Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra, winners of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, present their first ever English-language track ‘Changes’, alongside a brand-new music video.
Band leader, Oleh Psiuk, says: "This is a song about our home - where we live and how we have learned to protect it. We continue to live even when danger looms over us. The house may change with us, but what is really important and native to our traditions always remains.”
Shot in Poland during a break between concerts, the video takes place in a “traditional” house, with the members of Kalush Orchestra playing fairytale characters. The house and surrounding land is their fairytale kingdom; they walk through the expansive fields and sing in the tall grass, at one with their environment. A thunderstorm flashes outside the windows, and looking up at the mountains we see unexploded shells and rockets hanging overhead.
Kalush Orchestra’s piper Tymofii Muzychuk transforms into the Carpathian Molfar (someone with supernatural powers) and the mystical character KilimWoman appears for the first time - it is her voice that we hear at the beginning of the track with the backing vocalists. The band have teased that the mysterious KilimWoman will appear more than once in their upcoming projects…
According to director Leonid Kolosovsky, the video is a story about Kalush’s home, which changed forever because it saw grief and pain and loss. When an enemy comes to earth, everyone protects their home as best they can.
Kolosovsky says: "This is a story about the magical characters of the Kalush Orchestra family. Each member of this family has their own superpower and their own way of defending the House. Someone by prayer, someone by deed, someone by truth, someone by spirituality, and someone by magic. As is usually the case in the family, all members of the family are very different and, in some places, even opposite, but they are together and each of them loves their home.”
Kalush Orchestra will perform multiple shows abroad this year, where they will continue to collect funds to help Ukraine - both for the Armed Forces and for the reconstruction of destroyed cultural buildings. In 2022, the band raised an incredible 60 million hryvnias ($1.6 million).
As the Eurovision champions, they are planning their U.K. return as Liverpool hosts the contest this year on behalf of Ukraine.
Since winning last year’s Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Stefania’, the song’s video has been viewed more than 50 million times on YouTube. 330,000 videos were recorded for the track on TikTok and it has recorded 52 million audio streams.
Within the past year Kalush Orchestra have toured the US, playing 18 shows in just 3 weeks. They also released ‘In The Shadows’ with Finnish band The Rasmus, as well as their own song ‘Shchedrivka’, filming the music video in America and featuring acting legend Arnold Schwarzenegger. Further tracks include ‘Nasze Domy’ with Polish rapper Szpaku, ‘Нумо Козаки’ with fellow Ukrainian artist Kozak Siromaha. Kalush Orchestra also featured on ‘Cry For You’ by Ochman.
Kalush Orchestra became the star guests of the MTV Europe Music Awards 2022, and performed for the first time in the UK at one of the biggest festivals in Europe, Glastonbury. In March 2023, the band will return to the USA for a new concert tour and will perform at one of the largest and most respected American festivals, SXSW in Austin, Texas.
