The Bulgarian: Codeword 'Fidget'

“MEET ME in Room 511,” said The Bulgarian. I checked my watch, had I gone back in time and stumbled into the plot of a bad Cold War thriller? No, this was Brussels 2008, and I was being invited to interview one of the rising stars of the ever-expanding world of Fidget House. A self-confessed 'global citizen', The Bulgarian (aka Dimitre Vassilev) has been tearing up dancefloors from Camden Town to Cape Town with tracks such as ‘Crazy Dog Biscuit’ and ‘Jack it Like a Zombie’, a string of sick remixes, and a mixtape for the super hip No Love Lost Recordings (NLLR).

JT: Hi Dimitre, your background is quite unusual: tell us a bit about yourself.

TB: I was born in Bulgaria, so hence The Bulgarian. I lived in South Africa for the last 16 years, so that’s pretty much home as well. I was living in London last year, but then I decided to check out Bulgaria - I’m living in Sofia now: it’s very nice.

JT: You’ve got a few different aliases - how long have you been calling yourself The Bulgarian?

TB: Just about a year and a half now. With The Bulgarian I try to do the whole Fidget thing and stick to that. Stuff like Mr Elastik is more techno, minimal, electro - whatever takes my fancy. I’ve also got a side project with another friend called Tone Deaf Junkies, where we do just abstract electronica. It’s just to keep things easy for people to follow. If it were up to me I’d do it all under one alias, but it can get a bit tricky trying to market it all.

JT: What do you think of the name Fidget?

TB: It’s cool. I like it. I got into that genre just before it had a name. It’s better than what I was calling it – electro-jack [chuckles]. The thing that put me on to Fidget was a few years back I was in Bulgaria on holiday and popped over to Serbia for the Exit festival. And Switch happened to be playing in the dance arena and after a few too many beers and several thousand watt sound system, it all sounded really good. I’d never heard that before: I was just like, “I have to do this!”

JT: One of the tracks you’ve done as The Bulgarian is ‘Crazy Dog Biscuit’ with Spoek from Sweat. X. How did that [collaboration] come about?

TB: I’ve known Spoek for a while. I used to have a studio with a mate in South Africa. Spoek came in to work on a hip-hop album for another South African MC. And then he worked with Markus in Sweat. X. I knew Markus from before: I mean there’s not very many of us in South Africa doing this. So I knew what Spoek was capable of and one day I just gave him a shout to see if he wanted to do something. The first track we did together was ‘Jack it like a Zombie’. That was really good, so we did ‘Crazy Dog Biscuit’ to follow that.

JT: You say you know a lot of the other people there – do you think of it as being a South African ‘scene’?

TB: It’s hard-pressed to call it a full-on scene, especially with Fidget. Last year I was the only guy doing Fidget House. Sweat. X is a bit different, but it would have been pretty much only them and me doing this more London-y, Euro-style thing.

Before I left I was way more famous overseas than in South Africa. I used to get maybe one gig every two months or so in South Africa. And when I came back [to tour in February and March] everyone and their grandmother wanted to come along. People were asking: “Have you been to South Africa before?” I was like [sarcastic tone] “yeah-eah” [chuckles]. “Where are you from?” [deadpan] “Here”. It’s funny but I suppose that’s the way it is.

JT: I suppose South Africa is quite isolated in a way.

TB: Yeah, there are so many things. We’ve got the worst Internet in the world! You have limits – everyone gets 3 gigs a month [of bandwidth] and that’s it! Downloading anything more than an MP3 is a bit of an issue there.

JT: Would you say you had any specifically African elements in your music?

TB: I don’t think like that, I just make music for myself. I have at times put in African elements. And Spoek’s pretty African [laughs]. I lived there for 16 years, I’m sure it influences me in some way or another. I don’t like that box of ‘African music’ – all tribal-y or whatever. There’s enough of that. I try to do something else.

JT: You’ve been doing quite a few remixes. What’s been your favourite so far?

TB: It’s hard to say, I mean I love all of them. But the most high profile one I’ve done so far is the remix I did for Larry Tee. That was quite something else because they contacted me out of the blue, which was quite a cool surprise.

There’s one that just came out for the Round Table Knights ('Hold me Back'), which is a really cool song. I like that a lot. I’m doing a lot – I’ve got about four on the go at the moment.

JT: If you could remix anybody in the world, who would it be?

TB: Anybody? Ooh, tough choice… Nine Inch Nails would be fun. Trent Reznor’s been a big influence as a producer through the years.

JT: As well as the tracks we’ve already mentioned and all the remixes, what else have you got lined up?

TB: I’ve started a label – it’s called Feta. In Bulgaria we just call [Feta] cheese – it’s something that’s very integral to our culture there. And it sounded cool! I’m doing it with another guy called Vlad Sokolov, who runs Sokolov Sounds. He’s from Serbia originally, also Feta country.

JT: He’s more into Breaks, isn’t he?

TB: He was, but he’s come to the conclusion that [whispering] Breaks is finished… Shit…Whoops…[Close to mic] Errr, no, Breaks is cool! So me and him started Feta together. We’re trying to do vinyl releases [as well as downloads] but we’ve just had a problem with the distributors. We’ll see – that’s still in the air now, but definitely that’s the plan. I’ve had quite a few deals with a few labels where, when I’ve signed it was for a vinyl deal, and then a few weeks later they’re like, “we can’t do vinyl any more” – it’s happened to me three times so far.

Downloading, whether it’s legal or illegal, is having such an effect on the music industry – it’s a whole new ball game. I’ve actually been considering going almost ‘open source’ on my music, but it’s a bit tricky to do that. I’ll probably have to get a bit bigger and make a bit more money first!

JT: Would you like to do a full-length album as the Bulgarian?

TB: I don’t know. The Bulgarian is very party music. I don’t know how suited it is to an album. It would be fun to do, but I’d like to make it a bit more varied, which also runs the risk of alienating people: “Where’s my Fidget, man? What’s this melodic stuff, I don’t like it.”

That’s far in the future I think, it’s too early to think about that.

JT: So, how do you sum up your music in one line?

TB: Don’t take it all so seriously: it’s just life.

An alternative version of this interview was published by Vice Belgium, check it out at: http://vice.typepad.com/vice_belgium/2008/04/interview---the.html