Bil Sabab Power Hour: Тартак - О-ля-ля

You know i'm from Ukraine - the land where Ween songs are reality. It's fun to be here 'cause it absolutely sucks. I hate it here. But there are some stuff worth sharing. Like this song.

"O-la-la" is a song by ukrainian hip-hop alt-rock band Tartak. It was released on their long-overdue debut album "Demo_graphic explosion" in 2001 but the video for the song was rolling the airwaves since at least 2000 and the song dates back to 1997.

"O-la-la" isa song about the most important thing - maladies of modernity. Or what Nathan Rabin might call "INEXORABLE HORROR". Protagonist feels a certain kind of unease. The one that is completely existential and utterly superfluous. Because he's a sensitive kind of person. Also known as a whiny wimp. Things are changing at starfish fight pace and nothing makes any sense. And he tries and he tries and he tries to make something out of it but no no no. He can't get no satisfaction. Nothing makes any sense anyway and that makes him very sad. He feels helpless. That's why finds some solace in drugs and sloth and sometimes hapless pointless shopping. Basically he just lives out his days without an effort - just being pitiful and rather spiteful. Despite all his rage he's still just a rat in a cage. And so on. Despite the song being rather old - it's topic is still not a relic of the past. And that hurts.

Video is basically literal depiction of the song in low-budget general terms. It is "Life is what you make it" story with an apparent struggle of light and dark sides. No mention of social inequality or other beacons of reality though. Also - the song sounds as if the guy was talking french. I'm noting that because one of my teachers in school actually tried to convince everybody that it was actually sang in french. I still remember the horror of realizing that that person is fucking dumb. I felt anxious for a while and had no idea what to do next with this knowledge.

Musically "O-la-la" is straightforward but mean alt-rock tune with some tasty breakbeat in the backbone, some fat melting guitars and lightning fast intense flow of rapping. The groove is like a grinder of reality that turns you into a minced meat once in a while. Guitar work is particulary to-the-point. It really sounds like roaring depression the grabs your throat and chokes you only to slam against the floor at the last moment. Guitar solo is especially desperate. It is recursive neverending whirl that just goes on and on - sucking you dry and turning you inside out.

Tartak is a strange case of a band slowly devolving from progressive sounding socially conscious force of nature into radically unremarkable shell of itself with heavy reliance on lame jokes and hoo-ha imagery. But they started strong - their debut is all-killer no-filler kind of album. After that they had a cool spot here and there, tried their best to remain relevant but slowly and surely turned into politically-correct nothing-special middle-of-the-road drab that is kinda there but no one cares about it. Well, that's called "vae victis", bro.

Here's a video of early Tartak line-up performing early more laidback version of the song on Chervona Ruta festival in 1997:


I remember this song playing on TV almost every day and i liked it so much i even tried to mimic the flow of the frontman. It sounded fresh. It still hold up pretty well. It's a great example of then-thriving ukrainian hip-hop with clear-cut narrative with sly social commentary augmented greatly by rich and diverse vocabulary of frontman Oleksandr Polozhynskiy. Damn, that man had some style. For a while i thought that he must be something like ukrainian equivalent of Henry Rollins - big imposing angry dude who says it best.

Give it a listen and go on with your life.

P.S.: Few years later - i guess it was 2004 or 2005 - the band went out of their underground shells and recorded Christmas-themed cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit".