FFO: The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, Total Control, Spacemen 3, Big Black... On the cusp of their first U.S. tour, Kiev-based four-piece Bichkraft deliver their shimmering second album, Shadoof. To write and record their sophomore effort, the group built a studio in a debrisstrewn lot in the hilly Roshinskiy neighborhood of Kiev, Ukraine. Using the piles of broken classical LPs, discarded winter coats and Soviet-era refrigerators they found there, they constructed a studio to serve as their de facto headquarters. The trash-filled yard outside, in all its chaotic beauty, became its own source of inspiration for the recording. Once the songs were complete, the band refined them on the road, performing around Kiev, throughout Ukraine and for the first time in Russia. Finding inspiration in the wasteland, Shadoof refuses to end the party even while chaos and disintegration build around the edges. From anthemic industro-punk ("Big Red Robe") and jagged, hook-filled noise pop ("Sleeves at Farewell") to pulsing techno noise ("Stain of Rest"), Shadoof hits hard out of the gates and takes listeners on a journey through Kiev's winding streets, out past the Ukrainian border and into regions unknown. This is a record of dangerous beauty made by and for the adventurous.
