Darja Kazimira’s music is among the most frightening and brutal I have heard in many years. Her work compares favorably to that of vocalists like Meredith Monk, Hatis Noit, Ute Wassermann, and our dear friend Anna Homler. However, Darja’s strength lies in her ability to combine haunting vocals with ritualistic soundscapes. This evokes the spirit of older projects like Sshe Retina Stimulants, Phurpa, and Zero Kama. Nonetheless, her work remains stunningly original. From her biography on her website:
“”Darja Kazimira” is a project of the experimental improviser, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and artist Darja-Kazimira Zimina, of Latgalian-Ukrainian origin based at the moment in Tbilisi (Georgia). The ideological core of the project is based on the idea of a regular search for a dynamic object-center of the ritual, through the construction and study of the principles of sacred space erection. The search is carried out through self-initiated rites of burial, funeral, sacred violence, fertility (cults of the ground), as the embodiment of the idea of transformation and its irreversibility. For this, the author also uses bodily practices, many of which are of an authentic masochistic nature.”
I continue to run into innovative and challenging musicians in Tbilisi, just as I did in China. The well of talent is deep.
