Have you ever felt so frustrated with contemporary culture that you wish you could live in another time, another place, or even another planet?  You hit a wall where nothing makes sense, or worse, everything blends together into a bland sameness that makes distinction seem moot? I will admit that I often suffer from deep anxiety caused by the technocracy that attempts to run my life without allowing me to be conscious of it.

At times, the institutions that decide what our media offers, or even how the media works, can leave me with a vapid feeling of emptiness that causes me to question the very nature of our Western civilization. At its worst, I start to feel as if I’m staring at a wall, observing some shadowy figure that I can’t quite discern, pulling strings to manipulate my very thoughts and moods, like being placed on hold for 75 minutes while faux-acoustic music loops endlessly and the voice of ‘Big Brother’ (or his patronizing Sister) intervenes every now and then to remind me how important I am to them. At times like these, I long to escape from all elements of a society that have become manipulative, condescending, dull and predictable – the mass market media, the websites where we live pseudo-existences, the shopping culture that offers us a false sense of achievement. To escape, I need something that is foreign from my workaday life, something that allows me to temporarily escape the pressures of the mundane. That is when I need an album like “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares”.

The music on this album sounds as if may have been concocted by a race of super humans, or even something that goes beyond human intelligence. It could have been an interstellar transmission. There is nothing even remotely like “Le Mystere“ in our western culture. The title translates to “The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices”, and that title is profoundly understated. It is performed by The Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, which leads me to believe that both societally and culturally, things are quite different in Bulgaria. This album is a product of their media? Where do I sign up? A Swiss ethnomusicologist named Marcel Cellier labored for fifteen years to obtain this collection of songs, formed his own label to see it released, and then sat back while it wallowed in obscurity, serving as little more than a curiosity piece for music intelligentsia, filed away with other ethnic obscurities such as “Gamelan Music of Ancient Java” or “Chants of the Ituri Rain Forest”.

Rather incredibly, I have learned that Peter Murphy of Bauhaus (“Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” “Terror Couple Kills Colonel”) provided the impetus for this album’s rebirth. He somehow obtained a much-copied cassette recording of “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” and played it for anyone willing to listen, including the president of his band’s label, 4AD. Fifteen years after it had been filed away, the album experienced a rebirth and was re-released internationally on a variety of labels, where it was then discovered by musicians and critics who recognized it for the miracle that it is. Due to their diligence, it eventually found its way to my ears, and now I am doing what I can to impart the same miracle to you. In the wake of its belated success, this album has since yielded a multitude of follow-up volumes, all of which are great, but only one can impart the element of surprise that will inevitably strike you on first listen, and take you somewhere otherworldly. When I feel the need to escape, or just to experience the awe of something totally beyond what our own culture offers on a daily basis, I find solace here.

Featured Tracks::

Pilentse Pee (Пиленце пее) [Birdie Sings]

Svatba (Сватба) [The Wedding Procession] 

Kalimankou Denkou (Калиманко Денко) [The Evening Gathering] solo: Yanka Rupkina

Strati na Angelaki Dumashe (Страти на Ангелаки думаше) [Haiduk Song] 

Polegnala e Pshenitsa (Полегнала е пшеница) [Harvest Song from Thrace]

Mesechinko Lyo Greïlivka (Месечинко льо грейливка) [Love Song from the Rhodopes] 

Breï Ivane (Брей Иване) [Dancing Song] 

Ergen Deda (Ерген дядо) [Diaphonic Chant] 

Sableyalo Mi Agontse (Заблеяло ми агънце) [The Bleating Lamb] solo: Kalinka Valcheva 

Prituritse Planinata (Притури се планината) [Song from the Thracian Plain] with Orchestra 

Mir Stanke Le (Мир Станке ле) [Harvest Song from Thrace] solo: Stefka Sabotinova 

Schopska Pesen (Шопска песен) [Song of Shopsko] 

Polegnala e Todora (Полегнала е Тодора) [Love Song] 

June 1975 – Billboard Did Not Chart