May starting in Germany

Tomorrow heading to Germany to visit an awesome friend of mine and guess what... to play a bunch of shows there. You can find Mytrip in Leipzig and Berlin. And the best about all this is that I'll be even able to play my third ever show as Dayin again in Berlin. Neat times ahead. 

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Mytrip & Dayin in Germany

TCH & Mytrip Spring Tour - Days 8 & 9 (Lille & Brussels)

This final update is pretty hard to write as the tour is actually over. It ended with a fucking CRASH and I mean that literally. But we'll get back to this. First the nice moments.

Waiting for the ferry with them chickens

07/04 A house show in Lille and a new cat friend

It's about 10 and we're on our way to the ferry that's to take us to the mainland. We're all lined and waiting on the port when it suddenly starts raining so hoping we'll leave that in Britain we get on the bigass boat. All goes smoothly, excluding for the fact I almost forget my phone there but a beautiful French girl is there to save the day and shows it to me as I'm about to leave the chill out zone in the ship. We land in France and head to Lille to find the massive downpour followed us. I swear, I hadn't seen such a hardcore rain in ages. It's pretty intense, with thunders and lighting, a totally crazy ride. A truck driver tries to push us out of the road, but only hits our side mirror. Terrible, terrible drive, but Tim's a pro and makes it all the way to Denis and Susanne's place where we're playing tonight. It's a great, neat home, ruled by the tiny Panique, our first tour cat, which is extremely beautiful and I often find myself struggling to become her friend. But the best is yet to come - after unloading the gear we get nice coffee and then awesome, AWESOME food, freshly cooked and so tasty. It's something between a pie and pizza, with veggies. This and Tim's lasagna - total food hits of the tour! 

And then I get in such a great mood for playing a show. An hour later we're all set up. A bunch of folks come around (quite enough for a Monday evening) and Tim starts. He improvises and all the time I'm sad we're again not recording. After that I play a quiet but a pretty grim set. And then we play together again. People seem to love it, we love it too, and again you can guess - no recordings were made. Whatever happens in Lille stays in Lille. After we play, we chat a bit, actually I mostly sit and listen to music, cus I feel a bit drained. Jean from When Day Chokes The Night is also at the show and he gives me their latest record, Denis also shares a tape of his band Niels Mori, so I have what to listen in the next few days! Aaand then off to bed, at some point in the night I sense tiny steps over me, take a quick peak and here she is, tiny Panique comes to sleep a bit with me. Proud and happy with my new cat friend I fall asleep. 

08/04 Last day of the tour, quite a shitty one

After Denis serves us an uplifting breakfast, with tons of coffee, chocolate and jam we are sadly leaving Lille. Susanne has left to work early in the morning but thankfully she shows up exactly when we're on the door so we have the chance to say goodbye to her as well. Lovely, lovely people, with a love for music, the way it should be. No rain today and we think it's gonna be a better day. We reach Antwerp in no time, I meat Peter from Ashtoreth at his palace of a home. We pick his gear, get him in the car and we head to Brussels. His performance with Tim is our surprise for the show tonight, but no...

Great photo skills, right... still a quick look in Peter's secret garden

About 50 kms from Brussels we stop on a traffic light and we get fucking hit by a garbage truck. It hits us not once but twice, we leave the car shouting, shocked and surprised. Somehow knowing... that was the end of the tour. The car is smashed as well as one of Peter's guitar. Thankfully we're all safe and sound. As I write this Tim is probably been towed to the UK without his gear, because the car is totally damaged and can't be repaired. Poor, poor Phil. A terrible end of our tour. Tim and the truck driver fill insurance forms, we try one garage but it's not the right one and we're back in Peter's place. A minute later I'm catching a tram to the train statiton. I gotta be in Brussels for my early flight tomorrow. I somehow get from the Central Station to Cafe Central. I even play the show. Apologies to all nice people who were there to make this happen for I wasn't really responsive and adequate. I still am not. Big ups for Nyko for setting up such a great show, for finding me a nice place to sleep for several hours.

Poor car after shit truck hit us

Now the working day is over and I guess it's high time I took a proper rest.

