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Written in fRoots issue 349, 2012


CIMBALIBAND
Ablakimba
Fonó FA 267-2 (2011)

A promising, listener-enticing opening – atmospheric slow ringing cimbalom-rolls, rich low bowed strings, deep intimate female vocal – then into fast swingy number led by fiddle, joined by perky honky guest harmonica, onward to manic percussive damped cimbalom, the female singer rejoins with gusto, the harmonica goes into wild train-blues squeal.
     So that’s track one. The rest of the album continues the fun, ever-changing seductive rhythms and smart playing in a big, meaty, massively exuberant, often impossibly fast but impeccably tight sound.
     The septet is cimbalist is Balázs Unger, his brother guitarist Gergö Unger, lead singer Eszter Szita, fiddler Gellért Boa, Serbian accordionist Krunoszláv Agatics, bassist Péter Pataj and drummer Dániel Horváth.
     The material draws on the music of the villages, cafés and Roma mahalas of Hungary and the Balkans, and also brings home hints from the wider world; since their 2009 first album the band has done quite a bit of foreign gigging, and from this album and live evidence on recent videos looks set for more.

www.fono.hu


© 2012 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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