On February 24, 2026 — the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — Група Б (Group B) released Тестування життя (Life Testing). The album was never meant to be an album. These are live setup stress tests, bedroom rehearsals recorded through blackouts, pressed into service after an FPV drone strike hit the SUV that Kyiv-based artist Timur Dzhafarov had fundraised for. Repairs: €3000. Everyone alive. Music as patch cable and tourniquet.
Dzhafarov, who retired his John Object alias to operate under the Група Б moniker, has spent the past couple of years dragging his sound deeper into abrasion, deconstruction, and circuitry — releasing tracks as fundraisers for his military unit. His gear list reads like a quartermaster’s inventory: Moog Matriarch, Roland JX-3P, Korg MS-20, Fender Stratocaster, a small army of Boss and Electro-Harmonix pedals, cassette and MP3 players, and what he describes as “more DIY crap.” There is a bitter irony embedded in the record’s existence: enlistment made it financially possible for Dzhafarov to acquire more gear.
The album opens and closes with two longform versions of “Перші люди на сонці (First People on the Sun)” — twin pillars stretching between fifteen and twenty minutes, the former previously released as a single in 2025. Between them lies a terrain of glitches, short circuits, and stubborn beats persisting inside collapsing soundscapes. “Нічні кімнати” (Night Rooms) begins in a liturgical hush — the Doepfer A-100 humming like a chapel generator, disembodied speech drifting in — before the floor drops and the modular system spasms into a full-spectrum assault. Systems that fail and systems that keep pulsing anyway: it is the album’s central motif.
“я не маю жодної думки в голові” (I Don’t Have a Single Thought in My Head) runs just 2:37, crackle and detritus giving way to a Stratocaster line that feels almost naked. Field recordings and found sounds scud across the mix like distant artillery. The piece captures a particular psychic vacuum — overload tipping into blankness. Then, without warning, the record reveals a capacity for startling tenderness. “Коли тобі не боляче (за уч. Андрія Косача)” (When You Don’t Hurt, featuring Andriy Kosach) feels unabashedly romantic, its melody blooming through distortion like a 1950s sci-fi soundtrack left too close to the reactor core. The oscillators sigh; the delays shimmer; for a moment, the noise recedes.
Тестування життя by Група Б The liner notes are blunt: this is “a ‘best of’ of my practice sessions before I play with this setup for people,” recorded live in a bedroom during blackouts. That context is voltage, not garnish. The beats that persist in these tracks feel like proof-of-life signals. The glitches and broken systems carry documentary residue rather than aesthetic choice. The final track, “коли ти” (When Are You), is a lullaby for astronauts lost in space — and the album closes there, in that strange tenderness, having moved through deconstructed brutality and ambient drift and back again.
What wasn’t meant to be an album becomes one of the most complete statements to emerge from Ukraine’s electronic and experimental scene in four years. Тестування життя is available as a fundraiser on Bandcamp, with proceeds going toward Dzhafarov’s military unit.
Source: A Closer Listen
