сряда, 4 декември 2013 г.

mother spit debut out on Aetheric Records


Finally out through an awesome label, in a super limited edition, on the format we've always envisioned this piece to published.

mother spit live 250410
  
A tiny disclaimer - mother spit is Angel S. (Mytrip) and Martin L. (gokkun). It's a collab that has existed only live. Our music is somewhere between drone, ambient and noise. We create in a total decline of any other communication means, but the sound itself, which is developing on its own as much as its manually shaped. We basically played one live per year from 2009 until 2011. We're still trying to find all recordings from those shows, hopefully they're not forever lost. We almost got re-united in 2013, but eventually it didn't happen.

mother spit ft. Tsveti live 060411
A lot of love for the boutique UK label Aetheric Records who have decided to put out our debut as an extremely limited run of 3” CDr's and of course as a Digital Download. The awesome Stephen Cammack was also kind enough to do a short write up on what's in 'carve'.


In a world of grey.
In the surround of abandonment.
The offer to crawl from the scorched earth.
And drown in the freezing pool of mother spit.
A post apocalyptic feel, very Eastern European - the escaping gas swirling around only inches above the earth...

~ Stephen Cammack (SoundArt Radio, Dieter Müh)



Looking so much for the moment when me and Martin L. will be playing live again. In the meanwhile enjoy 'carve', send us some feedback, and maybe at some point we'll confess that we do have one more piece waiting somewhere unedited to be set free one day. Hmm... as I said, until then... 'carve'.

събота, 9 ноември 2013 г.

Leaver and some upcoming travels

I guess I have to start using this blog not only to show off current works and feedback, but for more everyday writings. Something that's not boring people to death. Will see if I do it, however it feels pretty dead here already, I hope there's still somebody catching up on stuff from time to time.

And as you can guess from the introduction, this one will be again for the good old showing off. After the recent (June 2013) cuts of all bands I had been involved in I was left with quite a lot of time and energy for new music, and it somehow resulted in something new. It's a project called Leaver, it's a duet with Daniel Donchov, a good fellow, who's taken up my place as a bassist in Expectations. The project brings my work in the drone / ambient field together with a taste of singer-songwriter stuff in a pretty interesting and enjoyable, especially for playing live, mixture.

Here's a video with a live sound of our very first rehearsal.




We already have a full record written, artworks prepared. What's left is to be recorded and published. We already have 3, 4 shows scheduled and spanning over what's left of this year and the beginning of the next one. The debut is on November 13 w/ the Polish Drip of Lies, and Torah, a pretty cool sludge duo, also based here in Sofia, Bulgaria. 

131113 Leaver (debut) w/ Torah & Drip Of Lies (PL) @ Sofia
Another show in December will be announced shortly, but the better news are for something happening in March 2014. Info will be unleashed late December.

As to my other activities, I've got a bunch of records I'm pretty proud of coming in the next few months, including the debut mother spit 3" CDr which I was trying to find a home for almost 3 years until I reached the rad people at Aetheric Records. Mytrip is also putting out something new, a quite harsh and extreme split tape w/ Human Larvae on Danvers State Recordings (US). Until then I'll be playing several weekend shows, for currently I'm a busy corporate dude with a day job, investing every coin saved in new gear so I can get back to freelancing as soon as possible!

Here's some posters and events. Hear you soon.

3011 Mytrip & Portable Elephant @ Question Mark, Bucharest

0112 Mytrip & Portable Elephant @ Old School, Rousse

понеделник, 30 септември 2013 г.

As Far Away As Near (2013)


Watch an excerpt of the video at serapionov.info

'As Far Away As Near' (2013) is another video art piece featuring my music, this time in a collaboration with my buddy Martin Lukanov. The piece is a work by Kalin Serapionov. It's combining various night city landscapes, all filmed at random. Our task in building and structuring the sound was to create an absurd soundscape, merging with the lo-fi urban ambiance, already captured by the camera. 

