Belarusian Generation Y logbook

We are proud to deliver the news about the maxi single of Rahis – a rock band which grew alongside the GenerationBY project since its very beginning.

The maxi single consists of 4 songs, comprising the basis of the band’s future album which is schedule for release at the end of 2009. This will be the first real album of the band, though many of their songs have been circulating with bad acoustic or video quality on the Internet. More information about the band, the album and the links to hear the actual music below in this post.

A bit about the band’s history:
Many people consider two guys to be “Rahis”. They are Dzionia and Zmicier – friends who started to sing their own songs when they were students: first at the dormitory, then at students’ parties, then at concerts. In 2004 Rahis held three electro sound concerts in Miensk, Vitsebsk and Navapolatsak. After that, Dzionia was drafted into the army where he served in the guarding troops of the Ministry of Defense.

Three years later, in November 2007, “Rahis” held a public concert once again. In the past three years Rahis has given a number of small acoustic concerts in Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. Self-made videos from these events appear on the Internet every now and then.

Now, as new people joined the band and “Rahis” is back on stage, they are planning to record their first album and meet their audience more often, both on and offline.

Songs of the maxi-single
Since the bands’ lyrics are in Belarusian, below is a short explanation about every song, so in case you don’t understand Belarusian you can better understand their music and emotions. The 4 songs of the current release:

“FM” is about the love of a fan to her idol – a musician. The girl is so obsessed she knows the texts by heart, has all the albums and is looking for his songs on the radio. This is the kind of image that most of teenage girls can identify with. However, probably the most important aspect is this feeling to the unreachable hero: the love that makes her life brighter and enriches it.

“Through the net” – is an incredibly melodic song about love through the Internet. A girl is reading the blog posts of her beloved, and leaves her comments and tries to read his real feelings through the language he uses and smilies he put. It illustrates the importance of social networks in everyday life of modern Belarusian youth, when to solve our problems we sometimes wish it was just possible to press “Ctrl”+”Alt”+”Delete” and restart everything from the beginning.

“Strontium” – is one of the oldest songs of the band which they wrote during their student years. It is devoted to Chernobyl as the biggest event that has ever happened to Belarus and its people. The song is very emotional as it illustrates how big the impact of the catastrophe was, and how people continue living with it. Strontium represents that catastrophe. This radioactive element gets absorbed by human bones and slowly destroys the health of a person. The same about Chernobyl, it has not disappeared, it just became a part of life yet does not make it any better.

“Password for the summer”- probably the most optimistic song of the current single. It is about summer, traveling to the sea-side, partying all night, falling in love. During the winter many people have listened to this song to get warm just with the idea of the summer which everyone is awaiting.

In other words, this maxi-single is a very good representation of the youth in Belarus. It is about love, friendships, partying, Internet, environment, etc.

As the band states:

In Belarus there are unique circumstances for musicians. The industry is so small that artists are not limited by the demands of “big money”. When you become a musician you have all the freedom you want. You can do whatever you want, the way you want, for anyone you want. Someone writes songs for corporate parties, someone for music charts, others for the radio. We are writing for our friends, who also have a big influence on us.

Rahis plays melodic rock music full of emotion and meaning, backed by self written lyrics relevant to young people today. You can visit the web-page of the maxi-single and listen to the songs yourself, as well as download them free of charge.

Tell me if you like it just as I do :)