April 24^th 2025 | 8:30 p.m.

Serdica Ancient Cultural and Communication Complex

(Largo Zone, underground level) 

Concert:

Kottarashky & The Preachers

Nikola Gruev-Kottarashky – compositions, programming, synths
Simeon Voev – guitars
Boyan Zlatkov-Epeto – bass
Ivaylo Stefanov – synths
Vladimir Vassilev – drums

 

Kottarashky presents a new musical project. The group Kottarashky & The Preachers includes legendary names from the Sofia underground scene and makes a strong statement with its debut album Reconstruction of Speech.

The musician and producer Nikola Gruev – Kottarashky is best known for his contemporary interpretations of Balkan folklore, as well as his collaboration with world-renowned animator Theodore Ushev and the music for the Oscar-nominated short Blind Vaysha. He recently announced a brand new project - the group Kottarashky & The Preachers:

“After 15 years of experiments mainly in the Balkan genre, maybe the time was right to try something different,” says Gruev, adding that in the new project he again plays with a mix of styles, but this time they take us more to the West. Reconstruction of Speech started about two years ago, as a conceptual project by Kottarashky, based on fragments of speeches by great orators from the recent and more distant past. By sampling speech, they become singers, at the expense of the meaning of the words. “It was conceived as a metaphor for the modern, fast-paced world, in which the meaning of speech is often lost, but later it sounded frighteningly relevant, given the similarities of today and some historical periods that we thought we had irrevocably left behind.”

 

In the project “sing” people such as Churchill, Kennedy, Gandhi and others, and the songs are stylistically inspired by the associations that those individuals evoke. For this, Gruev began collaborating with guitarist Simeon Voev, brother of the legendary Bulgarian musician Dimitar Voev and well-known to the audience from the groups “New Generation” and “Absolutely Beginners”. Ivaylo Stefanov – keyboards – was also included. After the first four songs were out, two invitations from festivals followed. Thus was born the idea of turning this into a complete formation. Kottarashky & The Preachers are joined by two more legends of the local underground scene – Vladimir Vassilev (former drummer and founder of the band “Animacionerite”), as well as Boyan Zlatkov – Epeto (bassist of the famous band “Tamno”).