GEORGIA 2023

The Georgian song was revealed on March 16th via the premiere of the official music video on youtube. Their representative, however, was selected through the fifth season of The Voice Georgia, which concluded with a final on 2nd February. Winning the ticket to Liverpool is Iru and her song is called "Echo".

Irina Khechanovi is 22 years old and is from Tblisi. She first came to prominence as a member of the girl group Candy who won the 2011 edition of  Junior Eurovision. In 2019, Khechanovi was a participant in Georgian Idol which would choose their Eurovision representative but she was eliminated early on. Iru returned to the jESC stage in 2022 as part of a previous winners' medley but also co-wrote the song "I Believe" by Mariam Bigvava, the Georgian entry for that year's contest.

The video is full of slow-motion dancing and movement twinned with lots of floaty twisting fabric shots with each style or type in a different colour.. We begin with a shortened the chorus which is definitely the most memorable part of the song.  At the first verse starts the backing track is rather sparse and any instrumentation is rather high and tinny almost. As the chorus comes back, in the backing changes into something more expansive and lower in the range. Verse two is rather disjointed and is more a repetition on certain lines interspaced with scatting and is followed by another chorus. Just before the last rendition of the chorus there is a short bridge which almost feels like the only 'normal' part of the song. This is followed by some vocalising before the last chorus which ends again the with scatting refrain. 

This song is underpinned with ethnic drum beats and percussion and has a very Georgian jazzy-ethereal-eastern feel. I feel like this song is more about the soundscape rather than the song having a big meaning. I say this as Iru's voice has a very distinctive timbre and sometimes I feel you listen to the voice and tune rather than the words. Her voice is well embedded into the mix and I sense the song will have a very different dynamic when performed live. The second verse in particular might be quite tricky to fully perform live so it will be interesting to see how the singing and scatting is divided up between Iru, the backing track and/or backing vocalists on stage. Also, on looking at the lyrics, they have meaning but not necessarily in a grammatical sense. Oddly the name of the song does not appear in the text.

The video nods to what the show might look like and can imagine some of this being used on the back drops. Maybe there will be some clever fabric wafting by the dancers or for those who remember the song "Izin kórem" from Turkvision, I can imagine some clever windography! The instrumental of this song is really pretty and I hope that this is appreciated by those voting. This style of song will definitely appeal to the Caucasus regions but I am not 100% who else will especially as some of the words seem a little non-sensical. This is another song which I feel will be recognised more by juries than televoters and so could find itself in a dangerous position trying to get into the final. Georgia does not have the diaspora of other countries so could find itself at a disadvantage. This definitely has a place at Eurovision but I don't think this will be up there at the end.

ARTIST - Iru

SONG - Echo

WRITING/PRODUCTION CREDITS - Beni Kadagidze, Irina Khechanovi, Giga Kukhianidze