Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is not only the scars of our life that affect us in the dark, when we think nobody is looking that the pulse that runs through our blood and past the ridges, the mountains of blemishes, the small but memory enhancing wounds that parade our body as if they were still fresh, still able to mark out Time, it is the actions of others that see us bleed a year, a decade, a century on; we are the products of grandparents hopes and the mutilations that wracked their dreams.

For some the scars run deep enough to ensure that art is created out them, those ridges, those past disfigurements making waves across Time like scratches of the water at the edge of a beach, overwhelming each grain enough to leave a mutilation in the fibre of the beach’s existence; when those scars are inflicted upon by government, by leaders, by so called elite, then they become personal, the art is then multiplied and the picture an example of brutish entanglement made beautiful.

For Daria Kulesh, art is the result of long since passed down memories from an era in which tyranny and oppression were by words for progress and empire building, the Soviet takeover, some might say occupation, and removal of ethnic people’s lands is one in which Long Lost Home is itself built upon. It is the foundation of a set of songs that are necessary, that are vibrant and colourful but also capture the essence of regret, the sense of betrayal of a nation and the love one feels for where they come from.

Not that people should feel proud to be part of a nation but it is the deepest emotion, the bond that perhaps is even stronger than family in some respects, to know where you belong and Daria Kulesh frames that with sincerity and profound love throughout Long Lost Home.

The album is highly charged but lyrically and musically sincere, beautiful, leaving the listener feeling enamoured with what they have been able to hear and the sense of gratitude that is left behind as they look with opened eyes at some of the points and issues raised in the songs. Tracks such as The Moon and The Pilot, The Hazel Tree, The Panther, Like A God and Only Begun ricochet with truth and depth and there is a feeling of both unease and calm tranquillity that reaches out from each of them.

An opulent sounding album which is neither lost nor far from positive endings but one that is most assuredly home, Long Lost Home is only a search away.

Ian D. Hall