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Written in Folk Roots issue 160, 1996

GHÝMES
Üzenet - Odkaz - Message
Monique Agency/Ghýmes (CD, no catalogue number) (1993)

From the evidence here I’ll be surprised and confused if this band of Hungarians from Slovakia doesn’t become a great deal better known abroad very soon.
      Ghýmes is well in the league of Muzsikás and Vasmalom, and like them and earlier evolutionary bands such as Kolinda, Makám és Kolinda and Sebó seems, judging by previous recordings which arrived with this CD (as did a cassette of the material for the next album - there’s much more evolution to come), to be moving into developmental music from origins playing and singing fairly straight and skilfully in traditional style. Indeed bold progressiveness seems to be a tradition of present-day Hungarian-rooted music.
      Opening with Soha, massed vocals with a high male lead (Tamás Szarka, I deduce, but it could be Gyula Szarka, who shares lead vocalising) over skittering fiddles, rolling snares, pounding cimbalom, churning bowed bass, Üzenet is richly varied, strong tunes with dazzling instrumental leads (most obviously Tamás Szarka’s fiddle and kobza, László Béhr’s cimbalom, Andor Buják’s sax and bombarde and Mihály Nagy’s bagpipes), and fine singing, including on one track the calm female voice of guest Écsi Gyöngyi and on another the strident, non-twee Pipacsok children’s choir.
      Ghýmes is moving along a distinctive path, increasingly developing a big sound with full-on solo and group vocals, and the meaty non-kit drumming that joins group-round soloing in the final, title, track is a signpost to a feature of the landscape ahead.


© 1996 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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