Balaklava Blues is the brainchild of Mark and Marichka Marczyk, creators of the multi-award- winning guerrilla folk opera “Counting Sheep” and leaders of the mighty Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Canada’s notorious 12-piece Balkan-party-punk massive. Falling somewhere between a traditional song cycle and a full-blown multimedia techno show, “Counting Sheep” fuses Ukrainian polyphony and other folk traditions with EDM, trap, dubstep and more as a launching pad to explore the seemingly never-ending blues that have long emanated from the Ukrainian steppe. Mark and Marichka met there during the 2014 revolution of dignity and ever since, they have dedicated their creative energy to telling stories of their home country to the world. “Balaklava Blues music is a reclamation of the violence perpetrated on my home country,” says Mark. “We want to redesign and remix physical and psychological oppression and question how and why it continues to inform who we are and what we can become.”