Easy brother, thank you for your time. Can you touch on how we got to this moment in your creationary history?

It’s really nice to talk to you again and thanks for the kind words! This is the third album that I feel showcases some of my best work yet. It’s been two years since my last one so I am excited to finally share something new with the world.

Truly awesome to see dude, it's a bold collection of material standing amongst the waves of EPs, an album of 10 tracks is few and far between in an era of short-form media. Why did you decide to present the tracks in a grouping, as opposed to the majority of music released at this time?

There are a few reasons, one of them is that I had a lot of unreleased material in store. I have about 10 more tracks besides these that will follow in the form of EPs later down the year so I compiled this album out of the tracks I felt went well together and it was about time to put them out. I felt that they would have a stronger impact if they came in a package.

Another reason is that I enjoy these long forms of expression (even though I wouldn’t call 10 tracks long, to me it’s more of an average number for an album) - I enjoy watching long 3-hour films as much as I enjoy listening to an album from start to finish, rather than jumping on random tracks from a playlist, for example. I like to stay in the vibe for a longer period and really experience the sound of an artist, which can only happen with an album so I strive to deliver what I enjoy experiencing. I know these times aren’t coming back to the era of TikTok but I am still a traditional guy who enjoys ‘consuming’ music the way it’s always been normal to.

Well, you have certainly succeeded in allowing the audience to experience multitudes of styles throughout this project. You can sense the tension between tracks, was this planned during the writing process, or a cleverly orchestrated arrangement of preformed ideas that gelled together through the simple rule-based order that is intuition?

Nothing in or about this album was done on purpose or by planning except maybe naming some of the tracks so I guess the tension and the whole feeling stems naturally from my energy and characteristic style (which again is not purposefully shaped). When you have your own sound, the task to piece your tracks together isn’t that hard as they all possess something in common that transcends genre, bpm and all that. I just followed my intuition when ordering the tracks - an approach similar to creating a whole song. When ordering them, I tried balancing the intensity and saturation of sounds, followed by lighter patterns and the absence of drums for a well-paced sequence that breathes and knows when to hold on and when to let go. This contrast amplifies the emotion and makes it more interesting to listen to.

Could have fooled me, it pieces together effortlessly. Touching on this, the album ebbs and flows between genres, from orchestral ambience to soulful vocals and janky rhythms, yet there is a sense of coherence despite all that. You have showcased a variety of your musical talents and the ability to execute them. Where did you draw inspiration from? And was there a point in time that your tastes crossed over?

This totally ties in with my previous answer - from personal observation, I’d say that the same goes for other artists - it’s not the genre that defines an artist (even if they are specialised in just one) but their characteristic energy and sound design. Therefore, I don’t really think of the stylistics when I get to create. My inspiration comes from a lot of places, it really depends on my mood but mainly the sound system culture, film scores and the electronic scene in the UK, especially Bristol. It’s still through my own prism and interpretation. Some inspirational artists include Massive Attack, Calibre, Workforce, Ivy Lab, Ishome, Soft Blade and many more.

We can certainly hear those influences peppered about. Tapping into a history of networking, there’s a host of collaborators throughout, Desy, Gena, and DJ DELightfull. How did you approach the tracks and did working with each individual differ from your own creative process?

These artists are all based here, in my home city of Sofia and we’ve known each other for a while now. I have two other previous collaborations with Gena, who is one of the most prolific producers in Bulgarian Hip Hop and everybody here knows him.

Talking about Desy, to me she has one of the most unique and memorable voices in the country so I’ve wanted to work with her for a while now. She is widely known here for her Funk, Soul and Jazz background and with this track, she really went out of her waters for a more mystical vibe of a nymph out of an enchanted forest and cleverly used her vocals as an instrument. She recorded the vocals on her own and sent them to me, I did the mix and mastering and that was it.
DJ DELightfull is a champion in quite a few international turntablism contests including the most prestigious ones Cut2Cut and DMC. We studied in the same secondary school but we actually met sometime after graduating, when I was still shooting videos and I wanted to film one of his scratching routines.

I already had the beats ready but both his and Gena’s collaboration bits happened during a beat retreat we went to with ten other producers in the mountain, organised by the label Stereofox. We created a separate compilation album for Stereofox there (these two tracks didn’t end up in it) and you can see the process in this documentary.

It's lovely to hear how valued these artists are to you and the album, they did a magnificent job! Released on your imprint Sound Picture, focused on the pairing of mixed media, seems a truly full circle moment, allowing space for your full freedom of expression when art and music collide. A collection of eerie photographs, from desolate buildings to forests and night shots. Can you tell us a bit about the artworks, who’s behind them, and how they came to be paired with the music?

Behind the series is Merian Nikolova aka 8MIN. This is her third instalment on the platform and we met shortly after her first collaboration with another musician here. Back then, I was looking for people to join the Sound in Picture team since I was doing everything on my own in the first one to two years. Her unique visuals and characteristic style really caught my attention and I invited her to join as a designer. In the process of things, we also became very good friends who hang out in their free time so this collaboration was bound to happen sooner or later. She’s been of great help with our events, we did a few t-shirt designs on our online shop with her and she’s behind most of the artwork for our events.

I like how she balanced the album's energy by presenting these two contrasting film rolls of nature and concrete sceneries.

What a character to have on the team, her shots are beautiful and certainly pair a certain emotion with the album. We premiered Track 8 - ‘Time Dispersion’ on our Soundcloud recently, You have hinted that we can expect a remix via the one and only A.Fruit. A sensational artist and seasoned DJ with support bridging continents. Recently as part of Episode 1 of the SoundinPicture podcast, how did the connection happen, And when and where can we catch the record?

Yeah, I am really excited about this. A.Fruit is currently working on it but it’s best to share more details once it comes out on my channel, the release date is still in the making. I first discovered her music back in 2018 through XLR8R and I’ve frequently played her tunes in my own sets so I invited her for an interview on Sound in Picture - we have a section on the website called PROFILES, which is all about inspirational stories from a variety of artists. I thought that it’d be interesting to also do a podcast with her and expand on her story there so that’s how we connected.

Is there a particular track on the album you are most proud of?

Each track is special to me so I can’t really say. They all have their stories and I am just happy to finally share them with the world and get this amazing feedback from people.

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us!

To the reader: you can catch the full album below.