неделя, 29 юли 2012 г.

The right stuff at the right time

A little over an year ago I was able to start a job which was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. After a great internship at the events department of the oldest daily business newspaper in Bulgaria I started writing for it. I knew nothing about journalism, I knew something about economy/business due to my education in International Economic Relations and I obviously had a feeling for writing. That job lead me to people who I'll always value in my life and it taught me a lot. However that didn't last longer. The newspaper got closed and was united with its main competitor. I spent few months in the newborn media and I quit as I had better things to take care of. Yeah, I mean, as my twitter bio says, playing in bands, drinking coffee and finally studying music in an academy.

But it seems that wasn't just a job I'll get over and change for something else. It seems I have an urge to write almost as powerful as the urge to play music. And lately, that urge has been striking me with full force. So I may have to edit my twitter bio after I post this but hell yeah, I'm back to writing. I hope I'll be able to cover as much stuff as possible because one of the coolest things of working as journalist and learning to be one is that you have to read and dig a lot. For now I'm back to business stuff but I'll be also contributing to a really cool Bulgarian e-zine called Rawk'n'Roll. I'll be reviewing releases in weirder and heavier genres such as ambient / drone / drone doom / black metal. I highly recommend you to follow this site as it has almost 10 years of presence in the Bulgarian underground and here this means a lot. All of my writings can be found via the search engine filter or by a simple click here. I may be posting some translations here as I'll be writing in Bulgarian. I'm also looking out for a place to contribute reviews of electronic music, maybe a foreign zine so if you have any ideas/recommendations/suggestions please shoot.

Watched a great movie today, it said the coolest stuff happens when you are not looking for it. Totally true, but this great stuff I gotta keep no matter my twitter info.

// currently into: some unreleased Bolest Evropa pieces

понеделник, 16 юли 2012 г.

The first of I hope many

So it is Saturday, the morning after Frenchbulldog's debut. The alarm rings once and few minutes later I miss the first train, it's set again, it rings and some half an hour later I miss one more train. However it is already day two of the Artmospheric Festival 2012. It is 11 o'clock and at 19:00 I gotta start playing the small stage as Mytrip. So I had to take the train at 14:20 which means at the hottest time of the day - awesomeness. 

All hail that machine and its driver
After an hour of tram waiting/catching I'm at the station and then in the train. I won't go into any details of how hot it was because I could write a shorty story and a bunch of poems about that, I'll just go on instead. After an hour and a half I reach the station from where a bus is supposed to take us to the Festival place. It comes shortly after my arrival there and it is ANCIENT. The temperature inside is 10 degrees hotter than outside, which is radical. However we pack in and it leaves. The next 50 minutes pass slowly as the road is pretty fucked up and there's pretty much nothing you can do but drive slow as hell. In fact the bus almost broke down during the next other courses. But it succeeded in taking us up, then in taking us down the next day. And I guess it survived even few more courses.
When the bus reached the bio farm we had 15 minutes more to walk and then we reached the place that for the last six years successfully succeeded in making few people feel like home (as overheard in the bus). And all the heat, travelling and shaking is nothing compared to what an awesome place it really is. I don't wanna post photos, I haven't made any just because you have to go there and experience it personally any other words/visuals are only a major spoiler.


What I can say is that the festival surely deserves its name. The atmosphere is amazing and everywhere you reach all kinds of art forms. From the great vegan food to every single artist performing during the festival. Artmospheric 2012 was the first one for me in many aspects. First of all I am not a huge open air person. I like nature but I'm not dedicated to spending all my free time in woods and mountains with my ass itching from insect bites. So having in mind that, I can tell I had great time though I'm definitely not a neo hippie. It was also the first Artmospheric event I am visiting and I can't say there were artists I was really eager to see/hear live. But I really enjoyed some. I really enjoyed Auditory Oscicles, Soulslept, Genda and few acts on the main stage but I have no idea who they were. It was really interesting for me that people still listen/play/mix trance music. My experience with that genre ended early in my childhood and since around year 2000 I have no idea what's going on with that type of music. Anyway I heard some stuff that wasn't bad still not my cup of tea. What else I thought about is that IDM is one of the over exploited genres of our times and it has reached a state of development where you can pretty much do nothing original. I guess it applies to many genres but especially when they are that specific you have to watch just three different artists and you get to that conclusion. However I still dig it more than trance.

