As heavy and hard as folk

Bulgarians bring heart to Holland.

By Danny Guinan

Band noises can be loose and vague things sometimes, revealing little of the music behind the maker. Not so with Artery, the Balkan metal band now domiciled in Amsterdam. As their many fans hem will tell you, theirs is a pulsating mix of Balkan folk and hardcore metal, truly straight from the heart.

Having gained no small amount of both popularity and notoriety in their homeland, Bulgaria, the band moved here in 1998 to trade the confines of the former Eastern Bloc for what they hoped would be a myriad of possibilities on offer in the West. After seven years in Amsterdam, I wondered whether they had found the streets paved with gold.

A chat with Yanko Brekov their front man and bouzouki-player extraordinaire (a bouzouki being a kind of lute) reinforces the impression that this is band eager to bring their music to a wider audience. No guarded answers here, but authentic heart-on-the-sleeve stuff.

That Brekov has gladly swapped the shores of the Black Sea for those of the IJsselmeer is evident in his reply to my question about when they first came here. 'It was the 20th of September 1998,' he gleefully pronounces, with the enthusiasm of a man who was ready to leave his past behind.

State censorship, dodgy record deals and a gig-circuit made up of school halls and libraries left the band with no other option but to pursue their rebellious path elsewhere. In his own words, 'Big in Bulgaria but broke,' meant they had to find greener pastures.

The streets of Amsterdam are not, however, paved with gold but rather, more often than not, cordoned off with red tape. His love of the city is tempered by the amount of bureaucracy they have had to fight in order to stay here. It took the band three years of constant hassle and threats of deportation to finally get a visa, which could only be granted on the basis that they were doing something no Dutch person could do.

Why they had to wait so long defies belief. Their music is not only unique because of its Balkan origin but even more so because of the way it's played. Brekov drives the band with a style of bouzouki-playing that borders on the insane. With this lot there is no 'Zorba the the Greek till everybody fails down drunk from ouzo,' as Brekov describes it. At times blindingly fast, at other times heart-wrenchingly melodic, Artery's music forges two unlikely bedfellows -Balkan folk and hardcore metal- into a force that sweeps away everything in its path.

And it's not all music as at 200 mph. The songwriting is top-drawer whether 'trying to fight the devil inside me,' as Brekov describes it, or railing against social injustice. Live, the band is simply awesome, each member of the band playing as if their lives depended on it.

That is often literally the case, as Brekov points out. Surviving here as a musician is no easy task. Apart from gigging all over the place in pubs, clubs and at festivals Brekov is also a familiar face on the streets of Amsterdam. busking to try to make ends meet. The struggle can at times be incredibly frustrating but Brekov shows no trace of the bitterness often seen in other musicians who expect everything to just fall into their laps.

Merging two very different styles at music begs the question of which he ultimately prefers. 'It's like having two children.' he says. 'Which one do you love more?' Artery are nurturing a brand new baby with their Balkan metal. It will be a pleasure to be around watching it grow up.

Amsterdam Weekly, 14-20 July 2005