An indie folk-pop Kraków band with a carnivalesque spirit!
Vladimirskais a band based in Krakow, Poland, comprised of musicians from Canada, France and Poland. It began as the solo project of Canadian songwriter and musician Scotia Gilroy and has now grown into a 6-member indie folk-pop project playing stirring, uplifting songs that are tinged with a carnivalesque spirit.
Since Vladimirska’s first public concert as a full band in their hometown of Krakow, Poland, the response to their music has been enthusiastic, and they’ve been performing constantly in Poland and beyond. They’ve played at numerous festivals throughout Central Europe (in Germany, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) and have toured extensively. They have also composed and performed original soundtracks to silent films as special guests at Krakow’s Silent Film Festival, the National Museum in Krakow and in the Warsaw Film Concert series. They have collaborated with Krakow’s most prominent theatres and cultural institutions and performed during the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Vladimirska’s debut album Night Trains, released by Gusstaff Records (Poland), was featured on the “Bestenliste 4-2011” of the German Record Critics’ Award (“Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik”). The band’s second album, Paper Birds, was released by Gusstaff Records on February 10, 2017\. It was Radio Krakow’s “Album of the Week” (February 6-10, 2017) and the title song “Paper Birds” was featured by Trójka (Polish National Radio 3) as its “Song of the Day” on February 2, 2017.
The band:
Scotia Gilroy – piano, accordion, Roland keyboard, xylophone, toy piano, vocals
Adrian Górka – acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Zbyszek Szwajdych – trumpet
Leszek HeFi Wiśniowski – saxophone, flute
Kamila Drabek – double bass
Samuel Calabuig – percussion
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Videos
Listen to the full album, Paper Birds
Scotia Gilroy talks about the song “Paper Birds.”
I wrote the song “Paper Birds” shortly after I’d gone through some difficult times in my personal life. Sometimes, in the midst of very dark periods, it feels impossible to go on. You tell yourself: this is it, this is the end. You lose all desire to keep going with your projects, the things you love, and you don’t know if you’ll ever have the energy or perseverance to pick yourself up. This song is about the lightness that can come, like a miracle, in the darkest of times, when things seem impossible for you. If you just push yourself onward, and never stop believing in yourself, one day, again – you’ll be able to keep going. Just like paper birds, lying on a table. It might seem impossible for them to fly. Or is it? Perhaps they can take flight if they just believe in themselves enough. Music has kept me going through dark times, and if I keep playing, and keep letting the songs come out, life will always have meaning for me and I’ll have the strength to go on.
The little piano riff in this song is something that I played over and over again, day after day, during that dark period in my life. It was one of many piano tunes I invented to give comfort to myself. One day, the guitarist from my band (Vladimirska), Adrian, was hanging out with me in my apartment. I played the riff for him. He grabbed my acoustic guitar and started playing along. “That’s really pretty,” he said. “Do you have lyrics for it?” I had some words I’d been singing to the song for a while. Shortly afterwards, we headed to the forest – Las Wolski, in Krakow – and did an outdoor recording session with the other members of Vladimirska. We were recorded by Tomek Kruk, an excellent sound technician who specializes in outdoor recordings. Our album, released in 2017 by Gusstaff Records, came together over the course of several weeks of recordings in the forest. Because of the forest setting, and the melancholy atmosphere at the heart of this album, I named the entire album after the song “Paper Birds,” which is featured as the album’s last track.
