site.btaBulgarian Band Heptagram on Latest Album, Creating Original Sound

Bulgarian psychedelic/space rock band heptagram have two upcoming concerts in Sofia – they will perform in Stroeja on April 30 and at Sofia Live Festival where they will share the stage with Belgian songwriter Selah Sue and Australian musician Dub FX on June 21. In an exclusive BTA interview on the occasion, the main artist behind the band, multi-instrumentalist Daniel Ivanov, spoke about heptagram's latest album, the way TikTok forces musicians to shape their songs and how you can use your musical influences to create original sound.

Founded in 2007, the band has always strived to break away from the norm. With its latest album, Submerge, it takes a new path - while some nuances of the music are retained, the experimental gives way to a more radiophonic approach.

Ivanov is the sole author of the album. Each and every step of its production was completed by him – from songwriting and recording of the various instruments, to mixing and mastering.

The line-up of the live band shrank from five to three members. „That way it comes closest to what the band would sound like if I could clone myself,“ Ivanov said. “Before we had an extra vocalist and a second guitarist, the goal was to present another face to the band. There was more improvisation and jams between songs,” he explained.

Until now, the heavy use of guitar effects has been one of the band's hallmarks. In Submerge, this is absent. „I am trying to create something that is easier to digest. My music has always been more experimental. I have another band that I am about to release an album with, Climate – there we have no song structure at all. I try to explore the extremes in different musical projects to enrich myself, to see what my capabilities are. If you know your limits, you have the opportunity to expand them. That's my goal as a musician,” Ivanov said.

He noted that most contemporary bands tend towards a standard song structure (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge). “This works. The listener wants to hear something familiar. In the context of the 15-20 second content that pours out on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, it is very hard to get attention these days if you don’t stick to the template. This pretty much imposes on artists how to frame their ideas musically. I am not saying it is a bad thing, but it is the reality,” the musician pointed out.

“Lately I hardly listen to rock music at all, I mainly listen to more neo-soul, future-soul stuff: Tom Misch, Hiatus Kaiyote, Khruangbin, Nick Hakim. Maybe I have been listening to distortion and overdrive-laden guitars for too many years, maybe my ears are already worn out from that sound and I have been listening to a lot of lighter stuff lately, which led me to the sound on this album,” he said.

Every artist is influenced by others, but the question is how to use that inspiration to create something of your own. Ivanov admits that he has had many occasions where he has come up with something he likes, but after a few strokes on the guitar he realizes it's already been released by someone else and has to let it go. “I try to look for progressions that I haven’t heard. Even if a progression has been used somewhere, I try to use it in a different context. It's very hard to be original anymore with so much music written."

The album was inspired by the long time people spent alone in recent years, forced by the COVID pandemic.

”It recreates an inner journey and self-discovery, a clash of the rational and the irrational. We have an emotional part of the brain and a logical part. They are often in collision. When we spend a long time alone and have a chance to think about who we are and what we are, many conflicts are created that need to be resolved in order to move forward. This album deals mainly with the themes of inner self-discovery and the resolution of inner conflicts. That is why it is called Submerge - submerging in the inner world and the inner search for answers.”

During the writing process, Ivanov received help from an unexpected source. "I got hold of a guitar that was owned by a jazz guitarist from Vienna who had died quite a few years before. His wife sold this guitar to our former guitarist, who sold it to me. There was something very extraordinary about it. Guitarists know that the more you play a guitar, the more the wood takes in of the vibrations, therefore it sounds better. The wood acquires a musical sonority that can only be acquired in this way. I don't think I could come up with the same melodies on my other guitars,” he explained.

Another very valuable help came from the National Culture Fund (NCF), which financed the recording project. The multu-instrumentalist pointed out that the process leading to acquiring the funding was not hard. “Not knowing anyone there, I applied the standard way and I cannot say one bad word about the NCF. Everything about the organization went without a hitch. It seems after all there are also some good things coming out of the Culture Ministry in support of Bulgarian artists. I hope this will continue in the future. NCF has been expanding its activities quite successfully in recent years,” he pointed out.