sudnozavod

Vinyl / Music Album
36:58

What is Sonic Antifascism? For ILYICH, something like an answer begins in Kherson’s vast ruined shipyard looming large in the shadows of history.

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Situated in the delta of the Dnipro in southern Ukraine, it was once the largest shipbuilding site in the USSR, giving birth to Vishwa Asha, meaning Universal Hope, a cargo ship built in 1974 during the Indo-Soviet partnership. Decades later, Vishwa Asha is decommissioned or lost, a ghost ship drifting through the fractured narratives of war.

Sudnozavod (Ukr. “Shipyard”) is the latest album by ILYICH, a musician and artist from Kherson. An artistic fabulation grounded in lived experience, the album draws from the sounds of 1970s and 1990s Ukraine, embracing jazz fusion, spoken word, pop, field recordings, electronic music, and cinematic soundscapes. It builds on ILYICH’s stage work After Hope, premiered at Sophiensæle in Berlin, and coincides with a solo exhibition and its digital and vinyl release at SAVVY Contemporary in October 2025.

In the 70s and 80s, albums like Portrait in Jazz by Bill Evans or Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra were smuggled into Ukraine and copied onto discarded x-rays, known as bones. These sonic relics formed an underground archive of forbidden sound. In a context where sub-dominant jazz chords were politically suspect, even soft music became a form of resistance.

afterlife

Vinyl / Music Album
43:47min

afterlife is a musical journey through fantastical stories, soundscapes and the pulse of a new beginning.

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Conceiving the afterlife as something unfolding now, the album afterlife is responding to the military invasion of Ukraine with semi-fictional narratives, cinematic soundscapes, bass grooves and poems, string orchestras and broken beats. Afterlife is a practice of grieving and new beginnings, life after the latest moment of personal and collective history. The album embraces an uneasy place as the dawn of the fantastical.

Accompanied by allied musicians of various genres, ILYICH embarks on this journey and explores its multidimensional map. The album invites the audience to join forces by listening, dancing and redreaming the world as a world after war.

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Released on the 29th of February 2024
Length: 43:47min

Composed, arranged, written and produced by ILYICH.

Tracks and extended credits:

• At the Door with Takuya Nakamura / Trumpet by Takuya Nakamura
• Prologue with Susanne Sachsse / Voice Susanne Sachsse
• Redreams with Ziggy Zeitgeist / Drums by Ziggy Zeitgeist
• It’s Love
• Frau Fisch with Hani Mojtahedy / Composed and arranged by ILYICH. Voice Hani Mojtahedy. Text Hamid Sharifi
• Kalpa
• What was then, is also now with Oleksandra Kazakova / Voice by Oleksandra Kazakova
• Mykolaiv
• Satellite Island / Keys by Oleksandr Cherno
• It’s Love, You See
• Like Moonlight in Daylight with Olivia Lucy Phillip / Voice Olivia Lucy Phillip
• Relay with Move 78 / Drums sample by Move 78
• Epilogue with Susanne Sachsse / Composed and arranged by ILYICH. Text by ILYICH. Voice Susanne Sachsse

Mixing: Viktor Kurando

Mastering: Eugene Diggidon Don

Supported by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and Musicboard Berlin

LISTENING SESSION AT HOUSE OF WORLD CULTURES, BERLIN:

sound stories silent site

performative sonic laboratory / music ensemble

House of World Cultures (H.K.W.)
2017 – ongoing

Sound Stories Silent Site is a performative laboratory for improvised music and storytelling. The laboratory invites the audience to step into a sonic playground and set aside a formal understanding of sound, composition, performance, and writing. Sound Stories Silent Site wonders how a collective ethics of a place sounds, especially when inspired by difference and contradiction.

The structure of the laboratory revolves around a sequence of collaborative and interactive modules that invite experimentation with sound modules, synthesizers, storytelling, and orchestration. The improvising ensemble takes turns listening, tuning, fieldworking, playing, conducting, and weaving sounds and narratives. Embracing transmigration as a mode to dream and enact new semi-fictional identities, the laboratory collectively envisions narratives of the self, other, and the world.