What we did was play around with a no-input circuit using an almost broken mixing board. Besides all inner sounds emerging in the console I played a lot of synths and various software instruments, and we got their sound destroyed by the mixer as well.

The result? Well you have to hear it. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes piercing your ears with ultrasounds and often it reaches harsh ambient/drone or almost industrial peaks. 'As Far Away As Near' (2013) has already been presented abroad, and from October 2nd until November 2nd it will be shown in ICA Sofia. The opening is on October 1st at 18:00. Details here.


четвъртък, 29 август 2013 г.

'[UN]Limited Edition' (2013)

'[UN]Limited Edition' in progress.
Pretty soon after I collaborated with Iskra Ivanova on her video art piece 'Corpus', already presented in detail here, we are again knee deep in a new common project, this time with the visual artist Neno Belchev aboard. This brand new collaboration, named '[UN]Limited Edition', will bring me for a first time in the field of contemporary dance. In 2012 I took part as a part of a live sound session for a performance of a similar type called "Хлябът на живота". However, back then me, |14| and Teeth of Divine basically played live ambient/drone/noise improvisation set during the performance, which we hadn't seen beforehand. 

This time the process is far more organized as this project is actually Iskra's first artist residency at the awesome Derida Dance Center in Sofia. So far I can't really disclose any details about the music, but I'll surely post some snippets as soon as I structure all that's in my head.

It's premiere for Sofia is scheduled for 27/09 at Derida Dance Center and the performance will start at 21:30. The performance will be shown in Varna on the next day - 28/09 at contemporary space.

 
[UN]Limited Edition @ Contemporary space, Varna

More info (in Bulgarian) about all of us, and the project can be found here. Here's an excerpt of the sound ambience I've created for the piece.

неделя, 18 август 2013 г.

Corpus (2013)

As I explained few posts ago, my freshly abandoned music activities in the hardcore/punk/metal scene will be replaced by sticking more to electro-acoustic and media music. Not only because this is the field I want to grow in, but it's also the place where I can independently develop my music without other (master) minds interfering in my aesthetic choices. One of the latest results of this is called "CORPUS", it's short film, somewhere between video art and visual music. It was initiated and created by the Bulgarian contemporary dancer and performance artist Iskra Ivanova and it's featuring a piece I exclusively created and recorded.The good news is that collab won't be our last, so keep an eye for updates are coming soon!

"The main goal of this video is to show the body beyond cultural, anthropological, social, political and tribal beliefs.
"

A curious fact about the piece I created for the video is that it was solely composed on a mobile device. Then it was heavily resampled and reamped, thus retaining its original structure. The only additional element was a speech recording of Iskra explaining the concept of the project, which after my intervention became one of the leading "melodies" in the piece.


CORPUS from Iskra Ivanova on Vimeo.

понеделник, 1 юли 2013 г.

Surviving '100 years Mahorka'


Last year after I played Artmospheric I was pretty sure I have to stick to making open air shows. The feeling of your own music spreading in a free environment, and its interaction with nature was a factor too interesting to be not examined further. This year the event was way smaller, cosier and really DIY. Called '100 Years of Mahorka' and curated by the oldest Bulgarian net-label (Mahorka). Curated is a pretty strong word for what we experienced there so let's limit the description to initiated. It started in the night of June 28th in an awesome forest near a beach and some abandoned campsites some 20, 30 kilometres from Varna. We got there on the next (Saturday) morning after the usual 8 hours in the Sofia-Varna train, 3 of which by law spent on our feet. We found the generator dead as it ran out of gas several hours ago, just like all other survivors from last night. So we also lied down for an early nap.

Our roof
Around 10 most of the people hatched from their tents and hideouts. Several artists pussied about the lack of strict line up and organization and left the festival, as they I guess felt the need for somebody telling them what and when to do. In an hour the generator was filled with gas and Ivo at Skylined (one of the two main persons behind the event) started blasting his favorites among weird music. At a point we ran, or actually dragged ourselves to the beach, but shortly came back to find the 'stage' almost abandoned and our line up quickly started forming itself.

