Kobza - "Kobza" {Ukraine} [1971] (psych folk rock)

Kobza was established by several students of Kyiv School of Music as an instrumental folk music band in late 60s. Having been unable to win much fame, the band started experimenting with new music formats and eventually moved closer to more popular rock sound, while still retaining its focus on traditional music and the respective repertoire. The debut album by Kobza, recorded in 1970, is one of the earliest documented examples of Ukrainian folk-rock. As a matter of fact, it is is said to be the very first long-play record to have been produced in Ukraine.

Despite being deeply rooted into the 'folk art' soil, the music on the Kobza's maiden album has a distinct psych feeling which probably reflects the musicians' keen interest in the modern Western rock scene. Half of the tracks are folk songs carefully arranged for electric organ, bass, drums, woodwinds, and three banduras (traditional Ukrainian string instruments). The other half are pop/folk songs composed by contemporary local authors, and stylized to fit into the same traditional vs modern compositional and sonic framework.

Available here is the rip of the old vinyl release (I think it dates back to the early 70s or so), the quality is not that great, but that's all I currently have. I may be able to locate and eventually upload a remastered CD version of this album which I heard was released recently.

Line-up:

Oleksandr Zuyev - keyboards
Kostyantyn Novitsky, Volodymyr Kushpet, Oleksandr Rogoza - banduras
Georgiy Garbar - flute
Valeriy Viter, Valentina Kuprina - vocals
Anatoliy Lyutyuk - drums
The link is to be found in the comments.