Ukrainian art rockers Ziferblat share powerful video for Zemlya (Earth)

Ukrainian art rockers Ziferblat have released a powerful new video for their brand new song Zemyla (Earth), which you can watch below.

The new song and video ha sbeen inspired by Ukrainian author Olha Kobylianska's 1902 book Zemlya. The song features a Ukrainian folk choir and features English subtitles.

"The video is an attempt to depict the most important events of the story," explains guitarist and bassist Valentyn Leschynskyi, who's brother Danil is vocalist and keyboard player. "The director wrote the script based on the fact that two of the band members are brothers. So they played those parts. The leitmotif of the video is the envy and ambivalence of the younger brother towards the older one, a modern interpretation of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The younger brother is a lowly and emaciated character.

"The second is a shapely, self-confident man who is about to marry his beloved who is pregnant by him but must serve in the army first. The main argument between the brothers is the right of succession in land ownership. Incited by his Romany cousin, who is also his mistress, the younger brother dares to kill the elder.

"The music video consists also of black and white archive footage from the past century which represents the portrait of the Ukrainian landscapes and has a classical live performance of the music band.

"The topic of the book is very sensitive for Ukrainians nowadays because the main idea of the work is defence and respect for your own land. When the active phase of the war started, we decided to release it for the fear of possible occupation and repression of Ukrainian culture."

Find out more about Ziferblat here.

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.