discography
The Land of the Boyns
(kraina bojnów)
cd 2012 (reedycja)
cd/mc 1998
Folkowy Fonogram Roku 1998
The Land of Boyns must have existed much earlier than our group was founded but we came upon it only a few years ago and quite by accident. As a matter of fact it is even difficult to say whether we really found the Land of Boyns or only gave this land a name because we had long instinctively felt its existence...
The discovery was made in a certain large city where we were to play. The subtitle on the poster annoucing our concert read: "The music of Lemkos, Hutsuls and Boyns". Obviously, the author of the poster had made a spelling mistake and wrote "Boyns" instead of "Boykos" - Ruthenians living in the Carpathian Mountains between Lemkoland and the Hutsul region.
A little embarassed we explained this misunderstanding during the concert but afterwards we began to have some doubts: can we really say that we indeed play "the music of Boykos" - or Lemkos and Hutsuls for that matter? Their music in its original form sounded quite different and sometimes we are even uncertain whether the lyrics we sing now are accurate. And so, in fact, doesn't our music belong to the Boyns and not to the Boykos?
The traces of the Boyns can be found in a contemporary ballad the Orchestra took its name from: "...From the broken-down stove I took the embers of songs / I stretched the blue canvas of the sky on the splinters of the shingles / I will paint anew the village in the valley..." - How many times did we pack our rucksacks to "stretch the blue canvas of the sky" over our heads for at least a few days; how strongly did we blow on the embers of long forgotten folk songs to paint "anew" villages in mountain valleys and the portraits of their dwellers?
The mountains we liked visiting so much are the eastern parts of the Polish Carpathians. They were vibrant with life until after the Second World War Communists had deported their inhabitants, Lemkos and Boykos, to other parts of Poland and the Ukraine. For many years this area stayed deserted; terraced fields overgrew with grass and orchards went wild. Such places were the most characteristic sights in these mountains - the folk culture accessible only through its natural setting, some of its vestiges hidden in the landscape and songs, the only thing that could really be brought back to life.
When we wander in these mountains we take maps along with us which show all the trails, streams and hills. For us, however, these maps show much more: a few stone crosses in the bushes, a particularly peaceful recess of a valley close to a meandering brook, a ring of old trees which once encircled a wooden Orthodox church. For us some of those hills and roads are marked with a coloured pencil. And this is how we see the map of "the Land of Boyns".
When you walk somewhere in these mountains, when you pause and let yourself get lost in your thoughts for a while - you will be in the Land of Boyns. Here you have songs and tunes like a few images of its landscape. What is in it? You can try to imagine; if it is not the truth about the people who composed these songs it will be your truth about the Land of Boyns.
Songs:
- Kołomyjka "nowa" [1:54]
- Rock and roll [3:13]
- Ne pidu ja [5:58]
- Isziel Janko [3:37]
- Kołomyjka "Mykołaju" [2:28]
- Polka spod wody [2:52]
- Wiązanka łemkowska [4:09]
- Dobry w hameryci [3:37]
- Zahrajte mi huśli [3:32]
- U haiczku [2:52]
- Kied ja iszoł [6:33]
- Liptowskie [7:05]
- Hrabajme [1:00]
- Tomu kosa [2:19]
- Bude jarmak [4:05]
- Hreczka [4:36]
- Łemkowska sobótkowa [6:47]
