BY Milena Hristova

With almost four years of experience in music making, Isihia, a unique Bulgarian ethno-group, has something to be proud of. Confidence was easy to see at the meeting of novinite.com editors with Isihia at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, the place, where some of the group’s most memorable concerts have taken place. Isihia’s members – seven boys and one girl – have not yet been bored to explain the group’s name. In Greek Isihia means “silence, muteness” and reminds one of meditation in Buddhism. As a doctrine, Hesychasm was very powerful on the Balkans in the XIII century during the Ottoman invasion. Through its name Isihia wants to weave the idea of purity and faith into their highly emotional music – a combination of folklore, Church-Slavonic chant and modern elements.

According to the group its music appeals most of all to people from the Balkan peninsula, while foreigners find it exotic and even shocking with the powerful sound of traditional Bulgarian instruments such as gaida, kaval, tapan, tambura. Still the vocals remain the most beautiful, in the opinion of the group, and the most impressive element. Containing in it a myriad messages, the music’s leading idea is the silence as the very opposite of modern life chaos. The young people admit that making such spiritual and non-commercial music is a kind of escapism, but they claim this is the music that has outlived many generations and will live on to the eternity. Rivalry on the part of those, who produce modern popular and much more aggressive music, does not disturb them. This makes the quality of our music stand out even more sharply, they claim. Having already published one CD, they are working on a new project, while one of the group’s members Vesselin Mitev (gaida, kaval, vocals) starts off on his own with a solo project, which is to be a joint project with other musicians. The titles included in it seem to speak for themselves -“Like a Clear Sun”, “Requiem for the White Wind” and “Formula” in Sanskrit.

Asked whether they consider Bulgaria the land of surprises they answer ambiguously. The difficulties Bulgaria currently goes through make the people turn to the spiritual and give them strength, the young people claim. According to them the absurd is ”the modern,” because in ancient times people managed to transform the chaos into a harmonious cosmos. And it is the harmony of their music, with its striving for inner peace, that has a very powerful effect, working a very delicate and probably subconscious level of the audience.

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