Mammoth in Space is Darka Dusty and Miri Stebivka (and an oft-changing cast of musical augmentations). Darka is a lifelong musician and vocalist hailing from the Motor City. Known for her big voice and sparklingly intense performance style, Darka likes to genre-hop from blues to jazz to country and everything in between. A former big fish in a small Ukrainian music pond (Darka was one half of Darka & Slavko, a recording duo who flirted with international fame in North America and Europe in the early '90s), Darka now spends her time vocalizing, improvising and occasionally mesmerizing audiences in and around Portland. Her piano, keyboard and accordion ad lib skills are a veritable hot knife through the buttery goodness of her partner Miri Stebivka's guitar soundscapes. Miri spent years in the English music scene as a session player (guitar, mandolin) touring Europe in many bands including The Ukrainians. Miri's eclectic sensibilities beguile and bewitch listeners, and his ability to break musical rules and conventions have earned him a well-deserved reputation of tasty musical distinctness and harmonic whimsicality. After years of finding reasons to reject their ethnic musical culture, Darka and Miri perform traditional Ukrainian (gypsy, hutzul, klezmer) music often in various configurations. When they're not dishing out earthy, ethnic delights, Darka and Miri festoon themselves in a patina of cosmically experimental, electric, ambient and exploratory sounds as Mammoth in Space. This project offers a nod to the future and proffers a deep bow to the past. With a ravenous appetite for psychedelic aural combo platters, Mammoth in Space dwells in the realms of the unexpected: "Long-buried bones are resurrected and shot into the cosmos." Mammoth in Space
