On my previous two albums I included one existing piece to honour the sources of my inspiration: ‘Dali znaeš pomniš li’ on Európe and ‘Blackcap’ on Erato. At that pace, it will take more albums than I expect to be making to produce an appropriately sized homage. I am currently compiling my most beloved folk melodies from all over the Balkans to include in a future album. Coherency will be achieved by performance. The material will played by, and where necessary arranged for, a modal ensemble. This entails, amongst other things, stripping the pieces from chord accompaniments: a litmus test that only the strongest melodies ‘survive’. From a historic-geographical perspective there is only one appropriate name for this project that I can think of: Rumelia. While the combination of that name and the overall approach may come across as rather cerebral and possibly revisionist, that is not my intention. I am not trying to ‘restore’ pieces to pristine versions from some theoretical modal past. I will merely be feeding beautiful melodies to the Kairos Collective, and especially ‘Blackcap’ tells you that it should work very well.