Line up in the making
Todor at r3s (whose stash of dried foods kept me alive, cus once again I was travelling cashless meaning also foodless) dropped a rad IDM set, heavily gravitating around the new Boards Of Canada. After him Moodix followed and he was totally an awesome discovery as so far I only knew him from several tracks from the old myspace. His melodic tracks with minimalist and grainy rhythms were a great soundtrack to the magical place we found ourselves in. After he finished it was my turn. The sun has started to hide and as Daniel at Deflax (whose set I sadly missed as he played the last night) noted the dusk was the perfect time for Mytrip. In 45 minutes of music I walked through looping and heavily resampled field recordings, effected beyond recognition recent tracks of mine, some of which will come out soon accompanying video works, and finally I continued with the usual layering of heavy, but this time quite more melodic, yet still abrasive soundscapes. I hope I'll be able to recreate some part of all I played and share it as I was having a lot of fun building my set. After me Portable Elephant came on stage, heavily equipped with guitar pedals and in general tons of gear. Thankfully it didn't rain during their set, because it would have been quite detrimental hahah. Their show was awesome and really interesting as usual. Angel and Kaloyan surely have been playing a lot together, because even improvising their sound was structured and co-ordinated which is amazing and makes their music really powerful. However Portable Elephant was the last live show for the night.

Portable Elephant Live @ 100 години Махорка (откъс)

Radio Noah from Varna came on stage after them and played the best DJ set for the day/night. Obscure ambient tracks, mixed in a very creative and detailed manner. This with the darkness that embraced our sacred place of isolation made Nikolay's performance really precious. After that I've fallen asleep on some jungle/dnb music. At a certain point I woke up to find Brokoli aboard with his signature set ranging from oldschool rave, to heavy breakcore and weird and crazy intermissions such as oldschool Bulgarian music (all hail the beloved Rosi Kirilova hahah). However, even his tunes weren't sufficient to beat my tiredness and at a point I've fallen asleep again wrapped in the sleeping bag. The next thing that woke me up were rain drops falling over me. We knew that on Sunday it's gonna rain, but we kinda expected it later and not at 4 o'clock in the morning.

I got up and started assembling my stuff, I put everything under a tree thinking it's just a tiny rain and it will pass soon. All around in the darkness there were people running around caring and hiding their gear. I saw Brokoli running all over the place screaming 'Fuck this shit, this is worse than the cops stopping your party". A car was brought to host the soundsystem as the rain was getting heavier and a certain point I realized we're kinda fucked up, as me and Plamen at fl3xibl3 were the only people with no tents. For a few moments, from perfectly calm I went pretty anxious as I realized I was already soaking wet and so was my backpack stuffed with gear. We found the table on the 'scene' and hid our shit there as it was the only place not touched but the rain. However water was slowly coming to flood it too, so we stayed under the rain just hoping it will pass soon. And it did actually slow down. That very same second we grabbed our stuff and headed for the bus stop which is some 15-20 minutes of walking down the road. It was already 4:40 so the sky started getting lighter and we were even able to see where we were walking. The rain didn't start again and we safely got to the bus stop. Thankfully our backpacks held our gear dry and this was the only thing that mattered. I dried myself and changed clothes. The rest was easy, a bus came to take us to Varna, then we walked around the grumpy morning city and at 10 I got on the train to Sliven. Too bad we couldn't say bye to our mates, as it was a great gathering, too bad the rain firmly ended the festival so early, and we missed a lot of sets, by people who travelled a lot to play, but I guess this was just another reason to do such a gathering again! Big ups to Oshogy, Ivo, VPD and everybody involved in organizing this. No ups for the people who pussied out instead of sticking to the event so we make it even bigger. But I guess this is the answer why we don't really have a stronger alternative scene in Bulgaria, cus people prefer their bedrooms and Internet as a showcase of their work, than the greater atmosphere of such a friendly and intimate event. Long live Mahorka. See you on your 1000 years anniversary!

