#mystere de voix bulgares

[mudwerks]

(via Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares - Bulgarian Rhapsody (1992)

[mywifeleftme]

214: "Various Bulgarians" // Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares vol. 2

Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares vol. 2 "Various Artists" 1988, Elektra Nonesuch

Incredibly annoying album to cite properly, I must say. Like its predecessor, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares vol. 2 is usually credited to either the Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, who sing 10 of 17 songs collected here, or to the Swiss ethnomusicologist Marcel Cellier, who recorded most of these tracks over a 17-year period. (There is one recording of the Orchestra Yivan Kirev from ’57.) There’s a bit of an air of overaccentuated exoticism to how this stuff is packaged, from retaining the French title (with improper title casing!) for the English market release, to emphasizing Cellier’s curatorial work over that of the arrangers and performers in the narrative around the album. Realistically, we’d probably be better off crediting this one to Various Bulgarians, both for reasons of accuracy and because it’s an exceptionally melodic turn of phrase.

Listening to Le Mystère, though, I understand why those who championed this music hoped to keep it obscure. People consistently describe this stuff as sounding angelic, elven, ethereal, alien—yes, yes, yes, and yes. Wouldn’t want the realities of corrupt little Bulgaria, with its grim concerns about GDP and the Cold War, dirtying the seraphic mantle you know! The basis of these songs is not, to my ear, wildly far from the familiar choral music of Western Europe, but some combination of the brilliant syncopated vocal arrangements, the technical ability of the singers, and the Bulgarian language itself push the recordings into a realm of stranger light. The vocals often sound like the screams of beings with higher, more delicate instruments in their throats than regular humans have, and whether you envision a great stone cathedral or a starlit clearing in a pagan wood, it’s not hard to sense something holy transpiring here.

Anyway, here they are on Johnny Carson.

214/365

[nonesuchrecords]

Composer Donnacha Dennehy, whose new album, Land of Winter, performed by Alarm Will Sound, is due November 15, stopped by for the Nonesuch Selects video series, in which artists visit the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorite albums from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. He chose recordings by Henryk Górecki, John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet, Louis Andriessen, and Giya Kancheli, and Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares.

[selenitebabysbreath]

Kaval sviri, arranged by Peter Lyondev, conducted by Katya Barulova, performed by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir (n.d.)

[useless-bulgariafacts]

Sigh, all the votes on this poll and nobody brought up the factual inaccuracy of "former Soviet state" nor the detail that "Cyrillic users" ought to be "Cyrillic originators"

Unsurprising that hp won though I guess.

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about Bulgaria, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

[burins]

really recommend folk music in a language you don't speak as writing music - right now i am enjoying the bulgarian state television female choir's le mystere des voix bulgares series

[molyholytm]

i always see people talking about "oh i listen to everything" and then they really don't. yea ok i'm ACTUALLY trying to get into this whole "listening to everything" thing and well. let's just say i'm listening to bulgarian polyphonic chanting and let me also say, the capabilities of simply a group of human voices is genuinely incredible. i am amazed by this i love this.

Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares is the album for those interested which, please listen to this it's so cool

[lokifreign]

I was the secret friend in high school to lots of people who didn't want their other friends to know we were friends. Sometimes it was a little extra frisky, but mostly just hangin around / smoking pot stuff.

I wasn't quite a goth or a hippie or a gangster, but I moved easily between those scenes. In Tennessee for a while I was known as Bat Boy at various clubs & never got my ID checked. Frontier days, you know.

By the time I was actually legal to go in bars I'd stopped being all that interested in it; better music at friends' places. I did see some epic ones over the years though. Butthole Surfers and Les Mystere de Voix Bulgares stand above the rest, but it'd be hard to recount every show that blew my mind. Medeski Martin & Wood at the Liquid Bean opening up for my friend's absurdist sermon weekly event was a good one!

[zhnnveuxpasdrmir]

Apparently it's cheaper to buy a needle drop on Saint of the Pit by Diamanda Galás than it is to get that extract from Song of the Siren. They always get someone to sing it again, which is fine, but… the point of the feelings (to me) is lost when you try to swap out some art school student for Elizabeth Fraser. Is she really so pricey to buy the needle drop on? I feel like if that's so, it's racist. Not joking.

In general. Ugh. you know I love both singers, but… over the years something about the way their clips get used in movies has irked me.

They (the cinema directorial class) also throw Les Mysteres de Voix Bulgares into their movies a lot, which is fine, but… similarly over the years it's stopped being moving and started making my eyes roll.

It is odd to be getting old and have a big catalog of cinema musicology in my head. There's not much to do with it but bitch about it.

[beautifullychaoticworld-blog]

omg is that a record Hayley is holding of Bulgarian folklore singers???? ("Le Mystere des voix Bulgares") I'm shitting my pants here of excitement! :,)

Hayley on Discord.

[mudwerks]

(via Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares - Ergen Deda (Live on KEXP))

[agujeros-negros-y-revelaciones]

(Gorillaz)

[013742985679]

(Gorillaz)

.........bitch........

[yourbestamericangirlmp3]

literally is it even possible to listen to this without getting emotional