Waves Vienna 2019. Austria

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In 2019 Music Export Ukraine in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute organized a Ukrainian reception and showcase of four Ukrainian acts at Waves Vienna. This was the first massive professional representation of Ukraine at European showcase festival.

UA delegation consisted not only from musicians but also industry representatives (online music media Comma.com.ua, concert agencies Pop Corn and SEA). Four Ukrainian acts were Alyona Alyona, Gurt [O], Sasha Boole and Tik Tu. 

All foreign delegates were also presented with a catalogue of Ukrainian music industry with an overview of key festivals, venues, concert agencies, media, etc.
The west is a bore and they seek the authentic East. This interest has generated a lot of interesting acts, especially Ukrainian ones who perform in their native language. That's primarily the hip hop sensation Alyona Alyona, which with her attitude, rap technique and extraordinary corpulent approach distracts the attention from the future pop band gurt [O], which to me sounds like a soundtrack for a remake of the Fifth Element (Muzika.hr) 

Sasha Boole was hooked differently. With his stetsons and tattoos, the singer-guitarist-harpist not only looked, but also sounded hundreds of gigs, as well as pipes from a crippled mannequin. He snapped a one-man country and Americana party bravely, wrapping his song into a smooth bull. The show emphasized by Boole's memoirs as chance occurrences on the road like a mother to take the opposition of the musician (Soundi)

The room, filled to the last corner, was the perfect setting for the Ukrainian band Gurt [O], whose sound is difficult to fix, but mostly moved somewhere between happy indie pop and rock, and jazzy trumpet parts. Vocals came from a constantly smiling rave elf who definitely knew how to move. In order to make her mother happy, the singer decided to sing in Ukrainian (The Gap)