четвъртък, 27 юни 2013 г.

A two-week long life-changer

As you may have noticed the freshly-ended Expectations tour wasn't covered by the usual online diary. Not that it wasn't fine, but at a point you just realize that everybody who's been in a band or is somehow involved in a scene of some sort has already heard all the '12 hours in the van', 'no hot water and shower', 'finally getting some sleep in real beds' mumbo-jumbo. That's why I skipped the stories this time. The tour itself has been pretty life-changing as I had the chance to reconsider my ideas of music and came to the conclusion a big part of what I've been involved in is just not worth it. That's why after the summer Expectations Euro tour ended I decided to call it quits. And I mean to call it quits in general, and leave all bands I've been involved in so far. I won't mention names, as the status of all of them is pretty different. To some I surely don't want to be related ever again, to others I'll keep contributing as a studio collaborator and it's highly possible that I also perform live again, still on an irregular basis. The reasons are pretty clear, just check what music is being mostly played and appreciated in the hardcore/punk/metal scenes. It says it all. 

Piss off, I'm going solo.

What's left for me now, besides tons of reading and messing around with musical theory, are my sound endeavors in the fields of ambient, drone and experimental music, which thankfully are dependent only on my sole ambition to create music, and reflect only my ideology and aesthetics, which I find most appropriate right now. I'm planning to dig deeper in media music (short film, performance, theater, exhibitions, visual music) and soon I'll reveal many common projects with film-makers and alternative artists which have been in the making for the last several months. In September I'm presenting my MA thesis on Ambient music so feel free to wish me luck. And yes, I'll still be booking shows and writing about music, and I'll be more critical than ever.

If you're still curious how the last Expectations tour with me on board went, have a look below. A tour video is in the works as far as I'm aware of so an updated version of this post will follow.

020613 Frenchbulldog Live @ Dirty, Pecs, Hungary

080613 Live @ Sentinel, Bilbao, Spain

160613 Live @ Boat Club Ladja, Belgrade, Serbia

And it's highly advised to check those bands I met on the road, as they were really making something different out of their music.

Les 2 Minutes De La Haine from Tarbes, France

Dearest from Wurzburg Germany

четвъртък, 23 май 2013 г.

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/

сряда, 15 май 2013 г.

Feedback *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.

EUS / Mytrip - Split (2014)

'...cold as stone and at the same time more cohesive and monolithic.' // Santa Sangre
'...and dare I say almost soothing in parts!' // 4.9/5, tunning into the obscure
'This 60-minute ferric odyssey is full of masterful drones, both acoustic and electronic, proving, once again, that drone is not a dirty word.' // tape of the week, forest punk
'''Life" with its windswept post-apocalyptic barren landscape feel is similar to the mother spit 3" CDr. "Less" is more sinister.' // MuhMur

Human Larvae / Mytrip - Split (2014)
'Instead of killing you in a brutal attack, MYTRIP chooses the slow and painful approach to slaughtering your senses.' // Traumatic Static Webzine
'Ce qui nous tue à petit feu, ne nous rend pas nécessairement plus fort...' // Nova Express
'Noir, c'est noir.' // Des Cendres a La Cave
'Yes the violence is still there yet it refuses to reach noise levels, just discomfort levels.' // Beach Sloth


mother spit - carve (2013)

'If freedom ever had a soundtrack it would be this, simply perfectly formed fields of gray sound.' // Beach Sloth
'Using a carefully selected palette of eerie, droning electronics the track quite deliberately, and very successfully, creates a cosmically chilling Lovecraftian vibe.' // radio free midwich
'Simitchiev and Lukanov are certainly not playing with warm and fuzzy emotions, and create something akin to an art house horror film soundtrack. It all has a gradual, ritualistic, organic feel to it..' // Yeah I Know It Sucks

Mytrip - Scattered I (2013)

