Modulo One releases Eurovision cover in support of Ukraine

🇺🇦 Side-Line stands with Ukraine - Show your Support

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Modulo One press release)
Modulo One just released a cover of Ukraine’s Eurovision Song Contest entry from 2007, “Dancing Lasha Tumbai” by Verka Serduchka. Joining them on vocals is Cath Räisänen (ex Xenturion Prime).

All proceeds from the single go to the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, and the band will also match any proceeds with donations of their own.

Here’s Anders Schau Knatten’s own words about this release:

SL: Why did you choose to cover this song?

Anders: Doing a harsh electro cover of this song has been on my list of ideas for several years, I just hadn’t gotten around to doing it until now. It’s such a fun and energetic piece of music! The melody fits well in the harsh electro genre, and the silly German lyrics sound just like any harsh electro song (Eins, zwei, drei, tanzen!).

I also really like to play with genres, and this was a good opportunity to have a go at making proper harsh electro for the first time. We’ve been close before with Isolation (2020), but this time we really went all the way with the vocals too.

SL: And releasing it now is related to the war?

Anders: As I mentioned, this has been on my list of ideas for years. But with Russia’s war on Ukraine I started thinking about it again. I think it’s good to remind ourselves of good and fun things that come from Ukraine. If you haven’t seen the original, check it out on YouTube! It strikes me as a performance Putin would not be happy about. Then of course there’s the controversy around the words “Lasha Tumbai” which is more relevant than ever. And if you read the rest of the lyrics with the “dancing is a synonym for fighting” industrial cliche in mind, the whole thing reads as a call to resistance.

SL: What does “Lasha Tumbai” mean, and what’s the controversy?

Anders: No-one knows, it doesn’t really mean anything. There was a big controversy around it, since it sounds suspiciously like “Russia Goodbye”. The artist tried to claim it meant something in Mongolian, but that turned out not to be the case. So there’s probably a hidden meaning here, even though politics are not allowed in ESC. It’s a good time to say “Russia Goodbye” these days, and a good time to dance when it’s done!

SL: It sounds like this is something you care a lot about?

Anders: As a Norwegian, Russia is my neighbour, and I don’t like Putin’s behaviour one bit. It’s important that Putin is stopped, and it’s important that we help rebuild Ukraine when this is all over. So anything that can raise awareness, and especially put a positive light on our friends in Ukraine is good. Oh, and there’s a lot of good music coming out of Ukraine as well! Artbat for instance is one of my favourite bands at the moment. Also, Side-Line magazine just released a compilation called Electronic Resistance, filled with Ukrainian underground music, in support of Ukraine: https://sidelinemag.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-resistance-a-darkwave-post-punk-compilation-from-the-ukrainian-underground

SL: And the proceeds go to Ukraine Humanitarian Fund, what’s that?

This is a fund set up by the UN, who distribute it to partners at the front line in Ukraine. You can read about it at https://crisisrelief.un.org/t/ukraine. One doesn’t make a lot of money from music these days, but anything we earn will be directed there, and we’ll match it with donations of our own as well (limited to ¢200). So, if we make e.g. ¢100 from this, we give ¢200 to the UN fund.

Listen to the track at Bandcamp:

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