I’ve always felt like contemporary underground music in Bulgaria has been lacking figurativeness and freedom. Mostly whenever you go to a concert you can’t really find yourself surprised, you are offered a shape, a standard for a specific genre, rarely really going beyond. So when few months ago I noticed the first signs of Comasummer I was intrigued. And here we are now, waiting in front of the venue that’s about to host their debut show. That’s arranged by our beloved Alarma Punk Jazz Festival and is taking part in Sofia’s Czech Center, which an hour before the show is already pretty full. This doesn’t really change even when the show gets slightly delayed due to the regular tech issues.
However, once we’re in Miryan Kolev’s solo project E.U.E.R.P.I. opens the show. I’ve been to numerous performances of his and he’s up there doing his thing once again. Looping minimalist guitar melodies over one another, then decorating the sound with heavily processed guitar signals that feel more as a sound design FX than instrumental work. His show is fine, but the audience is acting in a pretty crappy and disrespectful way by talking and is actually not letting his atmosphere grow, expand and exist. From time to time powerful bass drones appear and fill the space. This kind of makes the people shut up for at least a bit, but there definitely could have been more lows to grab the watchers/listeners by the throat once and for all. E.U.E.R.P.I. plays a nice set and I wish he could explore the sound spectre a bit further so he can provide his live performances not only with nice musical build ups, but achieve more depth and presence as well.
At the end of Miryan’s set there’s this jerk shouting shit. In a sad attempt for stealing some attention he fucks up the artist’s chance to properly take us out of his soundscapes. Some people often forget not every gig they attend is a fucking Slayer show. He actually did spare us his putrid presence somewhere halfway through Comasummer‘s set, when he finally passed out on the floor and let people enjoy the show. What a fucking moron.
After few minutes Comasummer are on stage. We finally see the full line-up because all their press photos so far have revealed the project as a duo or trio. Anyhow, on stage they’re five people and wasting no time they just start playing. One instrument at a time, allowing us to enter their sound gradually, like a personal introduction to each member. First we have the left guitar, then the bass, then drums and then the second guitar. There seemed to be some issues with the keyboards for the first few moments of the show, but the bands’ soundguy managed to save the day right on the go and just a few minutes after Comasummer started playing we were already hearing their real voice. Under layers of psychedelic visuals they played music perfectly in line with these aesthetics. We were no longer in 2015 but somewhere in the 1970s. I honestly was expecting a more of a shoegazing and calmer performance, but the band actually hit us with a full-scale psych-rock show. The only thing actually reminscent of noise rock and the forementioned shoegazing was the intelligent guitar and sometimes voice effecting plus their great symbiosis with the synth layers. The rhythmic section was lively, fit and powerful. And when the singer finally revealed his voice… Man, seriously, Bulgaria has been waiting for this band for so long.
I’ll say no more, just next time when you see this name somewhere – on the poster or in a digital stream – feel advised not to miss checking them out. Big ups for Alarma for finding this gem and sharing it with us. And let’s hope for less assholes on DIY shows in the future.
