Theodor Bastard Announce New Album ‘▽’

While they’ve remained relatively silent over the past six years, Theodor Bastard refuse to stay still. Amidst the shadows of the pandemic, war and invasive technology, the world music pioneers have been searching for a way out of the darkness that’s descended over our reality. The path that they discovered on their upcoming eighth studio album didn’t lead back to their home in the forest of Karelia, but away from it, into the coldness of the city, a collapsing civilization, and ultimately, rebirth.

Today, Theodor Bastard are announcing their new album ▽ (pronounced Vedma) with a thrilling music video for its bewitching lead single. While it reconnects with their roots in electronic music, “Sverkay” is a sure sign that the band are bound for dark new horizons.

“This album might never have happened”, Theodor Bastard producer, multi-instrumentalist and founding member Fedor Svolotch says. “So much has surrounded us during recent years: the pandemic, war, division, fear, anxiety over technology, and a sense that reality itself is becoming darker and more unstable. We have felt so much anger, pain, confusion and disappointment both in ourselves and in the world around us. All these emotions were gathering inside us, changing, darkening, searching for a form, until they eventually transformed into the unexpected on ▽”.

Watch the music video for “Sverkay” on Theodor Bastard’s YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/LzI4DwPykWI?si=WQv_npcJay8N1E0W

▽ comes out November 13, 2026 on Season of Mist.

Pre-order

https://orcd.co/theodorbastardvedma

Pre-save on Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/prerelease/0K4F1n6atFEiEO5Y9N9v8y?si=VgItWmKBTK-7B0ImO8M0MQ&utm_source=copy-link

Available formats

CD Digipak

12” Vinyl Gatefold (Black)

12” Vinyl Gatefold (Yellow, red and white marbled)

▽ reflects just how much has changed since the world last heard from Theodor Bastard in April 2020. While the band are still recognized internationally for blending ritual folk, electronics and world music, on their new album, they’ve re-embraced their early electronic impulses because that’s now how modern life feels: cold, sharp, tense.

“Our sound changed because the world changed”, Svolotch explains. “We had to destroy our own habits and expectations to make ▽. We wanted to start again, as if the band has no past, no safe place, no ready-made formula. As a result, this album is not a continuation of what came before. It’s a different door”.

Long-time fans of Theodor Bastard were pleasantly surprised late last year when the pulse-pounding analog synths of “Nebo” first appeared in the award-winning Russian crime drama The Method. But the latest single from ▽ is a giant leap from the softer, more earthly textures of the band’s recent studio ventures. Like a spaceship, “Sverkay” rumbles with distorted bass before it’s suspended high above the earth by a trap-like beat.

“Вдох – выдох (Inhale – Exhale)”, sings bewitching vocalist Yana Veva as she glimpses what’s to come from our dangerous endgame with war, technology and social division.

“I know people probably expected another Northern ethnic album from us”, Svolotch says. “Oftentimes, once bands find their niche, they stay there. But this has never been our path and now is not the time for beautiful genre obedience.

“▽ represents our vision of what’s going on in the world today” he continues. “Instead of flights into space, instead of discovering the vast mysterious inside ourselves, once again, humanity is busy destroying itself. This album is our attempt to find a way out of that cycle, to understand what is happening, and to feel for some kind of perspective”.

The video for “Sverkay” was directed by Fedor Svolotch and stars Yana Veva. Theodor Bastard built the spaceship that appears in the video by hand. They also created the video’s practical and visual effects themselves. The concept for the spacesuit was created by Yana Veva and made by TomHem Studio.

Additional video credits

Screenwriters – Fedor Svolotch & Yana Veva

Director of Photography – Oleg Makoseev

Additional Camera – Vyacheslav Salikov

Film Editor – Fedor Svolotch

Gaffer & Assistant Director – Taras Frolov

Storyboard Artist – Yana Veva

Spacesuit Concept Art – Yana Veva

Spacesuit Fabrication – TomHem Studio

Spaceship Control Panel Fabrication – Andy Vladych

Spaceship Cockpit Concept – Alexey Kalinovskiy

Set Design and Construction – Alexey Kalinovskiy & Kusas

Props Master – Alexey Kalinovskiy

Practical Effects – Alexey Kalinovskiy & Kusas

Visual Effects – Maria Starostina & Fedor Svolotch

Colorist – Vyacheslav Salikov

More praise for Theodor Bastard

“Theodor Bastard’s prolific catalogue of music is only getting better with age and experience” – Indie Pulse Music

“[…] gives the feeling of being in the wilderness in the cold of winter” – Folk N Rock

“…takes the listener to the cold and twilight realms of marshy swamps of taiga and mossy tundra, to unexplored places where the earthly plane and the spiritual world are separated only be a very thin ghostly veil” – New Model Radio

“…will take you to a realm of calm and a meditative state that I feel is much needed and looked for in the craze that often is this world” – Grimm Gent

Molnii i Svist (00:48) Vedma (4:24) Nebo (4:33) Kaplya Rosi (2:46) Zveroboy (6:16) Dusha (4:33) Ditya (5:43) Ostavlyaem (3:45) Sverkay (3:25) Vremya (4:36)