'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 
'A living breathing creature made entirely out of sound' // Beach Sloth 
 'Despite this release’s darkness, this is the one of the most accessible releases to come from this genre...  not too noisy or too cluttered with distortion. It has that perfect amount of edge to it.'
// tuningintoobscure
'The sound production and collage is so deep and intensively well produced that it somehow puts me in a total trance state that makes the job of reviewing almost impossible.' // Yeah I Know It Sucks

zev died orchestra - I (2012)

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

Expectations - Gone EP (2012)

"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)

'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)

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

Mytrip | EUS - Split (2012)

'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)

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

Martin Lukanov & Mytrip (2011)

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

четвъртък, 18 април 2013 г.

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.


 

сряда, 10 април 2013 г.

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.


'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!

понеделник, 8 април 2013 г.

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.

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. 

петък, 22 март 2013 г.

'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.

сряда, 20 март 2013 г.

'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)

неделя, 17 март 2013 г.

'Trainbient II' (first half)

15/03/13 Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria @ TAM
w/ DreamOde
The beginning of every single travel I've started the last few years was either marked by me running late for trains/cars/buses/whatever or/and the thought why the hell I didn't stay in bed. TRAINBIENT II was surely not an exception as it started with both. I missed the first train to Veliko Tarnovo and after the second one I pretty much had to ran with backpacks as heavy as me. However getting inside was just the beginning of a damn long ride. Most of the time I slept, and barely played music as I kinda felt I have to be listening to the damn ambience more, as it's a damn ambient tour. In the beginning everything was fine, actually it ended quite fine except for the almost two hour delay because of the insane weather which the day before destroyed a region in the northern part of Bulgaria, oh yea and a 15 year old dude with blood pressure issues (hi Misho, you're not alone). Anyhow, at 19 o'. I was already climbing the stairs of Veliko Tarnovo with my host Tsvetan (DreamOde). We quickly got in the venue which was super cosy and warm, we set up the gear and between the talks about the blooming lesbian community in the city we even played. First solo sets, then a short, but cool collab. Afterwards there were people sharing it was quite a depressive performance, which is one of the best things you can tell Angel after a show, it makes me feel accomplished wohoo. We rapidly packed the equipment, stayed for few Abba tunes and wicked dance movies from the 50s, and with Tsvetan and Ro on the lead went for a quick night snack. Then for a quick stop at a reggae party and a longer stop at a Nirvana tribute. Then we landed home for rejuvenation. The morning was easy, because the way to the train station is down the endless stairs of Veliko Tarnovo. Big ups to everyone who I met and successfully depressed, big ups for the lesbian community and the Nirvana tribute band.
the day souded like: Locust Of The Dead Earth, Olafur Arnalds

16/03/13 Rousse, Bulgaria @ Mazeto
w/ Portable Elephant, Skylined
No chanting through virtual amps = no fun
Twenty five damn years on this world I turned that day, and the best way to celebrate it is by spending some another 4, 5 hours in the train, then playing a show with cool mates. I reached Rousse some twenty minutes before 2 o'. Then went for a cup of coffee with my name mate Angel (Polygon Ring, Portable Elephant). The weather here was cool, especially if you didn't really spend too much time outside. After a thorough and a bit eclectic conversation about pretty much everything we stopped at his place to charge batteries, enhance the sound set ups for the night, and then we went to a meeting with quite an unexpected guest namely Ivo from the cult BG netlabel Mahorka and the experimental act Skylined. He not only came from Pleven for the show, but even joined us for an improvised set. After this awesome surprise we got to Mazeto, which is always awesome. We terrorized the first visitors with a soundcheck, then with a selection of crazy music from Mahorka's catalogue, and then I started the show. Speakers were cracking under my mindless low frequency abuse, stereo channels were coming and going due to crazy cables, but it was a cool, short and intense set. Then Portable Elephant with Angel and Kaloyan on board slammed a mighty and detailed improvisation with Monotribe, field recordings and heavily processed guitars, which at points sounded almost as rough as Ben Frost, and sometimes reached the epic heights of orchestral strings. Then we ended the live part of the night with a huge improv collaboration, which sadly none of us was smart enough to record from the mixer, cool ha? The conclusion? Well, next time come to the show, cus we'll probably forget to record it again. Right after the show someone played Nirvana, I guess it had become kinda tradition hah. Then we pretty much closed Mazeto with tons of electronic tunes of all genres, then went for a quick bite at a place who was in a total decline of the public smoking ban and the rest was bed, blankets and the weirdest party dream. The coolest birthday ever.

