Stardust is a space opera that tells rather than romanticizes how the stars were reached.
First Human Ferro 'Stardust'
Olegh Kolyada hails from Zhytomyr in the Ukraine, birthplace of Sergei Korolyov, architect of the Soviet space program, the man who launched Sputnik, Laika and Gagarin into orbit and shot for the moon, Mars and beyond. In other words, the engineer who designed the Space Age.
Sporting several different musical pseudonyms, Kolyada characterizes First Human Ferro as his ”electro-acoustic, radio-noise & dark ambient project.” Combining both analogue and digital instruments, he celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of manned space travel by obliquely tracing its trajectory, from short-circuiting malfunctions through tentative exploration to hitch-free success.
Every documentary you have ever seen about space travel floats in balletic slow motion. Stardust does too, but it also brings out the clanks, static and stress of being between two worlds. It is an accomplished suite of electronic music that captures both the vaporous beauty of space but also its white-knuckle moments.
First Human Ferro gives a sense of what it could be like both inside and outside the capsule, what it is to be man, machine and what lies just beyond the exosphere. Fragmented radio chatter set among malfunctioning electronics contrasts with the crisp, clear message delivered by Neil Armstrong upon reaching the foot of the ladder to the moon. And back on earth, the triumph. As Yuri Gagarin’s name is invoked, “Epoch Made of Signals” samples martial drumming from Kolyada’s Oda Relicta project (created to hail the legacy of another Soviet-era institution, the local military orchestra). The album lands slowly and softly in concert with the graceful, wordless vocals of Australian “ethereal faerie” Louisa John-Krol and veteran Latvian electronic trio Claustrum.
Stardust is a space opera that tells rather than romanticizes how the stars were reached.