Joining the ephemeral ensemble requires no previous knowledge or skills in sound or music making. There is no age limit

Formally known as What is not music? the laboratory was initiated at House of World Cultures in 2017 and took place at the Festspielhaus, St. Pölten; Galarie Wedding, Archive of Belonging, Centre for Contemporary Arts in Berlin, University of Arts Berlin and Kunsthochschule Weissensee among many others.

Link:
Sound Stories Silent Site – H.K.W.

Credits:
Photos: Sound Stories Silent Site by Mathias Voelzke at the House of World Cultures Berlin
Vinyl I: Produced as a part of the exhibition

Grounded Outer Space People

music ensemble / artist residency / performative exhibition 

Galerie Wedding, 13.10 – 18.11.2022

»Grounded Outer Space People« is a nomadic music ensemble / artist residency tracing the relationship between transmigration, and music. 

The latest iteration of the nomadic residency / band takes shape of a performative exhibition at Galerie Wedding, Berlin. Operating in a temporary studio the group of artists in residency inhabits the exhibition space and expands this frame through ensemble rehearsals, concerts, presentations, performances, sound- and visual works, and workshops. Upscaled scores and space travel drawings extend over the gallery walls setting forth the launch of »Vostok 7« vinyl, a radio play conceived as a reenactment of the spaceship that has yet to be built. »Vostok 7« is the main sound piece in the exhibition. Situated on the Satelite Island in Kherson, Ukraine, the narrative and the drawings is an artistic study of the Vostok Program of Soviet Space Travel that began with Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight, Vostok 1 in 1961, and ended with Vostok 6 in 1963 with the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, the anti-hero of the exhibition. Driven through the perceptual shift from the visual to the sonic, the exhibition space and the studio operates a mobile sound system, a radio station, and a listening space full of musical instruments and sonic devices.

At a moment when most political concepts fail, the artist turns to the protagonists of Ukrainian cosmism such as Fedir Tetyanych, also drawing inspiration from musicians, improvisers, and artists such as Don Cherry and Moki Cherry. This synthesis offers a dynamic starting point to explore and extend the concept of transmigration as a performative, artistic, and collective practice. Inviting multidisciplinary artists from different backgrounds to expand on the contemporary understanding of migration through an ephemeral music ensemble, »Grounded Outer Space People« proposing a critical mapping from which the poetics of displacement might emerge.

Opening doors to the first iteration of the »Transmigration Library« the audience is invited to engage with an ever-changing collection of books curated through Kats’ practice in sound, music, and politically engaged artistic practice. Playfully embracing the notion of reincarnation, taking one lifetime at a time, the project points towards the very concrete dimensions of a body, family, country, planet, history and the necessity to fully engage in practice from this vantage point.

Artists in residency:  Anja Jadryschnikova, Khaled Kurbeh, Jared Meier-Klodt, Hani Mojtahedy, Aiko Okamoto, Ziggy Zeitgeist, Kelly Krugman.

Special thanks to the contributing artists: Nima Séne, Helleroid, Oleksandra Monda, Yulia Vlaskina, Bastian Schmiedecke, Liam Wustrack, Ezgi Ulubayrak and Pelsho.

Curated by Solvej Helweg Ovesen

Within the framework of Existing Otherwise | Anders Existieren 2021–22 at Galerie Wedding

Further Links:
E-Flux

Further Events:

25.10.2022, 7 to 9 pm Interlude Grounded Outer Space People

26.10.2022 Radio Transmission: Notiz für die Welt danachEvent with Aiko Okamoto.

10.11.2022, 6 pm Same Page Different Corner with Anton Kats. Ukrainian musicians meet up and »Vostok 7« listening session

18.11.2022, 5 pm Exhibition tour with Solvej Helweg Ovesen and Anton Kats

18.11.2022, 7 to 9 pm Volta. Final performance and concert Grounded Outer Space People.


