1. Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal ChoirLe Mystère des Voix Bulgares

I’ve always loved them, because they’re so full of light. I wanted to sing like them, so I wrote the ‘Host of the Seraphim’, and really with that song I was trying to copy them. Brendan [Perry] helped me of course, but it was really inspired by the Bulgarian singers.

When I first saw them sing live, they came on stage like red triangles, with these flowers, and these triangular gowns. It was at the time when we were in London, and would have been during the mid-80s, maybe early 80s. It was very dark, music was very sad, people wanted to talk about things that were affecting them that they weren’t happy about. Then you had this Bulgarian music that was 1000 years old, this music that just elevated you right out of the darkness; you realised that the way out of the darkness was in this context.

When you are in the presence of these women, when you hear them sing, you don’t have to know anything about their history, which by the way is phenomenal. They had to avoid the Ottomans. On the back of that, there’s a huge history with them of secret languages, embroidery and gowns. It’s stunning stuff, you know. Their singing was developed because of calling animals in the mountains. I have also been told by the Bulgarians that the Ottomans couldn’t actually convert the Bulgarians, because there was a body of water that they couldn’t cross on horseback. So there were places where they could actually hide in the mountains. They dressed their sons up at 12 years old as women, so that they wouldn’t be captured or killed. There are all these kinds of amazing stories.