POPFOLK

Everything came back to me one night, at that party in a fancy hotel built in the heart of ancient Thrace. Maybe I had too much to drink, though the booze doesn’t get to me like regular folks. Or maybe it was the place, but with each emptied glass, my memory trembled. I felt ready to listen, to return to my roots as the saying goes. The problem is, these roots run so deep I can’t remember where they started.

During a drunken evening in a hotel in Bulgaria, whose current territory corresponds to the north of the ancient kingdom, a character who introduces himself as an “immortal Thracian” narrates in voiceover what will seem like a search for one’s roots on LSD. For example, we come across a “shaman” who snorts ants as a bracing “cocktail” and is firmly convinced that his glorious ancestors knew how to free themselves from the laws of gravity. Employed—in real life—in a tourist complex where, once in a while, he organises “period” costume re-enactments of ancient rites, he belongs to some kind of modern secret society dedicated to awakening the Thracian who sleeps in us all. Add a seductive “priestess” and a rustic cowboy, shake well, and drink Popfolk in one go.