Katarina Gryvul - Tysha (2022)

TYSHA (Ukrainian for silence) is the second longplayer of Ukrainian-born, Poland-bread and Austria-based multi-instrumentalist and singer Katarina Gryvul. Following her enigmatic song ”In Coma”, which released in 2020 on Standard Deviation, Gryvul delivers an 8-track long album of blooming, emotional and tactile electronica pop ballads, resulting in an intensely personal journey into the artist's inner world at the most silent time of her life.

In an attempt to deal with her decaying perception of reality and the overwhelming sense of isolation caused by the experience of global pandemic, Gryvul finds refuge in silence. She is mesmerized by the all-consuming absence of sound, and the many ways in which silence can be perceived: silky, enveloping, calm, but also caustic, fractured and sharp. TYSHA was written entirely during the pandemic. Gryvul describes that being surrounded by people during that challenging period started feeling like ”a potential threat” and as something unnatural and artificial.” She says: “It made me feel like I was torn between two realities, virtual and real, and did not belong to any of them”.

TYSHA sounds imminently disturbing, yet soft, with ghostly harmonics, tempis and a wide variety of musical and lyrical influences. The album feeds from ”something that has already vanished” - a feeling of longing in a moment of uncertainty, crystallized in balladic writing and subtle elven-like soundscapes.

Gryvul, who usually works with classical instruments, now explores a more electronic sound with beats and apparent beatgrid structure, referencing the environment in which what once felt natural and organic started feeling artificial and synthetic. Varying in tempo, moods and instruments, TYSHAcreates an emotional journey, exploring different forms of silence, representing the tension between the virtual and the real world and reflecting Gryvul’s feelings of hostility and alienation in contrast with her longing for connection.

The album is supported with remixes by London-based artist Flora Yin-Wong, contributing on ”Bezodnya” with an ethereally soft and lyrically poetic rework and Belgian experimentalist Maoupa Mazzocchetti reinterpreting ”Tysha” as a gloomy, ecstatic and roaring piece for the dance floor.