MINDFOLD EXPRESS is a Bulgarian experimental/groove metal trio that was conceived as a project by guitarists Stilian KASIMOV and Boyan GEORGIEV in the beginning of 2009. A few months later the band set out to record an EP, with the idea to showcase the musical concept and find fulltime members for a complete lineup. Eventually, the material grew to a full-lenght album.

I got in touch with the band and Stilian Kasimov answered my questions.

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When, where and by whom was your band born ?

It started as a colaborative project between me and the other guitarist Boyan over the internet. We were sending ideas back and forth that seemed to work well together and not much later, in may 2009 we set out to record an EP which eventualy ended up as a full lenght album.

Did any of you, past and present members, play in any other bands before joining up in your band ?

Our drummer played in a punk/rock band called Spot prior joining us so it was a huge change of gears for him, he have never played in that fashion before. Boyan used to play bass for a hardcore band called Garrotta and I was in a death metal band some years ago.

Why did you choose that name and which bands were you influenced by ?

The name is related to the idea to bring something to one's mind, bend it and make him believe as in a religion and that particular phrase sounded like if it's the ride to experience this. There are lots of influences, but maybe the ones to be pointed out that influenced the album material the most are Bulb and his band Periphery, Animals As Leaders, Textures and mothership Meshuggah.

How is it to run a band in Bulgaria these days ?

Not easy I'd say, you have to deal with the absence of the two major factors - time and money.

Your one and only album so far; Drawbacks & Benefits was released last year. Please tell us more about this album.

Well as I said we started the recording process in may 2009 and at the time we had like two complete songs and a bunch of random ideas that we had to tie in a way. It was far not well thought-out composing and we tracked the most part of the album in the first two weeks, so it was a rush for a debut I think. 

The additional layers, solos and pre-mix took more than a year though. It was our first time to do something of such a scale and doing it all by ourselves there was a lot of trial and error so it was necessary to revisit everything over and over again. We've gone through issues not only production wise, but of personal character as well and that's where the album title came from, the drawbacks and benefits of every action one takes and the results that follow. The bottom line is we're happy with the result and to complete the picture, Tymon from Exivious joined with a mind-boggling solo at the end of the CD.

What have you been up to since the release of this album ?

Rehearsals. Pretty much this. It's our main priority now to put this to life on stage and we still have a lot of work to do.

For those of us unknown with your music; how would you describe you music and which bands would you compare yourself with ?

The goal of the band is to be an open-source thing, where everyone can put his ideas no matter where they originate from, no trends to follow or musical genres to fit. Yeah at the time of the release this kind of music was already well known and defined as the genre of "djent" and therefore not that original already, but that's the concept. So I don't know really how to describe it, there are influences from metal through breakcore to fusion, but in the most part it's syncopated low-tuned riffing with salt and pepper. As far as bands we're similar in a way, since we're all instrumental band, maybe artist like Chimp Spanner, Animals As Leaders, Bulb, Red Seas Fire, although the later have a vocalist.

What is your plans for this year and beyond ?

On the first place it's to bring the band on stage and hopefully at the end of the year we'll start working on our sophomore album. There's more, but too early to discuss.

To wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ?

Well we're a tiny not well known band who wants to continue making music and fans are the most valuable thing for an artist so I'd ask people to visit our facebook and myspace pages where we've uploaded our whole album for streaming recently, we've also shared two of those tracks for free download so you can get familiar with our music and if you dig us, you may support us by commenting and spreading the word or purchasing our debut album "Drawbacks & Benefits" which is available on AMAdea Records, iTunes, Amazon and CD Baby. Thank you!

Thank you to  Stilian Kasimov for this interview

Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=6395" rel="nofollow - and their homepage is http://www.myspace.com/mindfoldexpress" rel="nofollow -