Otava Yo will entertain festival-goers with new and creative interpretations of Russian folk music.
KUCHING: The participation of Trad.Attack! at this year’s Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) marks Estonia’s debut in this annual event.
The three-member band from the Baltic state is set to treat festival-goers to fusion of old and new sounds of their homeland. Every member has been active in the Estonian music scene since 2014.
Members of Trad.Attack! are definitely having lots of fun touring the world and look forward to representing Estonia for the first time at the RWMF.
Meanwhile, RWMF 2019 will also feature exciting musical showcases from Russia, Ireland and Scotland.
Otava Yo – a group of seven musicians from St Petersburg – is set to entertain festival-goers with their new and creative interpretations of Russian folk music, reviving the neglected tunes from the past. Their vigorous music is interspersed with Slavic temperament, uninhibited humour, fiery playing and unique stage presentation.
Otava Yo’s video ‘Oh Dusya, Oh, Marisya’ was named the ‘Best Music Video’ at the NYC Indie Film Awards 2015, while their latest video ‘Once Upon A Time on a High Hill’ won ‘Best Music Award’ at the Los Angeles Film Awards.
The band’s frontman Alexey Belkin will also be spinning the DJ set on the RWMF 2019’s ‘After Party Stage’ on Sunday night (July 14).
From the ‘Emerald Isles’ comes Kila – a musical ensemble of eight Dubliners with different musical backgrounds including Irish classic, folk and rock, but still firmly rooted in tradition.
The band is well-known for its mastery of combining traditional Irish music with world and folk rock.
This year marks their second participation in the RWMF, following their maiden appearance in 2013.
The ‘BBC World Review’ has described Kila’s music as ‘one of the most beautiful euphoric live experiences’, while Hot Press speaks of the band as ‘softly spoken off stage and complete lunatics on it’.
The band celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, which was also the year when they were named ‘Best Band’ at the ‘NOS Irish Language Music Awards’.
Kila has produced 19 albums and is still actively recording. In addition, they have extensively written soundtracks for film and television.
The Irish musicians will perform two separate acts at RWMF 2019 – one as Kila, and the other as a collaboration with Oki Kano, an ‘Ainu Tonkori’ player, under the banner of ‘Kila & Oki’.
Representing ‘The Highlands’ will be Talisk, comprising Hayley Keenan on the fiddle and Graeme Armstrong on the guitar.
The group enjoys taking aspects of their own musical backgrounds and combining them with parts of other genres to create a modern take on Scottish folk music and to see how far how far they can push the music while still keeping it within the traditional tune.
RWMF 2019 will be running from July 12 to 14 at Sarawak Cultural Village here.
The festival is organised by Sarawak Tourism Board, endorsed by Tourism Malaysia and supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Youth and Sports of Sarawak.
For further information about tickets, activities and logistics, go to https://rwmf.net/”