​DakhaBrakha

​Crazy homeland harmonies
filled with energy and joy.

Ukrainian folk music with
a zesty, punk drone flavor.

Guaranteed to surprise.
​

Photo by Vitaliy Vorobyov

DakhaBrakha is, at one level, a Ukrainian folk quartet. But it's so much more.

Their performances maintain the energy and joy that define their music, bouncing off each other musically and emotionally. DakhaBrakha aims to keep Ukraine's musical and storytelling tradition alive by making it more accessible to a younger, international audience, a kind of self-proclaimed "ethno-chaos." They craft stunning sonic worlds for traditional songs, reinventing their heritage with a keen ear for contemporary resonances.

The band's name derives from Ukrainian verbs Давати and Брати, meaning "give" and "take." Their Tiny Desk concert for NPR is the favorite of many around the world, including the producer, Bob Boilen.

This page is dedicated to Dakhabraka and the many musical traditions of Ukraine.  We in the process world recognize that each and every culture offers something beautiful to the rest of the world and to the Soul in whose life the universe unfolds. One of the practices of process thought is to listen and receive, and then to give respect and appreciation to what we hear.  Dakhabraka makes that easy.  Their sound and novelty are contagious.  Watch the concerts below.  You'll see.

- Jay McDaniel, 3/20/22​

The Tiny Desk Concert
​

People always ask me, "What's your favorite Tiny Desk Concert?" Well, right now it's the one recently performed by DakhaBrakha. The creative quartet from Kiev, Ukraine make music that sounds like nothing I've ever heard, with strands of everything I've ever heard. There are rhythms that sound West African and drone that feels as if it could have emanated from India or Australia. At times, DakhaBrakha is simply a rock band whose crazy homeland harmonies are filled with joy. All the while, they play tight-knit tunes featuring accordion, drums, reeds and shakers while wearing tall, Marge Simpson-looking wool hats that made me jealous.

I want the world to see this Tiny Desk Concert more than any other right now. It's refreshing to hear the power of acoustic music and the many worlds of sound still waiting to be explored.

​- Bob Boilen, NPR, 2015

DakhaBrakha Live

at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
​

​
​My Name is Ukraine

from the Dakhabrakha Facebook Page
during the invasion of 2022

​

Dakhabrakha Facebook Page

Dakhabrakha Website

Beyond the Skinny "I"
​

"And who do you
think you are sauntering along
five feet up in the air, the ocean a blue fire
around your ankles, the sun
on your face on your shoulders its golden mouth whispering
(so it seems) you! you! you!"
​
— Mary Oliver, "On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate (Psalm 145)"
​
Spirituality is, according to Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, an I-Thou relationship. If it were just "I" and I-alone, we would fall into a solipsistic world that does not regard anything outside oneself as true or worth noting. The "I" needs a "You." We know this to be true everyday of our lives. We fall in love; we make friends; we pray. We may even devote our life to God, the Great You in whom we live and move and have our being.

When we surrender to the Great You, the skinny "I" widens out to include the lavish expanse of You; it then cascades out to you and you and you! It quickly escapes the confines of humanity, reaching all creatures born of the earth. The red cardinal at my window is "you." So is the industrious ant and the lowly beetle.

Once we catch hold of this Great You who searches and knows you and me and the woodchuck who roams my backyard, we begin to experience the I-Thou wonder in everything and everyone around us. It's like falling in love, when you see the beloved everywhere you turn. 
​
Patricia Adams Farmer, excerpts from "Y" is for You

​Process and Dakhabraka

 listening for the unexpected
​

Listening for the Unexpected is a soul-widening practice.  Process philosophers tell us that, moment by moment, the many of the past actual world are woven into new wholes in the immediacy of our immediate experience.  The many become one and are increased by one.  The 'increase' is what we add to what we receive from the past, creating novel contrasts that add richness to experience.  DhakaBraka does this when it weaves Ukranian folk melodies into new sounds enriched by rock, jazz, and craziness.  And we can do the same by listening for the unexpected.

Listening for the unexpected is the activity of listening to music with curiosity and an ear for novelty, with a delight in the unfamiliar and the surprising.  For process theopoets such as Patricia Adams Farmer, such listening is not for personal pleasure alone, although that is a good thing.  The purpose is also to break down the hardened arteries of an overly-ordered imagination, creating for the emergence of fresh possibilities that come from the Great You.  Possibilities for love and playfulness, for honesty and justice, for yearning and beauty, for zest and peace.  These are among the many qualities of heart and mind highlighted by the world's most inclusive interfaith organization, Spirituality and Practice.  They are names for what, in the world of process philosophy and theology, we call richness of experience or embodied wisdom.

​​​attention  -  beauty  -  being present  -  compassion   -  connections  -  devotion  -  enthusiasm  -  faith
forgiveness - grace -  gratitude  - hope - hospitality - imagination  - joy -  justice - kindness - listening
love  -  meaning  -  nurturing  -  openness  -  peace - play  -  questing  -  reverence - shadow - silence
​teachers   -  transformation   -  unity  -  vision   -   wonder  -  x, the mystery  -  yearning  -  you  -  zeal
​
The Practice

How might these qualities be cultivated?  The Cobb Institute: A Community for Process and Practice speaks of the importance of new kinds of spirituality and spiritual practice that may have no exact parallels in the past.  Consider, for example, the role that digital technologies now play in so many people's lives.  You turn to a reliable source of different kinds of music, such as NPR's music department, and choose a kind of music that is new to you, that is different from what you are accustomed to.  In many  cases the music can be accessed through a video, so that you will see something that is new as well. The key is to listen with a curious heart.  Not a judgmental heart that considers its own tastes normative.  And not a comfort-seeking heart that wants to rest in the familiar.  There’s a time for comfort-seeking, of course. But there’s a time to listen out of curiosity, too, just because you want to hear something that surprises you because it is different from what you expect.  Something that may seem a little chaotic, albeit in a delightful way, given your own understanding of order.  Like the music of DakhaBrakha in this Tiny Desk Concert or, below, at Fort Hood.  The Tiny Desk Youtube video has been 2,168,538 times as I post it.  Let the many be increased by one.

-- Jay McDaniel 

DakhaBrakha at Mt. Hood 
​

​Want more from Ukraine? Try:

Voice/Way: New Music from Ukraine
​February is sobbing and the candle drips on the table: Iva Kiva
​We, Between Past and Future: Artists from Ukraine
​Seeing the World in Vivid Colors: Petrykivka Painting
Process Theology and Ukrainian Avant-Garde Music
​May I give this Ukrainian Bread to the Whole Wide World: ​Maria Pryimachenko