The album was the result of fifteen years of work by Swiss ethnomusicologist and producer Marcel Cellier and was released in 1975 on his small Disques Cellier label. Some of the recordings he made himself; others were taken from the archives of Radio Sofia.[2] The album won a Grand Prix du Disque award.[2] The album drew on an earlier release, Music of Bulgaria: Ensemble of the Bulgarian Republic, conducted by Kutev (credited as Philippe Koutev), which was released in 1966 by Elektra Records (EKL282), and which itself was a reissue of Ensemble de la République Bulgare, recorded in Paris in 1955 by Le Chant du Monde.[3]
In the 1980s, Ivo Watts-Russell (founder of the British 4AD label) was introduced to the choir from a third or fourth generation audio cassette lent to him by Peter Murphy, singer from the band Bauhaus. He became thoroughly entranced by the music, and tracked down and licensed the recordings from Cellier.[4] It was re-released in 1986 by 4AD in the UK, by the Nonesuch label in the US in 1987, and appeared on the Philips label in other territories.
Subsequent albums were released with similar titles: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 2 (1988), which won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in 1990;[5]Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 3 (1990); and Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 4 (1998).
NPR ranked Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume 1 the 78th greatest album ever made by women.[6]
The American artist Linda Ronstadt stated that the music was "some of the most beautiful [she's] ever heard".[13] The British-American musician Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young declared after listening to the album: "Every musician who considers himself accomplished should listen to (this group's album) and rethink everything he knows (about singing)."[13]Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead: "They're like angels... exceptionally pure, really polished. Our song 'Uncle John's Band' was inspired by the village music of Bulgaria."[14]Dead Can Dance's singer Lisa Gerrard was so inspired by this album, she declared: "If anybody is changed by this, it's me..."[15]
The soundtrack for the film Ghost in the Shell (1995) by Kenji Kawai was inspired by the music of the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices.[16] The track "Polegnala e pshenitsa" features in the soundtrack for the film Skeletons (2010).
The song "Parasite Eve" by Bring Me the Horizon starts with a sample from the song "Ergen deda". Their vocalist Oli Sykes shared in an interview for Kerrang! that he chose to include the snippet from "Ergen deda" because it felt euphoric but at the same time foreign and instilled a sense of panic and chaos.[17]
It was ranked number 10 on Spin's list of "The 35 Best Albums of the Last 35 Years".[18]
^"The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices". Viavox Production. Retrieved 9 July 2020. A Swiss ethnomusicologist who traveled to Eastern Europe at the time of the Cold War, Marcel Cellier, was the first to record them, and to publish an album on his own label in 1975. But it's about ten year later that the choir reached global success, when the English label 4AD released the record produced by Marcel Cellier. The musicians recognize and love to get lost. Kate Bush, Gorillaz or the Cocteau Twins are swooning. U2, Drake or last year Ibeyi samplent. The music of the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices has also inspired the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack, among many others.
^"Oli Sykes: "I've realised that what Bring Me The Horizon do is special and we shouldn't lose everything"". Kerrang!. 25 June 2020. Retrieved 26 May 2021. It starts with Bulgarian choir vocals, which is something I really got into at the start of the year and listened to a lot, appreciating the history behind it. In some regions it's closely linked to ceremonies involving walking over hot coals and they go into this trance. When I hear vocals like that – maybe because it's sung in different scales and rhythms to Western music – it has this euphoric feeling, but also because it's so foreign to me it has this feeling of panic and chaos. It felt like the perfect way to open a song that is about essentially that.
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