This is the second-ever issue of ‘bubblegum zine’: your guide to lesser-known Ukrainian music, be it underground, indie, experimental, or any other kind of invisible. The first issue of 'bubblegum zine', a grassroots publication about independent / underground / you name it Ukrainian music, was released in February 2023 and, in its own quirky way, summed up the year 2022.
 
The second issue presents the musical summary of 2023 and bits of 2024, but also, with the help of new and rewritten reviews, pre- and post-2023 texts and texts about other times, brilliant guest illustrations and a lot of typographic ink, becomes a twenty-page cast of a war-torn time, with Ukrainian culture stuck somewhere between disappointment, hope and expectation, between 2023, 2024 and 2025, and between all the music we make and listen to.
 
The author Olena Pohonchenkova is an independent Ukrainian music writer. She’s involved in researching local music scenes and communities in Ukraine and writing for her bubblegum webzine as well as for The Wire, Easterndaze, The Red Door, DTF Magazine and other Ukrainian and European media. She also hosts several shows and podcasts, has a cat and is a horrible guitar player.