ummsbiaus Releases Intervals Suite No. 5, Op. 13, a Field Recording Elegy From Lviv Station

Kyiv’s ummsbiaus has added a fifth entry to their Intervals Suite series. Intervals Suite No. 5, Op. 13 builds itself around a continuous field recording made inside Lviv Train Station two weeks before Christmas. The piece sits within a larger instrumental project that runs parallel to the artist’s vocal work as FAVNA and FLORA, the latter a recently completed cycle of nature-and-myth rooted releases. Where those vocal EPs lean into celebration, the suites use field recordings and spare composition to document everyday life in Ukraine right now.

This one treats the station as both a functional transit point and a charged emotional nerve. The opening movement, “10′ Arrival,” pairs a string ensemble with the platform’s own metronome of wheels, steam, and clacking infrastructure. The playing is soft enough to evoke something hauntological, the ghosts of every traveler who ever moved through. Greetings rise and then recede into near silence, a pause that seems to acknowledge those who never stepped off the train. “1′ Last Call” darkens that mood. ummsbiaus sings over a fragile lo-fi piano and a backdrop of muffled announcements, the words direct: “when i leave, it will feel like a crack through the dark city skeleton boulevard … let the bones of mine sprout into flowers.” A stomp arrives and vanishes. Electronic pings offer cold comfort.

The final movement, “Departure,” returns to strings and the blunt weight of an unanswerable question: will this be the last embrace, the final wave? No dramatic crescendo comes, only the train pulling away and the platform settling into waiting. What registers is not grief, exactly. It’s how an ordinary moment becomes a vessel for something larger when the simple act of traveling carries no guarantee of return.