Expectations July 2024

 Playing Exit Festival (Novi Sad, Serbia) and Hills of Rock (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) in July with Expectations. 

Photo by Stella Gocheva

Dayin "Aching Halo" EP & "Wings Filled With Water" (video)

I'm happy to share a new Dayin digital-only EP, a follower of last year's Mahorka cassette reissue of my previous self-released material. Below you'll find both the Bandcamp link (no other streaming options for this one) and a video I put together for the closing track.

Aching Halo is available on Bandcamp as a name-your-price download.

"When marshes become deserts the ruins of our hands will blossom again."

Thanks for still listening and caring.

Кадзе (premiere June 13, 2024)

After contributing sound design to Metheor Collective's "Дарума" back in 2021, I'm happy to share "Кадзе". Its somewhat spiritual successor premieres on June 13 at Sofia's Lumiere Cinema. Find your tickets here.

Born Erased "I Am The End Of The World" CS

The debut album of my new music endeavor Born Erased has been just released. "I Am The End Of The World" dropped on November 17 via my beloved and freshly restarted tape label BLWBCK. Find more info about the album below. It's streaming everywhere but consider scoring a cassette while they last.

Order on tape & digital.

I Am The End of The World is the first offering of Born Erased, a new endeavor by Bulgarian musician Angel Simitchiev, who first appeared on BLWBCK in 2013 with his now-defunct alias Mytrip. As both the project name and album title suggest, the music is meant to evoke bleaker, darker, and even dystopian visions. These are parts of a narrative that is simultaneously deeply personal and universal. Muted anger, despise, and hatred for the world collide with hope for freedom, even if it comes at the cost of the total eradication of the reality we are forced to live in. 

I Am The End of The World took nearly three years to be completed. The backbone of the record was written in a breath but then slowly structured and expanded upon. In this album, Simitchiev juxtaposes his nearly two decades' worth of ambient research with his long involvement in hardcore punk. Severely deformed guitars, cavernous synths, and drastically manipulated recordings of heavy machinery are organically intertwined to become the core of the album. A big part of why it is so impactful is that the gates were open for several guest musicians who added even more depth and character to a record already highly dense with sound. Moss Harvest (tape manipulation and textures) and V0LAND (cello) are found on two of the more straightforward ambient tracks in the album. Shattering, almost doom-influenced live drums on three of the tracks have been performed by Boris Malevanov (Nocktern, Heptagram) which brings this otherwise fragile and drifting genre to its most extreme form.

© Silvana Ilieva

Written & recorded by Angel Simitchiev between 2020-2023 

Noise and textures on track 1 by Moss Harvest 

Drums on tracks 2, 5, and 7 by Boris Malevanov 

Cello on track 3 by Symeon Yovev (V0LAND)

Drums recorded by Mihail Slavov (Wind City Studio)

Mixed & mastered by Marius Costache (Studio 148)

Artwork by Silvana Ilieva (silvanailieva.com)

Layout by Romain Barbot (iamsailor.com)

Dayin "Warm Like Crystal Throats" CS

"Warm Like Crystal Throats" is an extended tape reissue of two digital-only Dayin EPs. Eternally grateful to Mahorka for preserving this music in a physical format. 

Order on tape here.

Small bits of Angel Simitchiev’s abrasive ambient works under the name Dayin have previously made their way to the digital Mahorka catalog but his full-length debut on the label is a special one. “Warm Like Crystal Throats” is an extended cassette reissue of two previously self-released digital-only EPs that were only available from the Dayin Bandcamp page.

 

While “Warm Like Iron Claws”, which takes up side A on the tape, is just slightly remastered, its counterpart "Crystal Throats Are Singing" features two previously unreleased tracks from the 2020 recording sessions. Simitchiev dig deep in the vaults where Water Temple and Where Guilt Sleeps were waiting to be finished and included in this special edition, alongside a reimagining of Cloud Control. With the original version of the track also available as a digital-only bonus, the 2020-2022 chapter of Dayin’s cryptic aural existence is now finally put to a close.

“In the static of burning shores, we find sleep
The surface is singing like water in burrows”

Recorded and produced by Angel Simitchiev
Originally self-released digitally in 2020 & 2022
Tracks B4 & B6 are previously unreleased
Artwork by Alexandru Daș

http://mahorka.org

July 12 & 13 premiering "Другият сън" by Съпромат & Космотехника

After collaborating with "Съпромат" collective on "Видение" a few years ago, glad to be working with them again this time in alliance with "Космотехника" another Sofia-based creative duo involved in some truly inspiring projects. 

"Другият сън" is a visual performance inspired by Vladimir Poleganov's book of the same name, one of the most fascinating pieces of contemporary Bulgarian literature. I had the absolute pleasure of doing the music and sound for this project that premieres on July 12 & 13 at Toplocentrala, Sofia. 

Find more info here.

Expectations Summer 2023

 A bunch of shows I'm playing with Expectations in the next months before we take a little break.

05/07 Sofia, Grindhouse w/ Piranha & Ignite (US)

27/07 Burgas, Port of Burgas w/ Architects, While She Sleeps, Heriot

16/09 Sofia, Wrong Fest