Flëur


Flëur was a Ukrainian musical collective from Odesa. The collective was based around the two original members and frontwomen Olga Pulatova and Olena Voinarovska who wrote the lyrics, performed vocals and wrote most of the music. Although in later years, the whole collective took part in making music and arrangements, lyrics were still written solely by Olena and Olga.
Flëur's musical genre is hard to define as it combines many influences. Flëur originated as cooperation of the two singer-songwriters and the music still bears a tiny resemblance to the genre, yet from the very beginning it was in a way different from typical singer-songwriter music. The first official releases also had a touch of neoclassic/ethereal music.
Because of the difficulties with picking the right term for Flëur's music, the collective itself created the term "cardiowave", but when it comes to more usual terms Flëur usually gets labeled as dream pop.
The texts of the label Prikosnovénie spoke of resemblance with Cocteau Twins, All about Eve and Bel Canto.

Band history

Flëur was formed by Olga Pulatova and Olena Voinarovska in Odesa in February 2000. In March 2000 flautist Yuliya Zemlyana joined them. According to an autobiographical story by Olga Pulatova, it was Yuliya who came up with "Flëur" as a title for their collective.
On 17 March they had their first live concert in Odesa.
During 2000 and 2001 they were joined by Kateryna Serbina, Oleksiy Tkachevsky, Vitaliy Didyk and Oleksiy Dovhaliov.
The first official release was the CD "Touch" released on the independent French label Prikosnovénie. Only the album's title was translated to English – all the lyrics and song titles in the CD's booklet are in Russian. One month later the Ukrainian edition of the album came out under the original title "Прикосновение". Two more releases followed on the Prikosnovénie label, but these were also the last ones on this label.
After that Flëur was mostly released in CIS countries.
Currently Flëur has 8 officially released albums plus reissues of two early releases. The song "Шелкопряд" had the first place in "Chart Dozen" hit-parade of Russian radio Nashe Radio — Flëur was awarded the "Chart crack" prize as best new band of 2007.
From their inception Flëur's popularity continued slowly but steadily growing. Besides live performances in their hometown of Odesa and Ukraine's Kyiv, the collective also toured extensively in Russia from 2007 to 2012, including many live performances in Moscow which presented them with a full house.
Flëur has also performed live on radio several times, had a TV slot for the song "Искупление" on the Ukrainian music TV-channel M1, musical arrangement made by Pavlo Shevchuk.
Two more albums were released in the following years: "The Awakening" in spring 2012 and "Storm Warning" in 2014.
In early 2017, the band announced that they would be breaking up after playing three last concerts in May. Following Flëur's dissolution, Pulatova and Voinarovska have continued working on their solo musical careers.

Side projects

Many current and former band members also participated in other musical projects.
  • Ольга Пулатова was a vocalist on the projects "Аэроплан" and "Оля и Монстр" , and cooperated closely with the project "Dust Heaven".
  • Олена Войнаровська, Олексій Ткачевський, former Flëur member Олексій Довгалєв, Катерина Котельникова and Анастасія Кузьміна took part in the projects "МРФ" and the English language project "Amurekimuri".
  • Олексій Довгальов also has his own project "The Клюквінs".
  • Алла Лужецька and Анастасія Кузьміна take part in the project "ТИМ".
  • Former Flёur member Юлія Земляна takes part in the projects "Аддарая" and "Inversus".
  • Євгеній Чеботаренко has his own group "My Personal Murderer".

Members

  • Ольга Пулатова — piano, vocals
  • Олена Войнаровська — guitar, vocals
  • Олексій Ткачевський — drums
  • Катерина Котельникова — keyboards
  • Анастасія Кузьміна — violin
  • Євгеній Чеботаренко — bass guitar

Former members

  • Юлія Земляна — flute
  • Катерина Сербіна — cello
  • Олексій Довгальов — keyboards, acoustic guitar
  • Віталій Дідик — contrabass, bass guitar
  • Олександра Дідик — cello
  • Алла Лужецька — flute
  • Владислав Міцовський — percussion
  • Георгій Матвіїв — bandura

Session members

  • Володимир Нессі — bass guitar
  • Андрій Басов — electric guitar
  • Alex Kozmidi — electric guitar, bass guitar
  • Георгій Матвіїв

Discography

Albums, released in Russia and Ukraine

2002 — Прикосновение 2003 — Волшебство 2004 — Сияние 2006 — Всё вышло из-под контроля 2008 — Эйфория 2008 — Почти живой and Сердце — reissue of unofficial releases from the years 2000–2001
"Почти живой"
"Сердце"2010 — Тысяча светлых ангелов 2012 — Пробуждение
  • '''2014 — Штормовое предупреждение '''

Albums released in France

2002 – Prikosnovenie
French edition of "Прикосновение".2003 – Volshebstvo
French edition of "Волшебство".2004 – Siyanie
French edition of "Сияние".

Collections

  • 2007 — Флёрография
  • 2007 — Трилогия : "Прикосновение"/"Soft Touch", "Волшебство"/"Magic" and "Сияние"/"Shining"
  • 2008 – Discography

Singles

  • '''2007 — Два Облака '''

Unofficial releases

  • 2000 — Почти живой
  • 2001 — Сердце
  • 2001 — Special Edition