Ukrainian Field Notes LVII Gathers Voices from a Country Under Fire

The fifty-seventh instalment of Ukrainian Field Notes lands as Russia steps up its ballistic missile campaign, and the interviews collected here are unmistakably shaped by that pressure. The series, which has been tracking the country’s independent music scene since before the full-scale invasion, returns with conversations that move between Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, and Lutsk.

Air Defence System, an artist from Kharkiv whose pseudonym carries literal weight, speaks about his EP please don’t stay any longer against the sound of ongoing strikes. Earlier, in a Kyiv meeting transcribed for this edition, Iranian-born musician and filmmaker Ramin Ghaderian explains how he came to Ukraine at sixteen, stayed for love of the country, and now balances teaching piano online with directing his second war documentary.

The issue also steps back for a rare retrospective, reconnecting with artists first interviewed at the invasion’s onset—Yurii Dubrovsky (Octopus Kraft) and Viktor Pushkar among them—to hear about recent work. Brooth maps out the electronic pulse of Zaporizhzhia, while a Resonance FM podcast anchored to the edition focuses on Lutsk, with contributions from Maksym Son, Dmytro Bereziuk, and Vlad Pochebula. Their conversation winds through the repurposed Luchanka factory and folk traditions of the Volyn region.

Alongside the interviews, a long list of new releases appears, including albums from Huggen Luft (on I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free), Andrey Sirotkin, Koloah, Noisoid, støïbrok, and others. The viewing room features Cluster Lizard. These field notes, as always, function less as a playlist and more as an ongoing record of a scene that has incorporated survival into its structure.