Welcome to the first ever printed issue of ‘bubblegum zine’: your guide to lesser-known Ukrainian music, be it underground, indie, experimental, or any other kind of invisible. For 2 years, it’s been a web-only initiative of one music writer, Olena Pohonchenkova, but here you’ll also find other voices, one of them of Ania Tykha, speaking in quirky visions that go so well with the ‘bubblegum’ language: light and bouncy, precise yet soft — the one we learned by listening to lots of good music!Russian war against Ukrainian people continues, but Ukrainian underground culture is evolving at the speed of light. With this zine, we wanted you to discover it yourself: by reading about the latest releases, getting to know Ukrainian musicians through spontaneous talks and providing selections of important records by independent experts.
 
The author Olena Pohonchenkova is an independent Ukrainian music writer and musician currently staying in Sweden. She’s involved in researching local music scenes and communities in Ukraine and writing for her webzine as well as for 20ft Radio, DTF Magazine, and Red Door Magazine. At the moment she’s working on the first issue of her fanzine dedicated to Ukrainian independent music that will be published by Kultivera later this year. She sings and writes some of the lyrics in the band Kurl that will also release some music very soon. She has a tubby cat that also made her way to Sweden.