Rough Guide to Hungary
Reviewed by Sadie O., 12/13/12
Mostly very strongly tied to the Roma musical tradition in Central/Eastern Europe, very folky, often traditional and acoustic instruments.
CD 1:
1. 5:01 **stately café gavotte with violins. Turns into a mad romp for the last minute.
2. 2:25 **pretty female a capella, very Eastern European.
3. 4:20 ****high speed violin sawing and walking bass, turns into a proper boogie – very nice! Gypsy funk…
4. 4:20 **piano arpeggios, very fraught and redolent of cigarette smoke and regret. Goes all hyper for last minute and a half.
5. 5:11 **super high speed plinky strings, folk dance. Lots of Opa! Clarinet and accordion solos. Project specifically intended to preserve Roma music.
6. 3:13 **lovely and expressive female harmonies, very, very wistful and slow.
7. 2:54 **upbeat and bouncy strings, midtempo Gypsy/Klezmer. Male vocals.
8. 5:35 **plinky unplugged ethnofolk, upbeat female vocals and chorus. Goes into very uptempo and skippy flute and fiddle frenzy. Ends in a merry little march.
9. 3:14 ***sweet Gypsy jazz café with female vocals. Swingy and nice.
10. 2:57 **pretty, mellow hurdy-gurdy music with some well-mannered horns and strings, choral vocals.
11. 2:30 ***completely manic fiddle-based romp with nonsense female vocals.
12. 4:01 **pretty, plinky strings and flute, extremely lovely female vocals. A bit redolent of some Celtic trad.
13. 2:44 ****uptempo and upbeat, mostly male vocals, seriously party music, Gypsy style. Fun insidental vocals, almost beatboxing…
14. 3:20 **high speed fiddle dance from the new generation of folk musicians. Very nice clarinet solo.
15. 4:29 ****whistling and guitar intro, turns into a fantastic circus march from a dreamscape…
16. 3:31 *very sparse horns and female vocals, mellow as all heck. Pretty, but it’s kinda putting me to sleep…
17. 3:15 *****awesome springy instruments and manic vocals. Although based in Roma music, it’s completely modern and crazy fun!
CD 2 (Tárkány-Müvek):
Traditional Hungarian meets avante-garde and café jazz. Involves the Cimbalom, which is sort of large and complex dulcimer.
1. 3:17 ***very fast, bouncy plinky Gypsy café jazz instrumental. Halfway along, it gets a swing bounce and licorice stick.
2. 2:48 **minor chord, and pretty female vocals with a very Eastern European style. Slow, no percussion, but a fair amount of tension…
3. 5:01 *pretty solo clarinet intro, then minor key jazzy piano, female vocals, high and pretty. Noodly jazz clarinet outro.
4. 4:56 **upbeat minor (diminished, even) chord jazzy something, light and pretty female vocals. Gets uptempo and swingy with quite a clarinet solo.
5. 4:32 *terribly sad-sounding vocals and tinkly piano. Gets a bit of mild Gene Krupa drum, uptempo but minor-key.
6. 2:35 **quite dramatic (but rather soft) piano arpeggios and sad vocals. Avante-garde and a bit dischordant.
7. 3:11 ***happy, plinky, upbeat and uptempo, rather like a polka w/ a klezmer/café fee/. Pleasant, apart from the Gitano smoke.
8. 4:34 ***upbeat jazzy bopper. Reminds me of “Those Were the Days, My Friend”…
9. 11:58 *very sparse and slow piano and flute intro. Makes me sad, and I’m already sad enough… Builds slowly, lots of solos and improv. Vocals only in last minute and a half. SAD.
10. 5:08 ***midtempo café jazz with upright bass, high, light vocals. Hungary’s answer to Edith Piaf? Goes all fast and bouncy right at the end.
11. 6:32 *extremely soft and slow chords, sweet vocals. Almost unbearably mellow clarinet solo. SUDDENLY goes all uptempo bouncy with accordion.