Expectations - South-West Europe Tour 2013

It was high time Expectations hit the road again. Last September the 'Vultures Become Eagles Tour' was more than amazing, mainly because it was shared with our awesome mates Eaglehaslanded. However this June we're heading alone (not really, we may have cooked a pretty cool surprise for random shows of the tour) to another yet unconquered part of Europe. I'll do my best to keep you posted on how we're doing, and if you find yourself somewhere in the places listed below our rad poster, painted by Katya Krasnova and designed by Iulia V., just come and say hi.

Expectations - South-West Europe Tour 2013

May 31st Bulgaria (Sofia) - Grindhouse Skateclub
http://www.facebook.com/events/450412071718405/

June 2nd Hungary (Pecs) - Strausz Ti-Ti-Tá
http://www.facebook.com/events/484783544923576/

June 3th Hungary (Budapest) - Trafik
https://www.facebook.com/events/182420818582150/

June 4th Italy (Marghera) - Pop Corn Club
https://www.facebook.com/events/655878181092307/

June 5th Italy (Mantova) - Blue Moon Pub
https://www.facebook.com/events/166152510219808/

June 6th France (Montpellier) - Up Down

June 7th Spain (Manlleu) - Rock House Osona

June 8th Spain (Valencia) - La Residencia
http://www.facebook.com/events/423030137784326/

June 9th Spain (Bilbao) - Sentinel Rock Club
https://www.facebook.com/events/611770648834467/

June 10th France (Tarbes) - Celtic Pub
http://www.facebook.com/events/479638518765480/

June 11th France (Marseille) - TBC

June 12th Switzerland (Schaffhausen) - Neustadt52
https://www.facebook.com/events/194242044059000/

June 13th Germany (Herrenberg) - JuHa Herrenberg
https://www.facebook.com/events/527005477356046/

June 14th Germany (Würzburg) - Die Kellerperle
http://www.facebook.com/events/149806378523687/

June 15th Croatia (Zagreb) - Mala dvorana Jedinstvo

June 16th Serbia (Belgrade) - Boat-club Lađa
https://www.facebook.com/events/124179027782414/

Thoughts *updated*

Few weeks ago I really wanted to summarize few comments, reviews and thoughts discussing music I'm involved in, so I'll just list the albums and post what people had to say about them. Some stuff is in English, some in Bulgarian just check it out. I will update this from time to time, when new thoughts reach me.

Mytrip - Scattered I (2013)

bandcamp | bigcartel

'This one-man drone unit has managed to create a path out of the darkness and towards one that is walked by very few into an ascended creation' // Heathen Harvest

'There's a strong intimacy behind the harshness of the sound' (translation) // Son of Marketing
'A highly menacing drone, dark gourd like blowing interrupted by irritation' // MuhMur

zev died orchestra - I (2012)

 bandcamp | bigcartel

'It does require some endurance on the listener's part...' // Letters From A Tapehead

Expectations - Gone EP (2012)

 bandcamp / bigcartel

"Над добрата музика, доминира адски интересният глас на вокалиста, който подсилва усещането за безтегловност" // Sofia Rebel Station
"Истинска мрачна прелест" // Music Vault

Expectations - s/t (2012)

bandcamp / bigcartel

'Very dynamic and energetic, consisting of an equal dose of rushing, chest pounding tunes and slower, more dragging sections' // Natures With No Plagues

'An album you don't want to miss' // Against The Odds

'A damn exciting and cool upcoming band out of Bulgaria // Music Approved By a Banana

'The band's true strength lies, in contrasting moments of surprising beauty with a sense of understated rage' // Born Again Nihilist
' The whole record is a perfect realization of a personal form of hardcore' // We Last Longer

"Истинско изкуство, което те докосва." // Music Vault

"Така трябва да звучи българската екстремна музика през 2012 г." // Pro-Rock Magazine
"Това е албум, който ни докосва по индивидуален начин" // Sofia Rebel Station
"Лиричен, искрен, атмосферичен и достатъчно динамичен" // Metal Katehizis

Martin Lukanov & Mytrip - Between (2012)

bandcamp

'A piece of music that blurs the line between stasis and rhythm and melody' // Disquiet