Credits:
Gallery Management: Dr. Ute Müller-Tischler 
Curatorial Assistance program coordination: Malte Pieper, Kathrin Pohlmann
Curatorial Assistance press and communication: Maya Smoszna
Internship: Manuel Bendig 
Set Up Support: Igor Ivanishyn
GOSP Sound System 3D Mapping: Byron Kalomamas
GOSP Sound System Carpenter: Jörg Fischer
Mittlungsradio Sound System Support: Anna-Maria Lesevic

Photography: Juan Saez
Camera: Hyejeong Yun, Takashi Kunimoto, Pascal Kanitz

With the kind support of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Exhibition Remuneration Fund and Exhibition Fund for Municipal Galleries and Musicboard Berlin.

Vostok 7

Vostok 7 is a reenactment of the spaceship that has yet to be built. Situated in Kherson, Ukraine, the narrative of the radio play is an artistic study of the Vostok Program of Soviet Space Travel that began with Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight, Vostok 1 in 1961, and ended with Vostok 6 in 1963 with the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkowa.

The 33min long radio play introduces a semi-fictional narrative from the perspective of the first radio frequency between humans in space: established between the Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 spaceships.
Remembering its three human incarnations in Kherson, South Ukraine, the radio frequency addresses the relationship between eco-logical and ego-logical concerns reflected within a human experience.

Master Files Download:

• ILYICH_Love And Light_Feat. Olivia Lucy Phillip, Enlery_(Original Mix).wav
• ILYICH_Tat Tat Tat_(Original Mix).wav
• Love and Light – Videosnippet

STREAMING LINKS

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DOWNLOAD:

• 01 Sun Within_Master File_ILYICH.wav
• 02 Nada_Master File_ILYICH.wav

Sun Within is an extended play release carried by groovy bass lines and a soulful house feel:

The A-Side “Sun Within” is a gentle reminder of the inner radiance, ever-present regardless of the circumstances. The B-Side “Nada” is an ode to Sound being at the core of all forms and appearances.

Located between house, jazz-fusion and soul, the EP synthesises trippy breaks and percussions with otherworldly voices, mesmerising strings, arpeggios and solid bass fills.

Coming into the planetary orbit in times of great intensity and distress, the EP is driven by the curiosity of how to pass through the eye of the needle? Great company for dim and shining days, Nada and Sun Within, are reminders to breathe and shake it off in order to keep moving ahead.

Sun Within EP

STREAMING AND DOWNLOAD LINKS

Sun Within is an extended play release carried by groovy bass lines and a soulful house feel.

The A-Side “Sun Within” is a gentle reminder of the inner radiance, ever-present regardless of the circumstances. The B-Side “Nada” is an ode to Sound being at the core of all forms and appearances.

Located between house, jazz-fusion and soul, the EP synthesises trippy breaks and percussions with otherworldly voices, mesmerising strings, arpeggios and solid bass fills.

Coming into the planetary orbit in times of great intensity and distress, the EP is driven by the curiosity of how to pass through the eye of the needle? Great company for dim and shining days, Nada and Sun Within, are reminders to breathe and shake it off in order to keep moving ahead.

Love and Light

Love and Light EP is the first joint adventure between ILYICH and Nervous Records, New York.

Attuned with the Heart and Soul frequencies, the EP enters into the planetary ecosystem in the best company, featuring
Olivia Lucy Phillip and Enlery magically forming the the first iteration of the Grounded Outer Space People choir.

Grounded Outer Space People

Grounded Outer Space People – EP – Out Now

When asked about his last EP and his music influences ILYICH’s voice suddenly appeared through a distant radio transmission:

“People on Earth are more and more aware of waves, vibrations, and frequencies of higher coherence than that provided by human language. Intelligence is sonic. Listening is an individual and collective choice that you are making right now. Not listening is a choice also. When the compositions slowly began coming through, each of them felt like an entity, a living organism on its own accord. One note remembering itself. Through time and space, we are experiencing different aspects of this one note.”

Space helmet: Anastasia Pilepchuk 
Photography and retouching: Igor Kritskiy

WU-WEI – GROUNDED OUTER SPACE PEOPLE EP