Last year I included two Belarusian acts in my end of year songs list. At the time, I still had hopes that the opposition (widely believed to be the true winners of the 2020 presidential election) would prevail in Belarus, but I see now that I underestimated Aleksandr Lukashenko's grip on power and his ability to terrorise, torture and suppress the population of Belarus.
What does this have to do with anything? Nothing very much really, but it provides a bit of context as to how the war in Ukraine has permeated everyday life, up to and including what we choose to listen to.
I first became aware of Bloom Twins, a pair of Ukrainian twins now making music in London, as a result of an article the NME published just after Russia invaded Ukraine back in February. The article was basically a well researched list of Ukrainian artists readers should be supporting, and it included Bloom Twins.
'Set Us Free' was released after the Maiden protests and after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, but before the full scale assault on Ukraine this year. The twins wrote of the motivation for writing the track over on Soundcloud when they released in 2016:
It was the first track we wrote after returning from Ukraine where we got stuck for half a year during the uprise. The track is not political at all, rather a call for freedom, but it was certainly influenced by everything that was happening in Ukraine and the fact that we couldn't come back to our new home - London.
It's an incredibly uplifting, anthemic piece so you can see why they'd be keen to contextualise it as it certainly has the potential to be a rallying cry for a number of causes. Not so much political as life influenced pop, but one that certainly packs a punch.
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