Mytrip | EUS - Split (2012)

bandcamp / bigcartel

'Cold, bleak, windswept, monochrome industrial landscapes' // MuhMur

'No easy listening... like drowning in a murky, nearly pitch black sewer.' // Wounds of The Earth
'Quite a cold affair' // Don't Count On It
'Slothful tonalities trudging through the murk… grimey clunker gadgets tango in the wasteland of tomorrow' // International Tapes 
'It will force all the senses of imagination, clear your mind of negative thoughts' // Dead Tones

Mytrip - Low (2011)

bandcamp / bigcartel

'It would have been better to have experienced live.' // Wounds of The Earth

Martin Lukanov & Mytrip (2011)

bandcamp

'Piano torque from Bulgaria' // Disquiet
'Two' is a kind of album, where you have to listen between notes' // Hidden Vibes

We may have started something new

And while chewing my 'morning' oathmeal and drinking my weak ass 'morning' coffee I thought why don't I update you on something new we've started. It's called Rain Bird, and it will appear live for a first time next month in Sofia. The lyrics are in the video description.

 

Help out an ambient addict and get the new Mytrip record

Eight years ago, sitting in front of my 500 mhz 128 ram pc I probably never thought that my primal sound experiments will get that further. Yes it's been that long since I've started my work under the Mytrip monicker. I know it's nothing compared to many other (probably even better) projects, but for me it's one of the most sustainable endeavors in my life. 

However maintaining the quality is not an easy task and never was, especially when you're learning every day. Currently my goals and plans regarding the sound I want to reach are becoming way too complex for the gear I possess, and especially for my trusty almost 5-year-old laptop. It just can no longer handle my work. This is why I'm currently trying to finance a re-equipping process and I'm making it through putting out a digital pre-order of my new record 'SCATTERED I'. The package consists of 4 tracks and an art book by the Romanian artist Iulia V. (in pdf). Unlike my usual name your price policy, this time the sum is set to minimum 4€,  as this is a fund-raising campaign. Still it's more than a half less compared to the upcoming tape version (+ paper artbook) of the release, which will be out via Worthless Recordings (US). Here are some details about the release.

Bandcamp

'Scattered I' is a small collection of four very personal, yet almost lost Mytrip pieces. They were recorded in various places during travels and emotional struggles. This is music in its rawest form, once buried, now found, still leading you nowhere.

The record is accompanied by an A6 art book, featuring five paintings. They are personal interpretations of each song and their common impact. You will find there words, they are useless.

'I scattered myself. I hope I find the pieces before my end.'
~ Mytrip

recorded all over Bulgaria in the period 2009-2011
artworks by Iulia V.
on tape through Worthless Recordings (US)

Thanks in advance, and please spread the word! And huge huge thanks to everybody who already purchased the record, it means the world!

Various Artists

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the pros and cons and the value added of participating in compilations. For the last years 7+ I've contributed works to quite many of them. Some I personally initiated, to others I was invited or just got in touch so I join. Putting music in compilations almost didn't bring me anything, but cool contacts and artist discoveries. Oh yes, and the awesome process of creating something short and thorough.

I really like the whole process about writing a piece for a compilation. I always try to keep the material I'm contributing exclusive, especially the works I give away for physical releases you can hardly find on the Internet (only if they are ripped and uploaded). Sometimes I like to focus on just a tiny bit of music without getting deeper in concepts or length, and in this cases just one piece is more than enough. Then why don't I put it as a single or whatnot. Well because I like the idea of my work surrounded by other interesting, and sometimes also unknown to me artists.

Without a unifying concept or a specific occasion compilations are pointless, they are also difficult for comprehending if their volume is too big (especially applying for online samplers). But with all of this said they are fun to do, because in the ideal scenario they are a result of a friendly and meaningful communication and that's cool, cus maybe someday you'll meet that Argentinian artist who wrote the track after yours.

Here are two compilations that I've contributed music so far this year.

DARK AMBIENT RADIO VOL. 3 (CD) // Mytrip 'Small Humyn'

Back in 2006 I took part in the first ever sampler created in the community of the great German dark ambient radio. Now some years after it has turned into a tradition, all tracks are chosen by anonymous voting. Community and democracy at its max, oh yes quality dark ambient too. My piece is called 'Small Humyn' and it's closing the compilation. It's quite a noisy track for such a release, and the best about it is that I don't even remember how or when I created it. I can't find any traces of it in my archives. Below is a sample mix of all pieces.

