The Ukrainian final "Vidbir" was held on December 17th at Maidan Nezalezhnosti Metro Station in Kyiv, hosted by Timur Miroshnichenko, Kateryna Pavlenko and Zlata Ognevich. The winner was chosen by a 50-50 mix of jury and audience vote. Going to Liverpool will be Tvorchi with the song "Heart Of Steel"
Andrii Hutsulyak and Geoffrey Kenny have been working as the group Tvorchi - sometimes stylised as TVORCHI - since they met as students at university. Their first song was released in 2017. Since then they have participated in song competitions and have 4 albums to date. In 2020 they participated in Vidbir with the song "Bonfire" and in 2021 they won three YUNA awards
Although the national final was set in an underground metro station the production values were first rate. Andrii with a keyboard was on one side of the stage while Geoffrey was stood slightly obscured in the gaps between four large projection screens. After the first verse and chorus they are joined on stage by two dancers wearing boiler suits and stylistic gas masks. There is then another verse followed by an elongated chorus repeating the title of the songs and then the song just kind of ends.
This entry makes for an interesting addition to the final. The visual identity of the song - incorporating the visuals, lighting and outfits - is good but could be made even stronger. The use of projections, in particular with the dancers, is very clever and could easily be scaled up for the Eurovision final. In fact I feel like they broke the magic of this trick far too early and could be extended to add even more optical illusions. I also suspect they many need to tone down or change some of their more pointed symbolism such as the children in gas masks.
This entry makes for an interesting addition to the final. The visual identity of the song - incorporating the visuals, lighting and outfits - is good but could be made even stronger. The use of projections, in particular with the dancers, is very clever and could easily be scaled up for the Eurovision final. In fact I feel like they broke the magic of this trick far too early and could be extended to add even more optical illusions. I also suspect they many need to tone down or change some of their more pointed symbolism such as the children in gas masks.
This has such a different feel from the more folky-inspired numbers of Kalush Orchestra and GO_A however this vibe is possibly more contemporary and indicative of a more RnB feel. Personally I found this song very hard to get into and remember although many people in the ESC community have had some very strong immediate feels for this song too. That said after a few weeks of bedding this the song has very much grown on me. Part of me wishes that the song was either a little quicker or progressed musically a little more than it does. The song is also quite short at just over the 2;30 mark. I am not hinting that they should mess around with the structure of the song but something somewhere could be added but I am not sure what. It's going to be quite the moment when it appears in the final.
ARTIST - Tvorchi
SONG - Heart Of Steel
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Andreas Stone Johansson, Sebastian Schub, Thomas Stengaard, Anderz Wrethov
SONG - Heart Of Steel
WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Andreas Stone Johansson, Sebastian Schub, Thomas Stengaard, Anderz Wrethov
No comments:
Post a Comment