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