Speaking simultaneously about folk and popular music can be a tricky business in Russia, given the kistchy or clumsy ways in which those traditions were manipulated by the Soviets. There have, of course, been some succesful attempts since 1991 – such as Boris Grebenshchikov ’s “Russian Album” – but they’re few and far between. Nachalo veka, growing up in Volgograd under the shadow of a very Soviet symbol , endeavor to look beyond any connections between folk music and the recent past — all whilst avoiding what they call the “elitist” tendencies of similar Western bands in the past such as Jethro Tull or Fairport Convention.
    
The difficulties of dodging all these potential pitfalls lead to Nachalo veka’s “Brit-pop/Russian folk hybrids” as defined – with some difficulty! – by the Russian press. “The folk-rock band Nachalo veka grounds itself in sung folk material. The musicians are – with great finesse – able to transmit the mood of each [well-known] song, yet each recording is amazingly different from the original. People who are a very long way from anything [traditionally] ‘Russian’ or ‘folkish’ will be able to listen to the band’s recordings over and over… getting a pleasure that’s unlike anything else.”
    
Here’s a live club version of a Ukrainian folk song. These texts – in their original/local setting back home – obviously change with each private performance, region and so forth.