Endless thanks to Tim for making this tour happen, thanks to Didi for letting me crash at her place so many times. Thanks to each and single promoter (you're all mentioned somewhere in this diary). Thanks to the people who showed up to the shows and all friends who I knew only online and managed to come and really meet me. It was fantastic, if only it didn't end that way. But at least we made it alive.

And we'll keep playing music, despite the nasty fucking truck drivers, fuck off!

TCH & Mytrip Spring Tour - Days 5, 6 & 7 (London, a day off & Bristol)

04/04 First proper gig in London

So today is our second show in London, but unlike the quite self-indulgent night in St. Clement's this is actually supposed to be more crowded and gig like. And indeed James has done great work preparing and promoting the event so not long after arriving and setting up the awesome MK II space we're ready to go and Prolonged Version (with James himself and Charlie aboard) kick it. They're playing a noisy, rhythmic and quite industrial music. I'm really into the control over the frequencies they show and take advantage of. With many peaks and drops of tension they're challenging and interesting to listen from start to end. After them on stage comes Wooly's Colossloth which totally blows my mind, I can't really put it in genres, sometimes it's spacey, sometimes harsh and bassy but super detailed all the time. Especially his last piece, which I wanna play around with so much. The only thing that a bit fragments the fun is the gaps between pieces, but I guess that's because of the limited amount of gear cheap travelling is allowing Wooly to carry. After him we have MW, Mark Wagner is the person responsible for this great art space we're about to play and his music is another example for his great dedication to arts. Vocal based and ritual drones are layered over shamanic drumming, a lot of intelligent looping, great primal and dark atmosphere with nice build ups!

Soundchecking at MK II

After Mark finishes, a cigarette time for the crowd which is actually pretty impressive as a number and I start. I play some slightly uplifting pieces, resample a bunch of Dayin tracks as well as some stuff I wrote for some video art pieces, but then I get it super low and super dark as usual, no surprises here haha. Tonight Tim is playing last, he's fully improvising and the outcome is superb, as usual no recordings, only memories are made that night. I like it that way. After we're done, we chat a bit (Jeff and Christine came over again, and so did George). We all agree it has been a great night, and one of the total tour highlights and we head home.

05/04 A day off, Brighton memories and one hell of a lasagna

It's not a surprise I'm not so much into the whole tourist thing so after Didi, Tim and I go for a quick breakfast somewhere near their house I come back hyper full and return to the bed to play Tim's brand new record with Ashtoreth and damn it's great. I'll be reviewing that on DIYconspiracy as soon as I'm back in Sofia with my head put back together. Another thing I'm playing today is the recording from our collab in Brighton and boy I like it so much. Can't wait to hear it on my KRKs at home, cus in the end is so apocalyptic and low.

Rab my main dawg

However the star of the day off (besides Rab the dog, my main London mate) is Tim and his veggie lasagna. I still can't believe I actually did eat that amount of food, but it was so tasty wheew. My grandma would be so proud! Actually any grandma would be so proud!

06/04 Last UK show, Bristol

It's Sunday and before we've got too lazy from chilling out the day before we're up and ready to hit the road for our last show in England. That's happening in Bristol's Zam Zam Rec and it's set up by Olmo and Heloise. Me, Tim and James Shearman (yes, London James) arrive in the city around 16:30 and a minute later we're served nice vegan pasta with a fresh, fresh salad. Bob from Toronto (Wizard Of) who's the other person on the bill for tonight has already arrived, so we're in for a nice chat, nice food, some strong coffee and we're ready to go. The show is happening in a small rehearsal room. While we set up our stuff my friend Steve Cammack from Dieter Müh and Sound Art Radio shows up. It's so great to finally meet him after all those mails and letters we've exchanged!

