New Voices Ukraine Memory Leaks II: Nova Moon Rising – The Phenomenon of the Kharkiv Novaya Scena

In the second podcast from Kyiv's 20ft Radio, we look back into the Novaya Scena that thrived in Kharkiv as the USSR crumbled. New Voices Ukraine is a collaboration between The Quietus, 20ft Radio, Neformat, the Ukrainian Institute and the British Council.

Kazma Kazma live at Novaya Scena by Misha Pedan 

The second episode of Memory Leaks is dedicated to the Kharkiv-based phenomenon of the Novaya Scena (New Scene). Novaya Scena was an arts community and music production centre that was managed by Serhii Miasoedov. Accompanied by Serhii and Oleksander Klochkov – a music enthusiast, and caretaker of the Novaya Scena archives – we dig into Ukrainian avant-rock and esoteric folk of the 1990s. You can listen via the player below or by subscribing to tQ’s podcast feed here.

20ft Radio is an independent broadcasting station founded in December 2016 by a team of music enthusiasts. Since that time the station has been broadcasting from a port transport container, currently located in a small garden of a former brewery in Podil distinct, Kyiv.

The radio station normally showcases the local Ukrainian electronic scene – DJs, selectors and live performers, but also takes care to engage with independent artists and other independent radio stations from all over the world, to represent the entire spectrum and diversity of electronic, and other, music. 

Following the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, 20ft Radio ran an international project Grains of Peace. The aim was to bring international attention to the ongoing war, fundraise, and create a special media channel that would play a therapeutic role. The station involved more than fifty artists from Ukraine and from around the world and streamed these shows over seventeen radio stations. 

20ft Radio’s contribution to Альтернативи: New voices Ukraine is a joint project called Memory Leaks: The Story of Ukrainian Indie, Underground and Beyond. This is a podcast series (and a longread article) that will highlight the compelling history of the Ukrainian independent music scene through the concept of memory as an elusive, yet valuable source of knowledge. 

Memory Leaks… explores the scene’s development and establishment, tracing the ways in which the bedroom avant-garde of the early 90s transformed into the electronic cross-genre experiments of today.

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