Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Ten years on from her debut album, Eternal Child, the sense of maturity is not confided to the act of symbolism in the title, but in the wisdom of progression and identity in a world that has lost its way through hate, division, and lack of empathy to people and the environment, and as the creative soul that pushes ideas and character forward in Daria Kulesh, Motherland is the near perfect statement of observing change in the person and in the wider world.

This fourth album is one ultimately guided by the various and dynamic collaborations over the last couple of years, the sense of influence allows the deeply personal, from the possibility of the heartbreaking to the understanding of reflection and longing, and as the candour of expression is revealed, so the listener is able to frame the heritage and conflicted emotions that come truthfully from someone who has survived and the secret struggles that she has lived with as she became a mother, and that her own motherland has fallen into international disrepute.

Described as haunting and enigmatic, each track carries with it a sense of responsibility, the demeanour is such that through the dichotomy of war, of love, of estrangement, of isolation, of doubt, of joy. The voice of the child that has grown is nestled wonderfully within the observances of the mother, the woman, and it is in certainty and fact that Motherland dominates with a velvet glove and the reality of female experience.

With additional, and sparkling support from the likes of Jason Emberton, Katrina Davies, Jonny Dyer, the incomparable Odette Michell, Stu Hanna, and Tristen Seume, tracks such as Cossack Lullaby, the astonishing cover of Bob Dylan’s Masters Of War, Homeland, and Ukrainian Lullaby, Daria Kulesh presents authenticity with the legitimacy of being, of finding herself in the clouded loss and the freedom of bringing her stories to the fore and the conversation much needed.

How we see our motherland is through our own experience, we must be able to criticise and defend with equal passions lest it deceives us, and as the sense of majesty explores the emotional world of two distinct types of motherhood, the freedom that is sculptured and revealed is one of heartening beauty, ferocious calm, deep and profound longing.

Daria Kulesh digitally releases Motherland on January 31st.

Ian D. Hall