarms Sounds like warning signals alternating with the brass, an image of a control room in trouble.
  3. the voice Nata Zhyzhchenko reciting more than singing, cold and commanding; the menace comes through even if you do not understand Ukrainian.
  4. the interlude A brief, almost operatic, choral passage that lifts the track before the brass returns.

Concepts in this track

ostinato

4 tracks

A pattern repeated persistently, often for a whole section, while other parts change above it. Minimal techno and much film music build tension from ostinatos.

riff

25 tracks

A short, repeated melodic or rhythmic figure, usually played by an instrument, that anchors a song. Rock riffs are often guitar figures; in electronic music the same role falls to a synth or bass line.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. Vidlik means countdown. What is being counted down in a song dedicated to a disaster that already happened?
  2. One Singles Jukebox critic loved the repetition and another found it never left the driveway. When does an ostinato build tension, and when does it simply stand still?
  3. ONUKA is named after a grandfather who made folk instruments. What does it mean to bring those instruments into electronic music about a modern catastrophe?

References

  1. Wikipedia. Onuka (band). Encyclopedia
  2. The Singles Jukebox. Onuka – Vidlik (2016). Review
  3. Beehype. ONUKA, Vidlik (2016). Review

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