We admit it, this final newsletter for the year drops less than a month after our last one but we return to you with news regarding our last activities for 2022. See you all in the next one which we promise will be quite special.
New tape release
Petrov/Borzeszkowski - Lachrymorph
To create their first collaborative full-length “Lachrymorph”, guitarist Petar Petkov and drummer Bartosz Borzeszkowski embarked on a journey to the Unknown – both physically and creatively. Having successfully collaborated in the studio (check out “Scape I", released in "Vanishing Standards II"), the artists felt the need to dig deeper into their mutual audial explorations, which curiously enough stem from their quite different musical backgrounds with Petkov coming from the world of classical guitar and Borzeszkowski - from the field of jazz.
In “Lachrymorph”, Petkov and Borzeszkowski don’t hold preliminary discussions to lead the music the desired way, they do not map their explorations but rely on intuition. Creating in a small cottage in the deep forests of Cassubia, Poland, they seem to have not only opened their own worlds to one another's contributions, but have left the door wide open for all that lurked around to further nuance and deepen their sound.
Check “Lachrymorph” out on tape (ltd. to 66) and digital here.
Radio
In case you’ve missed them, you can listen to the latest episodes of шумна неделя and Comfort Club here. The next шумна неделя episode airs on Kanal 103 on December 4 and the last Comfort Club is scheduled fro December 22 on Black Rhino Radio.
Gallery
Enjoy a photo gallery of the Dayin, krāllār, and Musical Statues gig from earlier this month here. Captured by Silvana Ilieva and Zlatina Tochkova.
Concert
On December 18, the concert series шумна неделя will return to Koncept Space with a performance by Shentov, Simitchiev, Lukanov; Bogdan Simeonov (live debut), and savmart (Bulgarian debut). RSVP here.
To get yourselves in the mood for this show we are reminding you about this bootleg recording from the previous Shentov, Simitchiev, Lukanov concert, which took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, Macedonia.
Interview
Anything to Forget the Here & Now - an Interview with Rácz Csaba
savmart is a solo project by Hungaro-Serbian music experimentalist Rácz Csaba who’s lived in Bulgaria for the past three years. Apart from a 2020 collaborative release with KSEA for the Bulgarian label Kontingent Records, Csaba’s music hasn’t been played live on Bulgarian soil. This will all change on December 18 when he will perform at шумна неделя #12.
Can you present yourself, where do you come from both geographically and musically and how the hell did you end up in Bulgaria?
Yo, my name is Rácz Csaba and I come from the most depressive Serbian city of Subotica. Musically, I came from the muddy waters of noise-rock and the angry filth of hardcore punk and since then have gone through many different phases. How the hell I ended up in Bulgaria? Well, when the Covid-crisis hit I became unemployed and started to look for jobs abroad. The first good offer arrived from Sofia. Fun fact: before that, I was never ever in Bulgaria, not even in transition, and neither I knew anyone living in Sofia.
Tell us about your solo project savmart? How long have you been making music under this name and is this your first musical outlet?
I started as savmart in early 2018 in Budapest, after many fun years spent in improv experimental trios called Drone Travolta and Drone, Drugs & Harmony. I’ve also had some noise-rock and hardcore punk bands in the 90s while living in Subotica. Also, my first experimental improv trio happened there. It was amazing for the first time in my life to forget about song structures and not have to practice the same shit to make it "perfect". In the late 00s, I used the name Drone Quijote in Budapest and my concept was to record only the first-ever jams with various local friends. I’ve also used some other random monikers.
How did you discover experimental music, was there any game-changing album or an artist that blew your mind when you first heard them?
