Oleksii Popovtsev

I’ve just released my album Sontse Apatana. In the future, it will become a story about a post-apocalyptic world—and the light within it. Today, it is a mystical mass of six tracks.

A dark disc with a crimson crown moves over the bright, nearly white sun behind it. As if a black hole rises between life and light. The remnants of the star struggle to break free, bursting in red flashes, reaching out to Earth one last time. With the eclipse, a hum begins to grow deep within the mind, distorting the sense of time and space, stretching thoughts like rubber. The steppe turns crimson, tall grass becomes a sea of earthy brown stretching to the horizon, and the sky shifts to shades of emerald and deep blue. The crimson crown fills with otherworldly power, expanding inevitably, promising to consume the universe. The black disc conceals the dramatic end of the Sun—after which the final mass takes place. Everything darkens; even the light becomes a shadow.

But in an instant, from beneath the disc, a beam of light flashes—the first herald and the first hope that life still endures. The black disc slowly shifts, releasing more and more light. A sense of relief follows—and a new beginning.