Poopy picture of a great place, Zam Zam Rec

A bit later on the venue is pretty much packed and we start the show with James playing a vocal drone / dark ambient set with a lot of layering and looping. Something quite interesting and quite different from what he did with Prolonged Version. We all enjoy it a lot, because he knows what he's going for and how to do it. No matter he's only 19 years old. An awesome enthusiastic fellow, quite inspiring. After him it's my turn. I play nothing different and special except for few noisy tunes I've been forgetting about all this tour - namely Meat Extraction and Small Humyn, they work out nice with the atmosphere and inevitably lead to Feu which I guess is my favourite Mytrip piece lately hehe. People seem to enjoy the set. After me it's Tim's turn. This time he decides to go the other way around with his music - he goes from loud to super quiet and it's very nice. He makes some great drones and tiny melodies with micro sounds from the strings. Really cool stuff. Even the band rehearsing next door stops so we can fully enjoy his set. After he's done Bob jumps in with his sonic sorcery. He plays a specific mixture of dubstep, hardcore, sometimes even straight forward hip hop beats with a loooooot of harsh bass. All that through the huge bass amp and the PA in the rehearsal room, quite loud and massive. I enjoy it and so do all people around. After the show is over we pretty much pack our stuff and head to London cus the ferry to France is waiting for us. Yes it's an early start today.

TCH & Mytrip Spring Tour - Days 3 & 4 (York & Brighton)

It's again a London morning as I write this, but let me take you back some time to see how we got back here.

02/03 The shortest drive of the tour - York

So we wake up at Duncan's place and we go for a breakfast, English style. Even though it's already 2 pm and the cafe we got in don't really serve that anymore, we explain there's a Bulgarian here and some minutes later two times full veggie breakfast is on the table with two big mugs of great black coffee. Everything is so tasty, even for the non-eater that I usually I am. Anyhow we sadly gotta go. We pack and jump in the car for what is known as the shortest tour drive ever. About thirty kilometres later we're in York where it's quite coldish. The venue is not open yet so we go for a walk. The place is great, exactly the way I picture England - small, tidy houses, huge cathedrals, tiny shops, nothing like the glass rape monolithic buildings in London. While wandering around we see a guy playing the guitar, Tim approaches him to drop some money in his guitar case, we agree he sounds really nice then we are about to walk away Tim stops and goes back to listen, cus it actually sounds way better than just nice. Later on we learn his name is David Ward Maclean, definitely not your ordinary busker, but a man with so much stories soaked in his guitar, voice and songs.

Doing the tourist thing - making photos of churches.

So at some point we get back to the Woolpack Inn which is now open. It's a very cosy venue and it has started building a nice local scene with music from acoustic singer-songwriter stuff to experimental thingies like ours. Paul and Sid are awesome dudes and do their best to make our night as great as possible. We meet Tom who's also playing the night as ssiitabbag, then a quick soundcheck and we're ready to go. ssiitabbag plays something between electroacoustic-music, ambient, and a bit of music concrete maybe, has several really nice tunes with interesting lows. After his set a huge part of the audience bails on the show and leaves, good stuff mates, support your local scene, fuck the guests hahah England to the English. Anyhow, It's my turn to play and sadly the adapter I've borrowed from Tim dies and I'm left with about 80 per cent battery to make the show tomorrow, when hopefully somebody will help out. I get some old visuals going on and with the awesome PA the set sounds rad. I even overplay a bit, sorry folks, this never happens haha. Then Tim jumps on the stage, plays three songs, the second being an improvisation piece inspired by our day in York and for the third one Duncan joins him with his acoustic guitar and they sound great! After that we're in for a quick tea and of course sleep.

Fake York cats, gotta get some, they seem to be pooping less.

03/04 The longest drive of the tour - Brighton

The next day starts a bit earlier because ahead of us is the longest drive on the tour. Tim has to drive us all the way from the North to the Southern city of Brighton, which he does in exactly 5 hours. Nothing special is usually happening when you're travelling except for spotting a place for fish & chips called Frying Nemo... Not cool, people, not cool. Soo, back in Brighton we reach the venue which looks awesome. Stephen O'Malley, Pure Love posters on the walls... it looks like a place with history and tonight me and Tim are doing a collab piece. We soundcheck then we go for chips. And this is extreme, just looking at the amount of salt the guy is putting on our hardcore fried potatoes makes me lose my sight slightly. While eating I can hear my stomach crying for help, but when in England you gotta do it as the English. After we hang out a bit with the free improvisation duo Baby that's playing the night and Geoff who's putting the show and the whole Spirit of Gravity gig series we go to see the sea. We wander around the city and without a doubt this one is my total favourite of the tour, a place that I'd come back for sure - hip people on the streets, nice venues, small and cosy houses, seaside what else do you need?

Brighton wall cats saying stuff. Carved in ancient times.

