Empyreal Venus

Writing and producing the first Burgoci album “Badtime Stories” has taken approximately 10 years. It’s been a hard, difficult path of “learning the sound” and turning “blurred emotions” into the melodies which later folded into the strange songs. The non-budget project of the young man without any background has risen on the fantastic enthusiasm and strong belief in the ligament “human-soul-music” and in the fact that music might be non-commercial… This has led the writer/composer to the relatively quick search-and-find of the collaborators without whom the project would never have happened. Countless hours in the studio, endless megabytes of the recording and priceless help of the vocalists, co-writers, sound engineers and designers, almost all of them – for free – have turned the project into reality. A few years of mixing and mastering in the home studios have polished the record to a crystal clear sound.
The idea to give a re-birth to the best of New Age music came while creating the BDTS – an ethereal selection of the refined stories blended together into one journey through time and music space. The whole genre layer exquisitely packed into one album revives in you remembrances of Enigma, Delerium, Blue Stone, Conjure One, Sleepthief and many more of that kind. It immerses into the ageless atmosphere of young enigmatic sounds of the Gregorian choirs and “dark-dance rhythms” and then immediately takes back to nowadays with Delerium-esque fresh spellbinding electronics. Pure electronic structure covered by lush textures of bizarre synthesizers and violins alternating with duduk creates a breathtaking soundscape wrapped by sophisticated, sublime vocals of different female and male singers taking you into another world – the world of senses, thoughts and emotions…
The album doesn’t impose anything to the auditory – it just creates a space for dreaming and thinking, awaking listener’s imagination. Would it be pictures of cosmos, would it be endless flatlands, would it be sensual scenes of love – the record will be a soundtrack for your fantasies… Epic and old-fashioned Chronocopy with mid 1990s beat and exalted female vocals starting with beautiful sitar and classic Gregorian choir opens the album, followed by In The Sublime with uplifting sonorous vocals laid over the running dance beat with shaking and peculiar bass line flowing together with the harmonious piano and guitar flavored by pygmies voices. Dragging in downtempo remarkable Anthelion – one of few songs with male vocals – represents the cold electronic sound that perfectly blends with Nik’s superior lead vocals with haunting chorus melody, giving the track unforgettable Depeche Mode ambience. Futuristic sounds of Radiance of Sirius with powerful beats and pumping bass along the sonic synth sculpture surrounded by strong lead vocals bring the idea of how such kind of music might sound like in the near future. Mystic Mirabilis flows fast with its groovy and light drum line immersing the listener into a sparkling world of daedal synthesizers, angelic vocals and distinctive ethnic voices delivering a dreamy mood enabling the imagination. Winter – one of the latest tracks off the album and one of the purist ever: fresh electronic sound, intriguing harmony, downtempo beat together with unconventional bass line, incredible vocals and stunning lyrics make it cold, sweet, attractive and haunting at the same time. It reminds a space journey – when you flow in the cold and dark space contemplating fantastically beautiful pictures of the Universe. Another brilliant track has been added to the bonus CD of the album, Talking To God is a heart touching confession of the author that represents Julia’s forceful vocals leading the song with roundish melody of the catchy chorus, authentic beats and beautiful violins along modern synth lines. Including 7 remarkable tracks mentioned above, the Burgoci’s debut contains 11 tracks on the main CD – ten original songs plus one Megamix – and 4 tracks on the Bonus CD – two original songs, one re-work and one remix. Such kind of well designed album structure not only makes the record interesting and attractive for the audience, but also emphasizes the best traditions in album construction of famous artists in this style such as Enigma, Delerium and others.
The non-stop musical trip interwoven of the selection of very personal ballads was initially planned to be an album containing ten sad stories from the author’s life – this is where the “Badtime Stories” title came from. However, during ten years of writing/recording/producing the concept has slightly been changed, thus now the record covers a wide range of the aspects – from the writer’s life stories up to the “global questions of existence”. It was decided to leave the BDTS name as is due to the minor key it tinctures that perfectly correlates with the album’s mood, established not only by the music but also by the stunning lyrics across the record.
In modern music market “Badtime Stories” is more an exception than a rule. Each track is lyrically saturated so that the vocals with singing words are not just an addition to the music, they become its integral part, merging with the music into a coherent whole, forming not just a simple song with few instruments plus voice, but a complete self-contained structure, a whole world or even a living organism that interacts with the listener. Yet almost always come after the music the lyrics, however, it was designed in such a way as to create an ambiance – special attention has been paid not only to a sense, but also to the “sound of words” and to the way they “lie” onto the music and sing along with it. That’s why one of the most important factors was to choose the right vocalist for each track with the special voice that has to be effectively embedded into the ballad with the lyrics. This was one of the reasons to continue the unique tradition of Delerium, Blue Stone, Conjure One and others who do not follow the rule “1 vocalist for all songs”. However no one track was written for the specific vocalist, rather after the music and the vocal melody had been born, there was a search of the singer whose voice fits the composition the best and who is “spiritually compatible” with the song. For some other tracks different approach was applied – the vocal melody was written by the singer instead of the author of the music. This helped to achieve fresher and brighter songs – vocalist will never write the vocal melody the way the author of the music expects.
Some old-school traditions will remain the same on any “challenging” market – no one electronic release can replace the real physical CD with full artwork and scent of polygraphy… That’s why the artwork design was as important as the music – the work on the front cover started in 2010. The main goal of the artwork was to deliver the album’s spirit, to bring visually the palette of the author’s emotions to the audience.
Undoubtedly, “Badtime Stories” has become a “mixture-of-time” album harmoniously blended old-fashioned tracks with fresh electronic vibes incorporating together the best elements of different bands/projects of the genre among the authentic author’s style. The complex sound of the record based on the elegant electronic frame textured by lush live instruments and quaint voices jewelry wrapped into ethereal cocoon of the refined female and male vocals will bring you into the astonishing atmosphere full of dreaming, emotions and sensual fantasies… Certainly, this is the one of the must-listen albums in recent years for those who appreciates graceful and beautiful music that is quite rare in our days and especially for those whose musical tastes are directly connected with such names as Enigma, Delerium, Balligomingo, Blue Stone, Conjure One, Bel Canto, Sleepthief and others…