the day sounded like: John Coltrane, The Smiths
17/03/13 Shoumen, Bulgaria @ Delphina
w/ the poetry of Ралица Красимирова, Тони Теллалов, Кольо Колев, Владимир Диловски, Красимир Вардиев, Антоний Петров

I played for like 30 minutes so we can see the credits, no I didn't just took a photo
The morning started promising with a hot shower, oath meal punch and again jumping on the train in the last minute. As it was Sunday both trains I switched were pretty packed. At about 17 o' I reached Shoumen. After a walk in zig-zag to avoid the massive crow shitting in the park I reached the center, which is signature for its endless amount of free public wi-fi. I stood like a creep in front of a local cafe to catch up on some mails and messages until my Ipod stated battery low, then few quick phone calls to Ralica and Antonii and half an hour later we were all gathered at Delphina, which has become a traditional point for our music/poetry symbiosis. The people at the place know us already so everything was set up really fast, this time we even had multimedia so George's visuals were added to my solo set. However before that all five authors read awesome stuff that I haven't heard before, during and between them I was improvising with a crazy digital set up of field recordings, random synths, noise generators even the simple nanoloop app on my Ipod. After the live part ended people showed up saying this time we were perfectly balanced, synchronized and the music was awesome. I guess we did our job well. After that I packed, got a cool book from one of the poets and ate all Mentos candy that Ralica had. I'm finishing this story from Ivan's place. He's a cool dude, living a free and modest life just the way he wants, and it's great that on this tour all people I've met are actually doing the same. And the coolest thing about that is you can pretty much do the same if you want. Now I bury myself under layers of droning blankets, cus I have a date with the sea tomorrow.
the day sounded like: Anemone Tube, Julianna Barwick, Black Table

Shoumen says 'Don't Shower', but it was Sunday sorry :(

четвъртък, 14 март 2013 г.

Mytrip - TRAINBIENT II mini tour

It's been quite a silent year for Mytrip so far and I guess it's high time I changed this. After last year's short travels DRONE THE BALKANS and TRAINBIENT I'll be hitting the road again. This time the shows are 6 and they are only in Bulgaria, which for me is a great thing. I hope it will be a successful experiment that will prove the fact ambient exists and is appreciated everywhere. Here are the details, event links, dates, everything. TRAINBIENT II starting tomorrow, see you somewhere. I'll be travelling only by train so see you somewhere in/between the wagons. 


15.03 Велико Търново @ ТАМ // + Dreamode
http://www.facebook.com/events/426328217461484/

16.03 Русе @ бар Мазето // + Portable Elephant
http://www.facebook.com/events/534968936543522/

17.03 Шумен @ кафе Делфина //
+ поезия oт Ралица Красимирова, Тони Теллалов, Кольо Колев, Владимир Диловски, Красимир Вардиев, Антоний Петров
http://www.facebook.com/events/295494327245701/

18.03 Варна @ бар Bolla // + Swamp Fire b2b r3s corporales
http://www.facebook.com/events/342369995867518/

19.03 Пловдив @ клуб Gramophone // + Deflax
http://www.facebook.com/events/247782932025005/

21.03 София @клуб Studio (DJ set) // + Еnvironments, Valerinne, Trysth, Torah
http://www.facebook.com/events/254688581329123/

http://facebook.com/mytripx
http://facebook.com/amekcollective

повечето постери са по фотографии на Георги Челебиев