"This album is for anyone who knows, has felt, or will feel loneliness. It is for the inner or outer immigrant. For anyone who has the senses to hear the sound of memories" - this is how Dobrin Vekilov-Doni described his latest album "Emigrantski" (meaning "Expatriate") to Radio Bulgaria.

Its ten tracks tell the story of expat life, of the feeling of longing for one’s motherland when one is away from it. They tell about the memory that lives in our hearts and about the roots that are the compass of our senses.

Author of the music and the lyrics to the songs is Doni, who says that the album was born as a result of his travels abroad: 

"We have been traveling around the world for almost 9 years with our group "The Foundation". In 2018 we even did a round the world trip. We were also touring with the play "Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll", which has been on stage for 30 years at the Bulgarian Army Theater (Doni starred as an actor in the play, based on a text by Eric Bogosian, together with prof. Ivaylo Hristov and another musician - Kotseto-Kalki - ed.). And meeting so many Bulgarians all over the world we made many friendships. I could see that the farther we were, the closer were people connected to Bulgaria in some indirect way.

It was this topic that excited me the most and was closest to my heart. When I began to write the music, the songs started appearing one after the other, but I could write them only whenever I was away from Bulgaria. So I told myself that the lyrics should go in that direction too.

Then I had the idea to connect the songs with a common narrative thread. I decided that the means of expression would be through symphonic sound intertwined with ethnic instruments, and so the album was born. It is, from every point of view, sincere and heartfelt and it addresses something that has touched me all these years and probably will continue to touch me - emigration," says Doni. 

"I became aware that for me Bulgaria was not only a territory, not only a language, but what is more important than anything is that I realized that I had my roots in Bulgaria", the musician is quite adamant. And these roots are the thread that turns the album into a story of the phases of an emigrant's life.

"Fleeing Moment", "Nestinarka", "With the Wind Ahead", "There Is Time" are some of the titles of the tracks. Four other songs are named after the four seasons. "Because when you make a story about Bulgaria you have to include the seasons," Doni believes.

"What's always impressed me when I'm out of the country and in faraway places where seasons are often reduced to two, is that the people I've spoken to miss the four seasons, their scents and the childhood memories they bring back.

"The first single of the album, the song "Expatriate," is highly emotional. The video for it features children of Bulgarians or those from mixed marriages aged between 5 and 11 on six continents. Doni says that when he decided to visualise the song in this way, he contacted Bulgarian communities abroad, introduced them to his idea and they helped him find families to get involved.

"99% of these children were not born in Bulgaria, but they attended Bulgarian schools, studied Bulgarian language, most of them spoke our language well, and others learned it better thanks to the song."

The photos were taken outdoors around iconic locations in each country. "The video shows the famous bay of Rio de Janeiro and the statue of Jesus Christ, the Amazon River, New Zealand, Australia, Kuwait, Malta, the Berlin Wall in Germany, Cape Town.

We basically went around the world with this video," Doni says. He admits that many more children were involved, but he had to choose the best quality footage. The decision fell to video director and album cover artist Zlatka Shetkova. Doni himself is deeply grateful for the willingness and passion with which the children and their families provided the footage.

English version: Elizabeth Radkova