After the amazing 4 hour set he provided for us we spoke to Oleksii Sakevych to find out more about Endless Melancholy. Read the full interview inside.
1.What is Endless Melancholy?
During the first months of the project existence it was fun for me to describe Endless Melancholy using a Wikipedia quote, edited by me and semi-serious: “Endless Melancholy - (from Greek μελαγχολία - melancholia, "endless sadness") , in contemporary usage, is an endless mood disorder of non-specific endless depression, characterized by low levels of both enthusiasm and eagerness for activity”. Later I changed it into - “Endless Melancholy is the solo-project of self-taught musician, Oleksii Sakevych, from Kiev, Ukraine, started in November 2011. Endless Melancholy was launched to express the passion and love to minimal piano and ambient music.” Basically, it says everything one needs to know about the project. It’s not meant to be neither pretentious, nor innovative. It’s just a reflection of my personality in simple instrumental tunes.
2.Which part of the world are you from and what's so good about it?
I am from Ukraine, a country in Eastern Europe, but I never wanted my music to be tagged as Ukrainian. This definitely does not mean that I don’t love the place where I live, it’s just because music should not be limited with anything, especially geographical borders. As for Ukrainian independent music scene – there are tons of good musicians of various genres here, but only few of them have enough eagerness, dedication and luck to get recognition. I won’t list any names, maybe in a year or two you will hear all of them.
3.Where is you're favourite place to find new music. website? magazine?
Aaaaaand, the first place goes to…. Last.fm! Seriously, I remember myself being a child and recording weekly charts of my favourite tracks and artists on pieces of paper. Who knows, maybe that’s how last.fm was born. Its creators have just put into life the ideas they have been dreaming of since their childhood. Number one website for discovering new music and promoting your own. Bandcamp.com is quite good for these purposes, too. I also like reading about albums, not only listening to them. There are myriads of great music blogs on web - A Closer Listen, The Sirens Sound, to name just a few. Sorry for not listing all of them, because it would take forever.
4.What's an exciting or interesting thing your working on at the moment?
Well, there are a couple of them. First one is a collaborative EP with a Polish musician, recording music as Lights Dim. This is not the first experience of collaborating with people from other countries for me, but definitely the most exciting one. As I noticed, we share some common views on music, that’s why I expect this EP to be many times better than stuff I could have ever produced on my own. And working on internet, sending each other recordings via mail is interesting experience, too. The other thing I always dreamed to try is running my own label, making physical releases. You know, physical release is a kind of fetish nowadays. It is not necessary to own a CD to listen to it, you can easily download it in digital, either legally or illegally (everyone choses his own way). Buying a physical release has become a way to show your support to the musician and to what he is doing. I am among those people, who cherish sounds in physical, and especially some limited editions in original handmade packaging. That’s what I totally love, and that passion was the incentive for me to launch Hidden Vibes, my own small physical releases label. First two releases already scheduled and hopefully the debut one will see the world late December. Another work in progress is a new solo album for Endless Melancholy. Have no idea, when it will be done.
