TVII SON's self-titled album is a glorious concoction of local and global, and combines rich immersion in music history and in-the-moment immediacy with uncanny ease. The trio of Florian, Mika Shkurat and vocalist / writer Lucy Zoria make, essentially, a kind of stripped-to-the-bone industrial dub, fizzing with white noise and quivering with soundsystem bass – but given a glorious pop infectiousness, thanks to the earworm phrases and phrasing of Lucy's vocals. The name was chosen purely for how cool the letters look on the page but conceals intriguing lyricism (it means "your dream" in Ukrainian), and likewise their sound's simplicity hides deep intellect and emotion. Their roots are deep in both Kyiv and Berlin, with a sprinkling of extra cosmopolitanism from Lucy's part-American upbringing. Beneath the surface simplicity lies an intellectual and musical richness that belies all three members' backgrounds in punk / alternative scenes, and their immersion in everything from 90s WARP records to anime soundtracks. And there's both a vivid expression of Berlin's deep rooted electronic music culture and a proud sense of increasingly confident Ukrainian identity, still carrying the energy of the 2014 revolution even as its optimism has mutated into something darker and perhaps more determined.
