The Guitar Player's Resource
Bulgaria's super shredder may well be Atanas Shishkov, who submitted his eight song instrumental CD-R, Flying Colours. Now ignore the cheesy drum machine sounds and sleep-inducing sequenced keyboards if you can, and you'll be left with fusion/rock/shred that features impressively fluid tapping, amazing string skipping and unusual intervals and positions. Shishkov loves to blaze, and each track from the opener ("Exotic Nights"), through the title track and the Mozart homage ("Mozart-Howe Theme"), until the final track ("The Mysterious Tower") comes rife with ultra-heavy shred and melodically based pyrotechnics. Like a lot of talented musicians, Shishkov has to break out of demo mode and hire some killer rhythm players and a dedicated, experienced producer in order to kick his original music into high gear. The talent is there, ready to be rocketed into instrumental guitar stardom.
Atanas initially took private lessons in the early '90s in classical guitar while also playing hard rock in a band. His first influences were Gary Moore and Kirk Hammett, and later Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani. Atanas decided to start recording my own instrumental music and in the middle of 1994 recorded his first demo "On the Threshold". He then recorded a series of demo albums (ten altogether), from 1995 through to 2001, the last six featuring a fusion/jazz and rock approach. One demo, "The Long Road", was an acoustic affair recorded with 12-string guitarist Boris Kadiev. Since 2003, Atanas has been featured as a guest columnist on several Internet guitar magazines - Chops From Hell, Insane Guitar, iBreathe Music, The Shred Zone and Fusion Site.
Shishkov's goal is to make something different and innovative using the guitar, to create his own style of playing and to create exciting music. He hopes to find a label that appreciates his music enough to prepare a proper CD release.
Atanas Shishkov
Bulgaria
Web site: www.atanasshishkov.cjb.net