Balkandji is a folk metal band from Bulgaria. They freely mix traditional bulgarian music with hard rock and heavy metal. As Bulgarian folk music is very complex, in Balkandji songs odd time signatures and constant time signature changing are very common. They create a beautiful blend of melodies taken from the Bulgarian folklore with heavy guitars riffs.

The lyrical themes are also borrowed from the Bulgarian folklore. Their lyrics are mainly about love, the loved one, magic and the love of the native land. All of the songs draw a beautiful lyrical picture that can be very touching. They are mainly written in Bulgarian. It's impossible to represent the spirit of the songs in a foreign language. They use the poetics and the vocal melodies and harmonies that are typical for the traditional music and archaic words, that are now rarely used are not uncommon.

Besides guitars, keyboards and drums Balkandji use traditional Bulgarian instruments, such as tambura, kaval and tǔpan.

Statistics

• Genre: Folk metal, Progressive metal
• Country: Bulgaria
• Status: Active
• Time: 1999-

The name

The general meaning of the word Balkandji (spelled Балканджи in cyrillic) is "a man of the Balkans". As the Stara Planina mountain range used to be called "The Balkan" in Bulgaria, it also means "a man from the mountains", mainly referring to the revolutionaries and people that were hiding in Stara Planina while Bulgaria was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, hence a brave and patriotic young man.

Biography

Rock band Balkandji was formed in 1999 by Kiril Yanev on guitar and Nikolay Barovsky on keyboards. At that time they were playing together with Alexander Stoyanov in the brass band of the First English Language School, Sofia. They used to play a lot of folk pieces with the brass band, which gave Barovsky the idea to try and introduce some folklore motives in their music. After a lot of experimentation, their style is finally established as a mix between folk music, rock and other musical styles.

Their first song is called "Az tebe, libe, sum zaljubil". It was written to lyrics of the poet Konstantin Nikolov, who invited Balkandji to write the music for his poem. With it they participated in the contest of the national radio "Horizont" - "Spring 2000". Meanwhile, they also wrote the music to two songs called "Vyatura" (The Wind) and "Stariya prizrak" (The Old Ghost) with which Kiril's 9-old sister participated in the children's song contest "Parad na detskata pesen". The songs won the first and the second place.

Alexander Stoyanov on drums and Vladimir Leviev on bass have joined the band for the work on their debute album. In the spirng of 2001, they again participated in the contest of the national radio with the song "Krali Marko", which won the first place. The same year, their song "Kam taz zemia" won second place in the contest "My Reason To Stay in Bulgaria". Later in the autumn, a side-project of the band, which again incorporated folklore elements, won a contest for electronic music.

In november they were joined by the female opera singer Inna Zamfirova . Meanwhile, the demo recording of the album "Probujdane" was completed, followed by their first live performance, featuring Spass Dimitrov on guitar, Nikolay Trajkov on drums and Hristo Pashov on bass. Alexander Stoyanov and Vladimir Leviev were students abroad at that time. In 2002 the band decided to record and release the album by themselves, because of the lack of interest from the musical labels. So far there are more than 1000 copies sold. Since then they often began having many live performances in different clubs and they became part of the regular program of a few of them, like "O!Shipka ".

In 2003 the band wrote the song "Oi, mari, Yano", which was included in a compilation produced by the club "O!Shipka " and "Toxity Records " and they began working on their second album. In 2004 they released the single "Zvezdica" and the album is expected to come out in 2005.

Balkandji concerts are attended by great number of fans that are attracted by their very interesting style and ideas. The band tends to improvise a lot on their old songs, some of them are played quite differently from the original album versions. They also play most of their unreleased songs from their forthcoming album.

On 22nd September 2004 Nikolay Barovsky was arrested in Greece. He was found to be carying forged money.. There isn't a case against him, as the people responsible for the forged money are still being looked for, but he is held unjustly in prison, because of the complete unwillingness of the Bulgarian government to help. On 3rd April 2005 Balkandji played a concert in "O!Shipka " under the slogan "Free Nikolay Barovsky. He is innocent.". One of the suspects has been arrested and there is hope that there will be soon a good development and Barovsky will free and ready to play again with the band.

The concert in "O!Shipka " on 26th September 2004 was played without a keyboard and kaval, resulting in a very interesting rendition of the songs. Spass Dimitrov played the keyboard parts on accoustic guitar. For their subsequent concerts, the first one being on 5th December, they found a replacement keyboardist and a new tambura player. Meanwhile, Spass began learning to play the kaval.

Band members

Official members

• Kiril Yanev - Vocals, guitar
• Nikolay Barovsky - Keyboards, kaval
• Alexander Stoyanov - Drums
• Vladimir Leviev - Bass
• Nikolay Trajkov - Drums
• Spass Dimitrov - Acoustic guitar, tambura, vocals
• Hristo Pashov - Bass
• Kalin (Kacko) Hristov - Drums, tǔpan, percussions

Other musicians involved

• Valio ??? - Tambura, vocals
• ??? Pachovski - Keyboards
• Yana Shishkova - Vocals
• Raya Hadzhijska - Trumpet
• Teodora ??? - Trumpet, vocals

Former members

• Inna Zamfirova - Vocals

Discography

"Probujdane" (2001)

"Probujdane" (written "Пробуждане") is the first album by Balkandji. The name means "Awakening" and the band translates it as "Awake".

It is their first and self-released album. The quality is not perfect, but the tunes are beautiful. They sound a lot better and different when played live, though. The highlights are "Zora", "Libe", "Krali Marko" and "Diavolska shterka". "Zdrach" and "Kukeri" are instrumental pieces. "Kam taz zemia" is an accoustic and simple tune on the album, while live it is a very heavy song and together with "Shte ostana tuk" happens to be a fan-favourite song on concerts.

"Zvezdica" (2004)

"Zvezdica" is the single that precedes the forthcoming of the album. It features the song of the same name, plus three mind-blowing instrumentals and a live version of "Libe". The quality is far superior than the quality of "Probujdane"

Unreleased and other songs

Balkandji have written most of the songs from their forthcoming album and they are playing them at concerts.

The song "Pogled" is the favourite song of the audience and is usually played a second time for an encore. "Zmej", "Devet godini" and "Izvor" are possibly the best Balkandji songs ever written. "Izvor" and "Devet godini" have very touching lyrics and feeling.

"Pravo horo" an short instrumental piece and it is the band's favourite tune. It have been played up to four times in a single concert. There is also a very short instrumental, which have been referred to by the band as "Tambura is playing".

Links

• The Official Balkandji Website