- Year of foundation – 1992
- City – Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine)
- Language – Ukrainian, English
- Genre – industrial, punk rock, trip hop, hardcore
Lineup:
- Irena Karpa – vocals;
- Arthur Danielyan – bass, vocals, synthesizers, programming;
- Oleg Artym – guitars, vocals, programming, synthesizers, mixing;
- Evgeniya Smolyaninova – cello;
- Andriy Kohut – drums, sound engineer.
History of the band
Qarpa is a Ukrainian rock band that has a long and eventful history. The group's creativity dates back to 1992 in Ivano-Frankivsk. The founder was Oleg Artym, who then called the group Fuck! Submarine. The team was distinguished by its provocative style and played raw punk, which later turned into psychedelic industrial.
In 1995, the name was changed to Faktychno Sami. And the turning point came in 1999, when the group moved to Kyiv and Irena Karpa and Artur Danielyan joined it. With the appearance of Karpa, the sound and content of the compositions changed - more electronics, experiments and sharp lyrics appeared. It was then that the first album "Didkova gra" was born in three nights. In 2007, the team changed its name to Qarpa, and Irena became the leader and producer of the group.
Creative path
Despite the presence of a loyal audience of fans who always found Qarpa's music on live shows and festival stages, the band was absent from radio, television, and even streaming for a long time. Only in the summer of 2022 did all of Qarpa's albums appear online, becoming widely available. Over the years of its existence, the band has acted like a living organism. It created new albums, mixed incompatible genres, and tried things that few dared to do. For Irena Karpa, it has always been not just art, but a way of life: more music, more people who appreciate sincerity and seek the real thing.
Qarpa, now in the status of stage stars, continue to create new tracks, shoot video clips for them, and conquer fans with bold experiments.
Creative style
Qarpa's style is difficult to put into a framework. This is electronic trash-punk, which combines elements of trip-hop and indie. From the initial punk and industrial, the band evolved and opened up a new facet with each album. No work of the musicians is similar to the previous one: the band members constantly broke the mold, played with sound and lyrics.
Irena Karpa considers one of her strongest projects to be the album "Singing Birds Diseases" - a record that has not lost its relevance, because it has never adapted to fashion. According to the artist, the main achievement of the band is the ability to remain itself, despite external temptations. Interestingly, once a Cypriot company offered a million dollars in exchange for a change of style and the transformation of Qarpa into a pop band. But the band consciously remained true to its path of rebels and informals. Which brought the band real recognition.
Discography (Actually Sami and Qarpa):
- “Dick's Game” (1999);
- “B. P. P.” (2001);
- «Cosmic Vacuum» (2001);
- Kurva Cum Back (2004);
- «Fucktychno Sami (Best Of 1995—2004)» (2004);
- «Lo-Fi TRavmy» (2005);
- «IN ŽYR» (2007);
- And I Made The Man (2011);
- Made in China (2015).
Awards and distinctions
The band is the winner of the 1st prize in the rock music genre of the festival «Chervona Ruta» (Kharkiv). At that time, the band performed under the name Faktychno Sami.
