It has been two years since the release of the first solo album by two jazzmen - Milen Kokusharov (piano) and Vesselin Eko Vesselinov (bass). Titled ImproviSatie, it was dedicated to Erik Satie. The musicians presented music by the French avant-garde composer interpreted through their own jazz prism. Their quest for new horizons in music gave rise to the idea of a duet - Das Weltschmerz Duett. The name was suggested by Vesselin Eko Vesselinov, and the meaning of the word Weltschmerz - world-pain, world weariness - is connected with a painful feeling of melancholy arising from an acute awareness of one’s own, and the world’s imperfection. “Weltschmerz” is widespread in the work of many European poets and writers from the late 18^th and early 19^th century – George Byron, Giacomo Leopardi, François-René de Chateaubriand, Alfred de Musset. Intellectuals of the time were finding it difficult to accept change and thought life was devoid of meaning.

In their music Milen and Eko take the opposite view – they each have years of experience as instrumentalists, composers, in jazz improvisation and arrangement. This symbiosis resulted in their second album released just a few days ago. Consequences has more original pieces written by the two musicians, and is co-produced by Mario Krastev.

Here is more from Milen Kukosharov:

“In the time since the release of the first album we have had quite a few things going on music-wise. We have continued our quests, our experiments with improvisation based on the music of Erik Satie and other composers. That is why we called it Consequences – the album is the “consequence” of our development in music. We work really well with Eko, including our own ideas of improvisation. So, in time we plucked up the courage to do something that is different. It took different techniques which we applied in this album. It took time to get to the point where we feel well in the studio together. But we still have a long way to go from here. We are very busy with side formations and projects. That is why this album was easy to make – in terms of performance – and difficult in terms of organization. We made use of the inertia - from our first album we had some pieces we used in our second album. So things moved really fast. In Consequences we again included a piece by Erik Satie because people familiar with our first album will expect to hear music by him. But here the music is different from the music we included in the first disc. The new project features 6 original compositions – four of my own and two of Eko’s, as well as an interpretation of a Nocturne by Rachmaninoff. The album begins with a tango written by Eco and bearing the name of the duet.”

For several years Milen Kukosharov has been writing music for the theatre. There he finds a different kind of freedom that has enriched him as a musician,  and the last track from the album Consequences – Shores of the sky comes as proof of this. The promotion of the album is planned for September, at the Apollonia Arts Festival in Sozopol on the Black Sea. The musicians also plan to present the album in Berlin and Vienna.