Kottarashky aka Nikola Gruev opened the door to hitherto undiscovered spaces of Balkan music with his first album "Opa Hey!" in 2009.

Kottarashky’s debut CD was the brainchild of sound collector and interior designer Nikola Gruev from Sofia, Bulgaria. He experimented by combining his own field recordings with electronic beats and quickly had his first album together. After that, the band The Rain Dogs was born. “Grandpa Hey!” was followed by the groovy “Demoni” and “Cats, Dogs and Ghosts.” But his new music pulsates with dancefloor energy but it also has more vocals than ever before, and features singer Tui Mamaki. Among other songs, the New Zealander sings “Gyuro” accompanied by Asya Andonova and the floating trumpet of Sando Sandov, who also performs seemingly impossible accordion parts. Almost all of the lyrics are traditional, only “Hare Nishto” and “Dogs Out” were improvised in the studio. Kottarashky has uncovered jewels from Bulgarian folklore like “Zalvera,” a little-known song from the Rhodope Mountains about a Muslim girl. He fuses blues, jazz, trip hop, breakbeat, dub and more into a dazzling polyphonic concoction. By working with his excellent live musicians, Kottarashky has further evolved as a band during the pandemic and the tracks sound more soulful and urban without betraying their traditional roots. Kottarashky has never been a ‘Balkan Beats’ conformist, but instead journeys deeply into the Bulgarian cosmos looking for sonic threads to weave into his music, threads that are as eclectic as they are mysterious.

Doghouse

Kottarashky 's 3rd album, taking us deep into a New York district called Sofia.

The bands 3rd album, taking us deep into a New York district called Sofia.

After his groundbreaking album "Opa Hey!" and the raw and groovy "Demoni", Kottarashky is back with album number three, this time taking us deep into a New York district called Sofia and introducing us to its street corners brimming with rock, blues, Balkan-style funk and the jazz-flavoured rhythms of late summer.

On this new album, The Rain Dogs are much more than just the back-up band of a lone sonic wizard. The crew now comprises some of the most sought-after musicians drawn from the contemporary Bulgarian scene. And they didn’t leave anything to chance when they gathered at Blubalu Studio in Sofia to record their version of a genuine Balkan-American street sound.

On the way into the studio, they picked up an authentic Sofia beat poet named Nufry (i.a. Panican Whyasker), a singer, songwriter and icon of the Bulgarian independent scene whose stories truly enrich the Dogs.

Indeed, Nufry’s haunting vocals lend The Rain Dogs additional depth and magnitude; they revel, waft, break out and move in tandem with the horn sections and raw guitar chords in a sonic space somewhere between the American South and the Black Sea.

The fruits of their work are songs such as "This Little Devil", which features lyrics about relationship woes with some help from ballet and beer. "The Winner, the Driver" even recalls the trippy funk rock of bands like Soul Coughing.

At first, "Cats, Dogs and Ghosts" sounds as if the band has set out on the road to rock ‘n’ roll. But then Kottarashky sets the pace with those tight groove collages and Balkan samples we’re familiar with from "Opa Hey!". And it’s precisely that crazy Kottarashky boogie that allows the band to capture and revel in the originality of those Balkan street fairs and festivals. It’s as if Kottarashky fills his line-up of guitar, bass and drums with village musicians drawn from his archive and thus effortlessly brings life to those concrete, big-city residential blocks.

Kottarashky was never Balkan Beats, but now he is one of the enduring protagonists of the last decade of Balkan music. To be sure, together with his Rain Dogs, he shows us why we should never stop listening to the sounds emanating from the Balkan region.

Cats, Dogs and Ghosts

Kottarashky from Bulgaria, unique sound sketches within a new universe of advanced Balkan Funk and Blues.

From Bulgaria, unique sound sketches within a new universe of advanced Balkan Funk and Blues.

