The band Ostava has made something of a tradition out of celebrating its birthday in September with a concert at Maimunarnika in Sofia. This year the concert will be on Wednesday, 11 September. And at that concert Ostava will perform their latest song for the first time – Mona Lisa, their first single after the album Oxygen.

As it turns out, however, for Ostava’s frontman Svilen Noev, Mona Lisa’s smile is not as enigmatic as it is… mean, in a sense “picking up the pulse” of the public with the phrase: “You smile like Mona Lisa – I want more”. Being author of the music and of the lyrics of the band’s newest single he says the song got written very quickly, and adds:

“I really love that song Mona Lisa – and not just because I wrote it myself but… it somehow seems we don’t have a song like that, so slow, so sensual, to my mind it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done with the band. Our drummer Daniel and Georgi Stanev love post-production – once we record the whole song they do the effects and work on all kinds of sounds so you can hear the melody, the singing, but also so it will have a modern sound too. In this case we used the fact that it is slow, that is has a certain retro sound – there is a long guitar solo just like in the old days. There used to be ballads like that when we were children that stick in your head and that you sing to yourself for weeks. So, I hope we’ve done a good job.”

Besides their greatest hits and their latest single Mona Lisa, Ostava’s two-hour concert on 11 September will also feature one more brand new song they are still recording.

Translated and posted by Milena Daynova