And as a final aspect, Artmospheric 2012 was the first time I am playing an open air with any of my projects. And it was awesome. I have no idea if people actually watched/heard my set because when I play ambient I tend to become over focused and barely have the need to look at the world or the humyns around me. It was a totally different feel about how the sounds were communicating with ambience that wasn't walls of a closed artificially built space. I played during the day so I couldn't go as deep and dark as I usually do and my set became a quite weird mixture of unpublished and even improvised rhythmic and melodic stuff. The usual ambient structures and textures I use were reaching really weird forms and contexts. The organised chaos that was accompanying the festival was also one awesome thing that really, really influenced my playing. There was a schedule and two well-equipped stages. Everything else was in the hands of the artists. You go, wait for your slot, then plug-in and play. When you're done you leave and do whatever you want. That total freedom makes it more than pleasure to be involved.

I guess that's pretty much all I wanted to say. I could talk about the sky and the smell of timber and a bunch of other stuff for hours but just go there and experience it. No words can describe falling asleep while someone is playing live, then waking up at 6 the next day when someone else is starting something else. That mixture of total freedom, comfort plus the sense not a second is wasted and the event is so saturated with happenings - that's just insane! 

The day after I played was also full of rad music but I had to go so I can chill out at a bit at home before I hit the road today again. And in a vortex of radical heat (for me), slow transportation and tons of recollections I reach civilization that... well it is also worth experiencing. However I hope I'll be able to play more open air festivals as soon as possible!

сряда, 11 юли 2012 г.

A funeral party but a birth too


This Friday a regular show we're setting up will be turned in something way more awesome. Besides our modest crew at For The Kids Booking having the chance to bring in Sofia, Bulgaria three awesome foreign bands No Omega & Grieved (Sweden) and My Turn (Greece), we've prepared a bunch of awesome gestures and happenings aimed at showing the people who haven't got it yet that hardcore is more than music.
artwork by George Chelebiev
One of the special things I've been spending a lot of time lately is something quite symbolic. As you may have noticed one of the bands listed on the right is called Everybody Hates This. It's pretty much a defunct one however three unreleased tracks recorded in February 2010 kept me from realizing that goddamn truth. However I hate hiding music I've put a lot of effort and heart in so a decision was reached. We'll publish those tracks on a very limited DIY CDr. Cool idea indeed and the result became even cooler. Another defunct band joined with more unreleased stuff and now we have 50 copies of the 'Two Dead Bands' split between Start Today & Everybody Hates This. First 20 copies are for free for the people at the show and the rest is for 1€, so they are also pretty much a gift. And I can close that page of my life... for now.
Frenchbulldog 2012 by George Chelebiev
So one band is dead but another is born kind of specially for the show. We've been discussing that for a long time and we've been looking for members for pretty much that long. We're called Frenchbulldog and we're quite pissed off. So you get the idea we want to play weird, dirty and noisy crap from hell. Only dog can judge us and pretty much in dog we trust. So if you are around Sofia, come and check our debut. We'll be fast and violent. And we already recorded a track which you can check and buy from Bandcamp. We may play again sometime in the future too. Cool ha?

неделя, 8 юли 2012 г.

Weapon of choice

Time has come to rape my pockets one more time and pour money into the only thing I care about and I've always wanted to do - see my music pressed on vinyl. This will hopefully happen to the latest Expectations material which was recorded a month ago. However when you are DIY and independent to the bone you have no other choice but to engage in self financing.
Expectations crowd 25/03/12 by Filip Panchev
That's why I'm writing this post. If some of you feels like getting involved take a quick look to the panel on the right. I've got a bunch of bands around with their music available for sale, I got a bunch of distro stuff also available so let some of those digital stores be your weapon of choice and make our 7" come true. Then in September you can see us happily touring Europe for two weeks and know you were a part of the process somehow.

You can buy stuff from:
Mytrip @ bigcartel | bandcamp
Expectations @ bigcartel | bandcamp
frenchbulldog @ bandcamp
Amek Distro @ discogs (not full) | facebook 

*for anything you fancy buying you can just leave me contacts and we'll talk it out without using any digital store services and fees

If you are in Bulgaria get in touch and I'll send you whatever you want in no time.

If you already have all that and still wanna help out the Donate option is always available and really, really appreciated.
'I carry so much love for these broken tunes...'
~ Expectations