Kottarashky aka Nikola Gruev opened the door to hitherto undiscovered spaces of Balkan music with his first album "Opa Hey!" in 2009. His approach of using a collection of sounds taken from authentic field recordings is quite similar to artists like AMON TOBIN, the only difference being that Gruev found and recorded his sources in the Bulgarian countryside. Combining these, he initiated a tribal digital dance music that went far beyond either the mash up culture of contemporary global producers or the art collages of modern sound architects. He simply amazed with compositions that are extremely complexly woven, yet at the same time catchy, and full of joy or melancholy. At the time however, Kottarashky was unknown, even within his local scene in Bulgaria. It was all the more unbelievable that this dude, who was actually a full-time architect, was producing outstanding tunes and unique rhythms such as these in his back office that were completely unconnected with any popular scenes.

On 'Demoni' Kottarashky takes his unique sound sketches one step further and transforms them into a live experience. Together with accomplished musical companions Kottarashky & The Rain Dogs guide you into a new universe of advanced Balkan Funk and Blues.

This coincided with a general trend in Sofia of creativity moving into the private sphere. It seems to have been a reflex to the current situation in Bulgaria today, where a group of neo-feudalists have consolidated their positions and their profits, at the same time however, maneuvering the scene in the country into torpor and oppressing all criticism through their domination of the media market. It is a situation where the mainstream outweighs everything else, yet this absence of diversified cultural channels has provided wide-ranging mental free space for the creative. It is clearly this environment that stimulates Kottarashky's innovative and profound style.

Demoni 

Debut album from the Bulgarian digital master Kottarashky, Balkan field recordings meets jazz and electronica.

Debut album from the Bulgarian digital master, Balkan field recordings meets jazz and electronica.

Kottarashky is a 21st century digital master musician with his hands sunk deep in the past - vintage Balkan field recordings, classic jazz and blues, psychedelic sounds, club beats and extraordinary, archetypal Gypsy voices, guttural shouts and lyrical laments are all molded and thrown into new shapes. The songs of his debut album "Opa Hey!" sound like tales told by a people who have all the time in the world: time to contemplate, enjoy, engage and dream; to take pleasure in unexpected twists and turns; to be inspired by the details and vividness of marginal existence.

Kottarashky is an architect by vocation, which perhaps explains the palpable sense of place in his music. Summer trips to small villages and the marginal regions of Bulgaria were key source of inspiration for the album, and his music samples a broad palette of sources and influences - enigmatic field recordings by artists unknown alongside Boris Kovac, Les Yeux Noir, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Jony Iliev and compelling Hungarian singer Mitsou.

The resulting digital pick-and-mix hits you like a panoramic puzzle of sounds collected and put together from a night's walk through the streets of Sofia.

It is an ethno-music born of a city lacking cultural identity that is torn between contemporary European globalism, Balkan provincialism and a living if largely forgotten folk tradition. It's a music inspired by that environment but also in reaction to it, a journey down roads less travelled, through the Bulgarian backwoods and back via the laptop to the 21st century.

Opa Hey!

Kottarashky aka Nikola Gruev opened the door to hitherto undiscovered spaces of Balkan music with his first album "Opa Hey!" in 2009. His approach of using a collection of sounds taken from authentic field recordings is quite similar to artists like Amon Tobin, the only difference being that Gruev found and recorded his sources in the Bulgarian countryside. Combining these, he initiated a tribal digital dance music that went far beyond either the mash up culture of contemporary global producers or the art collages of modern sound architects. He simply amazed with compositions that are extremely complexly woven, yet at the same time catchy, and full of joy or melancholy. At the time however, Kottarashky was unknown, even within his local scene in Bulgaria. It was all the more unbelievable that this dude, who was actually a full-time architect, was producing outstanding tunes and unique rhythms such as these in his back office that were completely unconnected with any popular scenes.

Gyuro (single)

Kottarashky & The Rain Dogs

1,50 €

Sign up to our newsletter for news, offers & tour date announcements