It was all my music teacher's fault. She came freshly graduated to my school when I was in the 5th grade of elementary school and started her first class with us, bringing a turntable and some vinyl to the classroom and saying loud and proud "Hello kids, we should start our journey with some rather modern music where electronic instruments and sound effects are involved." I remember she played some Bauhaus, P.I.L., and This Heat. And my life was never again the same xD I asked her after this historical class to bring me as much of "that kind of music" as possible LOL. And she did. And kept doing. Previously I had just discovered Kraftwerk by myself. Many artists and even more albums blew my mind since then. Sonic Youth, Unwound, Boards of Canada, Scorn, Seefeel, Windy & Carl, Bowery Electric, Tim Hecker, Nadja, loscil, and Troum - just to mention the most important artists for me. The total turning point albums were the Coil side-project and album called Time Machines, the Deep Listening Band’s (Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster & Panaiotis) - self-titled album, also Alva Notos's more ambient albums (the Xerrox series) and Stars of the Lid's complete discography.
What do you consider your main instrument and has this changed throughout the years?
All the time I was mostly impressed by synthesizers, but I used to play drums, bass guitar, and guitar in random bands when I was younger. I sucked on all of them, but who cares, I had fun with my closest friends. My first serious synth (a Roland Juno-6) "happened to me" when I was in my early twenties. Since then, most of the time I had a guitar and/or a bass guitar with me, but the beats and grooves faded away and guitar effect pedals started to dominate my everchanging synth setups.
I guess one can refer to you as a gear head, to what degree does your music rely on the gear you have, does it inspire certain sounds, or you are rather chaotic in your choice of instruments and music tools?
My music totally relies on the gear I have. Many synths through even more FX is my recipe. Usually, it seems rather chaotic to the others LOL.
We established that you are a fan of hardware music tools but what about software and computers, to what degree your music depends on this type of technology?
Well, I use Audacity to cut my full hardware impro sessions and I mastered the fade-in and fade-out. I never used any VSTs, neither Reason, Ableton, or whatever was popular in my friend's production. I’ve tried them all but I didn't enjoy all the mouse-clicking and the timeline/grid concept. I found it too linear so I gave up as soon as possible. For the sake of the magic of a moment. And also, to not break a laptop into pieces.
How different is your approach to music when performing live than when working in the studio?
It's absolutely the same.
I think your main introduction to the Bulgarian scene was through Ivan Shentov’s Kontingent Records who released your collab album with KSEA. Can you tell us more about this album, how did it happen, where did it take place, and whether are you going to keep working together on something new?
It was a funny thing. I loved his first album very much and wrote him a kind of fan letter. It turned out that we lived maybe a 3-minute walking distance from each other, so we had a few jam sessions. Finally, during one of them, I connected a portable recorder and recorded two afternoons of jamming. All that happened in my living room, while outside was 40°C. Ivan (KSEA) just wrote me that he should visit me for a week to spend it in a more pro studio than my living room. But before this, he’s gotta spend a working season in the Alps. So maybe in May 2023 and hopefully in Sofia.
What are we going to hear from you on December 18, are you going to present new material or previously released stuff or are you going to dive into a full-blown improvisation?
I am always into full-blown improvisation. I can not reproduce previously released stuff as they were all and always improvised and happened with different gear and different states of mind. I have to add that I always hated to practice previously written songs and follow some timeline/grid. Not a long time ago I stopped using samplers too. So on December 18 let's dive into the deep and dark waters to bring out some shit and pearls from the bottom. What we gonna hear will be synthesizers through shitloads of effects in a let's say drone/ambient manner. This was the only track of mine released this year and we won't hear this either, but at least this is something that I can hint at how I sound when I play solo with.
You’re of Hungarian-Serbian origin, what are some of the projects we should check from both Hungary and Serbia that we might have overlooked?
Am not really sure what is happening nowadays in those countries, but the best thing from Hungary for me, from the last few years, is definitely horhos.
In times when there’s so much music being released on a daily basis what are your tools to discover (and filter) new music?
I randomly press play on friends’ FB walls when they post something.
What inspires you to make the music you make, are you inspired only by sound, musical instruments and maybe other music or do you look for the muse in other things (or media)?
Usually, I try to make myself some kind of safe waters to dive into and swim, some audio hallucinations if you like. Anything, just to forget the here and now.