You're reading: The Erised tries for sounds like no other

While The Erised could be described as a new Ukrainian band, founded just two years ago, its members are veteran musicians.

The band includes Daniel Marin, previously with Detail, Nick Tarasov and Igor Kyrylenko, in the past with Hidden Element, Alex Lyulyakin, drummer of BoomBox, and vocalist Sonya Sukhorukova, who appeared on the Ukrainian version of “The Voice” TV show.

The Erised was formed in 2014 when Marin, Tarasov and Kyrylenko collaborated on vocal-driven electronic pop. They brought in Sukhorukova, who performed under the stage name Sonya. Later, the band added Lulyakin.

Passion for electronic music and desire to bring Ukrainian music to the world stage unites them.

“We want our songs to be played in different corners of the planet,” Lyulyakin told the Kyiv Post on June 14.

Most of the band’s followers in music sharing websites SoundCloud and Spotify are non-Ukrainians. The band’s first music video “Pray” got almost 200,000 views on YouTube.

The Erised is the only Ukrainian band to win a contract with London-based music label Med School, a subsidiary of influential label Hospital Records, which records mostly drum and bass music. The most famous Ukrainian artist that has a contract with an international music label is Jamala, who got signed by the Universal Music Group in June.

Marin said that Med School hasn’t signed any other pop electronic bands.

“We are a kind of experiment for Med School,” Marin said.

The band describes its music as “alternative pop,” crossing traditional genres and combining several types of them in one song – as does their new single “Liar.”

“Liar” starts with a settled electropop vocal line, in tone reminiscent of La Roux vocalist Elly Jackson, before switching into a standard rockish vamp towards the end of the song. In other songs, like “Pray,” Sukhorukova’s vocal style sounds like a cross between Adele’s low-pitched tones and Rihanna’s synth hip-hop manner.

“That’s our trick – when you start to listen to the song, you don’t know how it will end. Just like our album: when you start to listen to it you think that it’s just nice music and at the end you hear the songs about death,” Marin said.

The label is interested in young promising bands like The Erised because they could attract a wider audience. So the label takes care of distribution and promotion, letting the musicians focus on music production and writing new songs.

The band released its debut album on June 3 and has been promoting it with live shows. The band will tour Ukraine’s five largest cities at the end of the summer and will perform at a music festival organized by the Med School in London in September.

Tarasov, who was one of the band founders, has now switched from performing to organizing concerts, so onstage, The Erised is a four-piece group.

Marin said that recording quality music takes a lot of time and work, and not all the Ukrainian bands dedicate so much attention to their sound as The Erised does.

The band writes their songs by communicating via the internet, since Sukhorukova spends much of her time in Moscow. Kyrylenko and Marin first compose the main parts of a new song and then send it to Lyulyakin and Sukhorukova.

It’s not a problem in the modern age.

“I’ve told you, we’re not an ordinary Ukrainian band,” Marin joked.