Darkwave RadomirDarkwave Radomir

The name got settled when Ivaylo Demidov — Ivashkin von Mephisto to the scene — had to put one on the first of his secret concerts, held in a friend's yard in the village of Galabnik. Those gigs sit between a concert and a rehearsal in front of friends: the invitation goes out by name, to players and audience alike, and the location stays remote enough that nobody wanders in. The radio grew out of them in early 2023, and a foundation followed to back the Bulgarian underground properly.

It calls the work sound archaeology: rare demos, lost cassettes and tapes nobody has touched in decades, better than nine in ten of them Bulgarian, running from new wave and new romantic through synthpop and post-punk to EBM, noise and grind. The Sladurs, formed in Ruse in 1989, sit beside Plovdiv's low-key, recording now. Around thirty contributors keep it running.