Andy Nechaevsky - Secret Life of Button Boxes: Red Box

 Released: April 28

On his first release of 2026, Ukrainian artist and kalimba builder Andy Nechaevsky brings us an album of tracks that broadcast his own personal nostalgia for home. He describes this home as something almost magical, recounting the various fuzzy memories from his very early childhood and describing them in the detail he can remember. This description is rather poignant to the album as well because Nechaevsky imbued each track with that same sense of magical recollection of childhood memories. Each song has a sense of whimsy to it, feeling like a sort of melancholic fairy tale quite often throughout the album. “Leave the nightlight on, please” is a perfect example of the melancholic vibe as deep cello notes signal a looming sense of dread and the kalimbas play a coherent but ever so slightly disjointed rhythm. 

The kalimbas are really quite the focus on much of the album, understandably so as several of them were custom built and assembeled together by Nechaevsky himself. The arrangements of the kalimbas can feel chaotic at times with the overlapping of several at a time. “Odds Ends Waltz” and “Senescent Unterweissbach Shepherdess” are amid the tracks that take this hectic approach with the former starting out so and finding order later and the latter keeping with that chaotic arrangement throughout. “Creepy China Owl Lamp” appears random and chaotic at first but the overlapping notes seem to follow a slowly rising and falling pattern in tone and intensity. 

Secret Life of Button Boxes is a difficult to categorize album. On the one hand, it’s a soft and whimsical with sense of childlike wonder. But on the other hand, it’s also a bit dark and melancholy at various points throughout. The combination of emotional sensations gives off a bittersweet note, smiling at the happy and fuzzy memories of old while knowing the disquieting facts of looking back on ink as happier time. But  whether it wants to be happy or sad, it is beuatifully put together and the tone of the bells and kalimba tines feels like little droplets of sound tapping gently in the ears. It’s wonderful and mesmerizing, highly recommended to listen with headphones in a softly lit room.