Maryana Golovko (singer, soloist of the NOVA OPERA formation) and Max Smogol (sound producer, film composer, multi-instrumentalist) presented their new music project called Das Wortspiel with their debut album ‘Chapter I’. The project’s name translates from German as ‘wordplay’.

Created in 2022 during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ‘Chapter I’ includes the musicians’ reflections on the war. While in Berlin, Maryana and Max joined numerous events aimed at supporting the Ukrainian community against Russian aggression. This became a source of inspiration for creative decisions that resulted in the birth of poetry and musical accompaniment to it.

Das Wortspiel’s debut album is a spoken word record that includes lyrics by the famous Ukrainian poet Yuriy Izdryk, as well as Maryana Golovko and Max Smogol’s own lyrics, folk motifs, and lyrics by Olga Kobylianska. The album conveys the specific state in which the musicians lived during the year that was the most difficult for all Ukrainians.

“Now it seems to me that this album is my salvation. This is what all our experiences of that most terrible and difficult, but also the most productive period immediately after the war started resulted in. It’s the adrenaline of those first days and aggression and anger; but also sadness, despair, and uncertainty… A complex bouquet of emotions that I think is reflected in the different tracks of the album. In addition, all the recordings were made not in a studio environment, but wherever and however we had to, and using a very limited set of instruments that was available at the time. This can be heard in the final mix, which is permeated with a very sincere sound…” — Max Smogol.

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