FOR A MOMENT is like being in the middle of a huge personal and historical storm in a blunt, straightforward way: TV shows, air raid sirens, anxious strings. After all, every storm is an aggressive and direct call to action. To survive and outlast both the past and the present. Simple, really. The future — that’s where it gets complicated.
The roots of MANTRA & I AM A ROCK, I AM AN ISLAND go back to the spring of 2024, when video artist Teta Tsybulnyk and I collaborated on the video essay I Am a Rock. In a playful homage to Magritte’s painting The Treachery of Images and Simon & Garfunkel’s song I Am a Rock, Teta’s film explores the paradoxical relationship between nature, representation, and language.
However, the two pieces I made while working on the film soundtrack are closer to meditative neurosis than to structuralist game. And they are much more personal. That’s the beauty of music, it transcends any narrative. If you let it, music can dissolve even the most sophisticated language and ideas.
SIX MONTHS is a bittersweetness of semi-remote fatherhood. Ah, this non-stop growing and becoming of R. (which to me looks like a fucking roller coaster in stop-motion). I recorded the sound of the toy I gave R. for her first six-month birthday. The toy is a pink tumbler shaped like a bunny with chewable ears. It also plays this steely tune composed by Joe Hisaishi — soothing and haunting all at once. And suddenly, it all made sense.
You see R. on the album cover. No drama here, just the heartfelt cry of an infant.
BONUS TRACK #1 — ’cause every album deserves a bonus.
SO HOW ARE YOU TODAY? It is wartime, the third year, and V. is drunk and flushed. He says: And they’ve stolen our future, so there’s nothing left to do but live this day to the fullest. Statements like this pop up all over the place. They’re both banal and awe-inspiring. They roar with pathos and credibility. I appreciate V.’s candor and envy his lack of doubt. My story is different. I have come to believe that doubt is the only thing I can be sure of. Or can I?
Thanks for your time.
And thank you to all the beautiful beings who helped shape this record in both direct and less obvious ways. The soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the volunteers who make it all possible in the first place. Teta Tsybulnyk, Katrya Tykhonenko, Tania Avramenko, Mia Kalenyk, Yegor Strelkov, Elias Parvulesco, Volt Agapeyev, Vitaly Nesterenko, Yaroslava Prysiazhna, Andrew Karpenko, the cat, and everyone in between.
Dedicated to R.
Conversation with Gianmarco Del Re for Ukrainian Field Notes XLII. On wartime listening, the siren controversy, and why RE: is not a war album, even though it can feel like one
Released March 7, 2025
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