 DAR official site | Discogs

REVIEWS:
@Guts Of Darkness (French) / English translation
@Medienkonverter (German)
@Kulturterrorismus (German)
@Winter Light (English)
 
WELCOME TO OUR DECAYED FACTORY (2xCDr) // Мytrip 'Meat Extraction'

Besides being very active (too active for my taste) releasing music in the Internet, Abandonment is one of the few signs that the concept of noise / dark ambient / experimental / etc. exists in Bulgaria, even though that the number of local artists released by this DIY label is not that big. However Abandonment has been around for quite some time and this compilation is a celebration of the label anniversary. It consists of music of about 30 artists and 'Meat Extraction', another very noisy and hostile Mytrip piece has the honor of opening this extreme collection of music for the listener. 

Abandonment official site | Discogs

If you are curious about the other compilations that I've taken part as Mytrip in the last few years, check out this Discogs list. I think it's pretty full. Some of those samplers are already sold out, others are hard to find even on the Internet, because the people/labels who initiated them are inactive, but if you dig deeper you can always find what you're looking for. 

'Trainbient II' End + day 6 (Sofia)

21/03/2013 @ Club Studio

w/ Torah, Trysth, Environments, Valerinne

At a point this show looked as if I've been waiting and preparing (for) since ages so when the day finally came I was prepared for a huge hassle. As I've mentioned before when balancing between the duties of a promoter and a participant one of them surely suffers a bit. On this show I was meant to play just a set of stuff that will set up a sick mood for the whole event and I actually did. I barely played my own music and focused on some raw drone, black metal, doom stuff which I was putting in my player during my runs all around the venue. At some point after the almost inexistent soundcheck the show started with Torah, they slammed a crazy and fast set and left the audience in the deceivingly calmer hands of Environments who sufficiently fighted that role by being extremely loud and massive at some points, which was great. After them Trysth played, their sound was super solid as always, but experiencing their music without vocals was a bit hard for me. At around 1 am Valerinne hit the stage to close the show. At this point all the staff at the venue was attacking me with requests to decrease the sound cause we were really really close to somebody calling the police to stop the fun. Anyway this didn't happen. The show ended successfully, Me and Martin packed the immense distro that we opened for the night, the guests packed the van and the night ended with everyone safe and sound. Maybe just our ears were not that intact, but those are the risks of not booking classical music gigs. This one really looked more as a gig report than to a description of the show, but as I said my role as a promoter dominated the night so I didn't really feel my sound participation in this awesome night.

As to the tour I think it was surely a success and I will surely do it again. There are many places and many people in Bulgaria who are if not already fans that at least really interested in ambient music. Especially outside Sofia there's a lot of territories to explore and this is something that I hope more musicians will decide to do. If not I'll keep being the only idiot travelling around the country with my weird sounds on the dirty, but friendly trains.

Oh yes and the summary.

6 days, ~ 28 hrs in 8 trains

It wasn't that hard.

the day sounded like: Environments, Noir Coeur

If you are lazy to search stuff in the blog here are the other reports, a quick summary will be soon available in Bulgarian too.

'Trainbient II' Days 4, 5 (Varna, Plovdiv)
'Trainbient II' (first half)

All stories are also available in Bulgarian on Indioteque.

'Trainbient II' Days 4, 5 (Varna, Plovdiv)

18/03/13 Varna, Bulgaria @ Bolla

w/ r3s, Swamp Fire

I guess it's someone else's place but it's mine also.

