Episode 1: There’s always somebody cutting something with an angle grinder

The Urban Detective

"There’s always somebody cutting something with an angle grinder" - this bizarre observation was grafittied all over Sofia in the 2000s and anyone who's tried to enjoy a nap on the weekend knows it's true. An informal slogan of the city of sorts, it was viral before the age of social media, making its way into short stories and books. But... where did it all start? In E01, we investigate the sound of Sofia. Bogdan Rusev is a Bulgarian writer and translator of modern fiction, author of novels, short stories and children's books. His novel A Tourist, He Thought was published in the UK by Austin Macauley in 2016, and his second novel in translation Come to Me was published in 2019 by the Dalkey Archive Press, translated by Ekaterina Petrova. Vikenti Komitski is a Bulgarian contemporary artist based in Berlin. Svilen Ivanov is a Sofia-based musician who extracts music from hacksaws and angle grinders. An angle grinder is a handheld power tool used for cutting metal and stone. The title song Everybody is by Sofia-based Saturated Pixels whose first LP Mystery is out on May 10th 2018. Additional voices by Ben Bush and Alexander Gyurovski. Additional sounds used under Creative Commons: Venise, Italie - Bells of San Marco place by Claire Sauvaget, CC BY 3.0 on Radio Aporee; Istanbul Galata Bridge soundwalk by john grzinich, CC BY-SA 3.0 on Radio Aporee; Berlin Public Transport by nikohbf, CC Sampling Plus 1.0 on Freesound.org