We're back in the venue and Pale Graphs is just about to begin. It's a local act I guess, playing very interesting and intense techno live set, quite Detroitish, but quite abstract at some points as well. After him Baby are on the stage - a free improv duo with a vibraphone, drums, guitar and flute. They play around with overtones, dynamics, human breath and very avant-garde melodies and phrases which all combined results in a very tight and yet very spacey performance. Totally a highlight of the tour. And then we go. We set up, and we play, and damn it's good, no matter it's our first ever collab, on the stage it sounds so blended and structured it's totally worth the drive. After the set people seem happy, they come and greet us for the piece and yeah, I guess me and Tim gotta do that again some time. Hopefully in Bulgaria! One of the finest things about the show was the crash machine, a bunch of toy synths, a tiny guitar and effects that the audience can play in between the bands instead of some DJ mumbo-jumbo irrelevant shit. Great idea, great!

After the gig we jump in the car, me excited from the gig (and that can of Red Bull) and an hour later Tim drops us at his place where we shut down. Next one is a gig in London, then a day-off and last show in the UK - in Bristol.

TCH & Mytrip Spring Tour - Days 1 & 2 (London & Leeds)

31/03 A free improv night in London

So a not so early start of the day is always welcome and gotta be at the airport about 10 is perfect. I get there, go through a fast check and surrounded by a good number of English accents (Bulgarian being one of the best ones) I wait for the gate to open. Almost no delays and we're up in the air flying. As with all other means of transportation I sleep on this one as dead. And some hours later we land in London. After playing a bit of human snake before the passport control (Britain is great at queueing indeed) I meet Tim and we're on our way to his place. London is too huge for my taste, thankfully I gotta guide cus otherwise I'd sure be popping in the suburbs end up among the wrong football crowd.

So we reach Tim and Didi's house where I have the chance to meet its guard - the awesome Rab, who sadly won't be allowed dog coffee as he's 12 but so energetic. After a quick coffee spill on me and we're best pals, something the mailman will never experience as Rab is quite an anti-post office guard.

Anyhow we're in for a nice homemade pizza, a tasty salad, then after the coffee it's some ginger tea and we're ready to hit the train to St. Clement's Church for a free improv night and a warm-up for our tour. After a bit of circling in the small streets of big London we're there. Even my friend Jeff Cloke who we've tried to book twice to play Bulgaria but there always were some issues is here with his wife. Georgi is here too. Great times.

And the place is lovely. With great acoustics, such a fat reverb that you want to hug it and we started playing, I play the laptop a bit, Tim plays the guitar then the piano, his friend Andy makes a neat circuit of effect pedals and other peculiar gear all through a tiny Orange amp. There's also Tom playing a flute (if I remember correct) and Pete Yelding playing a very cool cello. Then I play a bit with Tim's guitar, Duncan who we met some hours before is on the piano (and snoring later) and happy and refreshed we get back to Tim's so we get some sleep.

01/04 First proper gig in Leeds

Sunny Leeds from Dave's door

Leeds is not super far from London so we leave at about 12 after Tim cooks us tasty toasts, scrambled eggs and some cheese. All this with an immense cup of awesome coffee and we're ready to go. We pack his beast of a pedal board and everything else is easy. The second I'm in the car I'm asleep, even Duncan is not able to wake me up for several hours haha. At Leeds we leave him at his place and go to Dave's who's setting up the show. Then more coffee, a nice veggie cream soup with cheese sandwiches, then even more coffee and we go to Fenton. It's a cool place over the ordinary part of a bar, we set up, soundcheck a bit and wait for some folks to show up. 

Our neat stage

About 20:40 I start playing cus that's how I like it - play first, then enjoy the rest of the show. Not so many people show up but it's fun, the sets are awesome, and Now Wash Your Hands is hell of a project - "the cleanest power electronics act" really stands for something. I'll show you a video. A great surprise is that the whole Aetheric Records crew join the show so I finally meet Alistair who did great job releasing the mother spit debut 'carve', and who knows we may have cool new plans now! This time arranged in real life hehe.

After the show we head for Duncan's place to sleep, yea sleep is good. It's about twelve now and time for coffee, breakfast and then York, which is actually pretty close.