EP Review: AMAS and KONSTANTIN KOST - Odessa

How do we live in times when nothing seems safe, how do we listen to music when rockets and bullets make the air scream, how do we produce music when the building with our studio is simply no longer there?

Over the last 2 years, AMAS and KONSTANTIN KOST have been trying to produce a techno EP across the borders of the war in Ukraine. KONSTANTIN KOST was never able to leave Ukraine for this, while we were able to move freely through Europe.

This ambivalence is part of this EP, it is part of every note and every line of the poems that can be heard here. We all associate techno with bass-heavy and dancing through the night, but ODESSA is more, it is a journey without being able to travel, an experience without being able to experience, an escape without being able to escape and a life without really being able to live …

Neither AMAS was able to travel to Odessa during this time, nor KONSTANTIN KOST to Europe, neither was able to experience the other personally. However, the exchange of music and lyrics has built up a relationship to a country at war, as well as to its people, musicians, women and children.

While we were dealing with our every day problems in Germany, the situation in ODESSA became increasingly confusing. The constant fear of being drafted and producing videos and images for the album at the same time were extremely ambivalent moments.

How do you deal with your counterpart in such moments and what do you say to someone in a situation that we can hardly imagine? We often talked about friends simply disappearing and corrupt officials and soldiers embezzling money and in the next sentence it was straight back to the vinyl production. These conversations were very rational and at the same time extremely surreal.

This EP is not meant to be a political EP, it is meant to be a human and to take away the feeling of powerlessness from the people who were and are involved. This production and its music is a triumph over the destructive and dark side of war, it is meant to show that art is boundless and that people are connected all over the world even in the darkest times.

In the first track RED GLOW our guest TANYA (musician and djane from Odessa) stoically repeats the words LOVE and FEAR, followed by the words: “i meet you with red glow, in your eyes i quickly dissolve!” The track is part of every day life, everywhere you meet this red glow and yet everything has to flow on and yet people still live and dance …

In NIGHTCALL we walk through the streets and follow the call of darkness. The words “through the night” are used here repetitively like a percussion. But the highs and lows also give us hope and the belief that we will wake up again tomorrow and start a new day. In the dark there is always light, which must be preserved and found.

OLD KINGS is also the title of the poem we have written, based on the poem OZYMANDIAS by Percy Bysshe Shelley. OLD KINGS determine our times and our political systems, seemingly unteachable old men hold the world in a stranglehold and it seems as if there are an infinite number of them. Yet we continue to fight against these people, we cannot and do not want to do otherwise …

Check out: ‘Old Kings’ from the EP

In TALK TO GOD, KONSTANTIN KOST reads from the well-known ukrainian poem “a cloud floating behind the sun” by TARAS SHEVCHENKO, a famous ukrainian poet and writer. He is considered the founder of modern ukrainian literature and, in part, of the ukrainian language. It is about red fields, the fog and its darkness, as well as the sea and the calmness of the heart in nature, the longing for peace and peace with god.

In addition to poetry and music, all photographs and videos are original recordings by KONSTANTIN KOST of his city ODESSA. Although we cannot visit each other, we still share strong visual impressions of a city that, in all its beauty and resilience, will hopefully soon be open to the world again. The cover is therefore also a picture of the port of Odessa, a place where people and goods from all parts oft he world will soon be able to sail in and out again.

Verdict: Another solid release from the Amas studio label, quality dub techno with an underlining message for peace in these uncertain times. Smooth rolling beats, with flowing layers of synth create a heavenly progressive trip. No space wasted on the EP with each track holding its own, a testament to Amas and Konstantins’ production skills and creative process. Track it down.

Track List: