The Perunika Trio formed in October 2005. Eugenia Georgieva, Victoria Mancheva and Victoria Evstatieva met through the London Bulgaria Choir and decided to go it alone and form a trio. All are of Macedonian descent and spent their early years in the Bulgarian cities of Sofia, Plovdiv and Veliko Turnova. They are now based in London.

Embarking on Introducing: Perunika Trio, turned out to be a profoundly personal experience of self-discovery for these young women, as they grew up absorbing both contemporary pop and their age-old musical tradition. Eugenia Georgieva is the only one amongst them who is classically trained (she even fronted a rock band at one stage) but all have spent time in various choirs. Working on the songs for the album made them aware how deeply rooted the tradition of Bulgarian vocal harmonies was within them.

Bulgarian folk music reflects centuries of political oppression. Bulgarians were, for example, forbidden by the Ottomans to wear clothes of any other colour than black, grey and brown, and musical instruments were limited. The human voice became the instrument and the main outlet for musical expression, used as much in folk music as to glorify God in Orthodox churches.

This album is a journey through the rich musical landscape of Southern Bulgaria – laments from Strandja, melancholic chants from Rhodope, Thracian love songs, asymmetric Pirin diaphony and the clashing sounds and ‘hiccupping’ from Shopsko. Typically the time signatures are irregular and restless, giving the music a strong Eastern flavour

Introducing: Perunika Trio explores the intersecting points of Bulgarian, Macedonian and Russian folklore – Slavic nations united by ethnicity, language, the Cyrillic alphabet, old pagan beliefs and Orthodox religion. The album is a hauntingly beautiful voyage of discovery.