Getting from Rousse to Varna was a paradise. A travel less than two hours long, and you're there. I barely oppressed my urge to run from the station to the beach and walked slowly instead (mainly because of my two backpacks, which were probably heavier than my own weight). At first it was windy as hell, but still I have to admit I may spent some 2, 3 hours just staring at the immense blue mate, who for the last three years I've been visiting quite often. I actually suspect my whole persistence to play Varna each time I hit the road is rather because I wanna have my several hours alone with the sea, than to play my shitty music. Anyhow, at a point the wind got too much and I moved to the cosy café, which's also quite traditional for my/our Varna visits. When the clock pointed a bit after 18 I moved to the venue. There I found a wooden DIY door replacing the old glass one. I have no idea why this 'artistic' choice led to me being paranoic, but after the resulting bunch of phone calls, texts and whatnot everything was settled by the info, that the bar actually is open at 19 and the old door had to be replaced whaha. When I finally got I quickly unpacked (and somehow lost the remains of my oathmeal reserve, which the next day had an almost detrimental effect). Martin's (t)rusty mixing board was at his moodiest and I was the only one who could use it that night, the guys at r3s and Swamp Fire decided to play by interconnecting their PCs which was also effective enough. Before starting the show I had the chance to hang out with my main Varna mate Yana, and I got a birthday present that had been waiting for me since last summer. Cool ha? At 20:30 I started playing. All shows so far had been tortured by tech problems due to my slowly degrading laptop and that night the crap reached its climax. I was pretty much closing one of the deepest, most minimalist and blackest drone sets I've played so far when a huge boom was heard and my laptop battery died. The charger was putting noise in the mix (as it mostly does) so I had no other choice but leave the stage to the others. Too bad, cus I was reaching such an evil and mesmerizing sound. It's cool that people enjoyed it even after that sudden ending and actually wanted me to play more of it. It's a cool reason to come back in Varna with a working laptop. Afterwards r3s and Swamp Fire dropped a rad and diverse b2b live set with music from ambient to IDM, I talked with a dude who seemed to be a lot into noise and drone doom and then headed with Ivo to his place. There at a point between the tiger attack videos, chick-stalker talks and anti-cop butt tattoos we shut down and slept until 9 the next morning. 

the day sounded like: Chicaloyoh, Siyanie, Neznamo, Indo

19/03/13 Plovdiv @ Gramophone Club

w/ Deflax

Getting up at 9:20 looked like a smart decision while I was sleeping, cus Ivo lives about 10 minutes away from the train station, and I bought a ticket the day before. However I got exactly on time for the train and didn't have the chance to buy neither food, nor water, and I even left the house without drinking a single sip. Everyone around me (old dudes and dudettes) had their huge bottles of water and the train didn't stop anywhere for long enough to get my own and I'm talking about 7 hours. I was overwhelmed by water envy. I'm not a person easily giving up due to physical needs, but the second I got off the train I was pouring water and stuffing food down my throat. GREAT TIMES. The weather in Plovdiv was rad, the wind that welcome me at first quickly disappeared, and I hanged out around the city a bit before getting in the venue to set up. That happened around 19, I had just left my laptop to charge, when my hosts Danail and Neff arrived. I went out for a walk with them, we got in a Chinese place so they can grab a bit. While we were there another friend called that she will come to say hi, cus hell it's been ages since we saw each other. We caught up a bit, in one cigarette time exactly, and we got back to the venue. Daniel at Deflax was there and already connected to a fancy DJ mixer that was actually meant to be used on the trance party scheduled after our short ambient evening. I qucikly connected to the same device and for two hours we did a crazy b2b ambient set. I played my stuff, improvised a bit over it and at a point I started playing around with some music by other people. It was fun, we laughed a lot, because it was going on so well as if we've been doing this together for ages. Mixing ambient is great, because it always ends up in something weird that sounds like none of the pieces, which you are actually playing, no matter if those are your own tunes or someone else's. At 22 the trance DJs took over and we packed our stuff. I met some cool people who I only knew from third parties or from the Internet and left for Komatevo, Danail's neighborhood. After a short tour during which I got introduced to the cemetary, bakery, courier office and the ghost house we reached his place. Neff asked me to beat Danail at some game, and I had to kick his ass on Street Fighter on his own arcade. Probably it was luck, but maybe it was Satan playing for me, you'll never know. After that I went to the attic where all bands, which they're bringing to Plovdiv with Youngblood Booking are sleeping, and feeling like Michael Jackson I fell asleep. The next morning was early, but easy. Tonight I'm finally sleeping at home and tomorrow the tour ends with a show I've been waiting since January.

the day sounded like: Julia Holter, Laurel Halo & Daniel Wohl (together)