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Written in Folk Roots issue 169, 1997

GHÝMES
Tüzugrás - Firejump
Fono FA-014-2 (1996)

VASMALOM
Vasmalom III
RG Music CD 17001 (1996)

NIKOLA PAROV
Kilim
Hannibal HNCD 1408 (1997)

Stabbing cimbalom, high scribbling fiddles, squealing bagpipes, chugging bowed bass and all-out, throat-straining male vocals open this, the second CD by the Hungarian group (now of four members - two Bujáks and two Szarkas) Ghýmes from Slovakia.
      Here the themes, all written by either Gyula or Tamás Szarka, are even more emphatically stated than they were on its predecessor; a massed anthemic chorus and dense, driving instrumentation in Ifjú Szivekben Élek (I Live In Young Hearts), a crowd scene of drums and shouts slipping into blocks of quivering cimbalom and skirling pipes in Tüzugrás then into the sensuous Arabic-sounding rhythm, sobbing clarinet and sweeping tune of Szerelmes Dal (Love Song) featuring the female vocal of guest Bernadett Kiss.
      It’s conceivable that the Urban-Turbanishness of Pozsonyi Blues might be greeted with groans by those of us west of Senec; there seems to be a thread of tradition in Hungarian bands doing a blues (Vasmalom, on its previous album, for example) but, hey, it’s no more nonsensical for a Slovakian-Hungarian to have blues roots than it is for, say, a Brit. Anyway, if one pushes on through, it’s followed by another anthem, which, although perhaps not the strongest track, has a memorable tune and manages to include a children’s chorus without being too icky (and it’s not tokenism or soppiness; earlier cassette-only releases indicate that the band has done a good deal of work with children).

      No blues for Vasmalom this time, though. Like Ghýmes, the band continues to stretch the Hungarian roots music envelope. It’s Hungarian music, developing in a Hungarian way, not necessarily delivering up the music that west-European ears have come to expect, and if this album is, while not short of melodies, more improvisational and perhaps less full of big tunes than its two predecessors... well, it’s their music, it’s Hungarian exploration. Whatever, it’s full of life, beauty and character.
      Dazzling cimbalom player Kálmán Balogh has probably played the gypsy standards more times than he’d care to remember, and in this band he gets to push into other realms, as does wind player Balázs Szokolay using a range of instruments including bagpipes, sax, the huge three holed overtone whistle fujara, the higher-pitched furulya, and Mongolian overtone-singing, along with Tibor Csuhaj’s swingy double bass, László Nyiri’s violin, Gábor Reöthy’s drum and mandocello, and vocals from Ágnes Papp (who in the current touring band replaces Éva Molnár, though the latter still contributes two fine characteristically still, reflective vocal tracks, somehow evoking the sensation as of a woodland clearing in which the birds have strangely fallen silent).

      Leader of another seminal Balkan roots-progressive band, Zsarátnok, and recently producer/arranger of Márta Sebestyén’s Kismet album, Nikola Parov was born in Bulgaria, but has lived in his mother’s homeland of Hungary since childhood (though, these days, wherever Riverdance North America hangs its taps, that’s his home). On Kilim he draws together some of his Irish and Hungarian musical collaborators, including Davy Spillane, Máirtin O’Connor, Noel Eccles, Des Moore and Ferenc Sebö (another leader in the flowering of Hungarian-rooted bands).
      It’s far from the grainy texture of the Ghýmes and Vasmalom; for much of the time this album has the feel of intricate, cool, folk-rooted jazz-rock, an impression increased by the prominent presence of Ken Edge’s soprano sax. The more the wonderfully elusive sound of the gadulka and one of the world’s great flutes, the kaval, both in Parov’s able hands, assert, the more, for me at least, this takes off.. He goes in for a spot of overtone singing, too, on Ritual, and also uses another voice, more joik-ish, and the result for a while bears a passing and welcome resemblance to the Norwegian Frode Fjellheim Jazz Joik Ensemble. And the closing track pulls it together, a reminder that part of what attracted me to Zsarátnok’s second album, Holdudvar, was the way it led through related traditions, on a definite path of connectedness; so here Passio moves from the form of a traditional Bulgarian kaval piece into a powerful Arabic-inflected groove, through angular keyboard-led stabs into a tranquil, lyrical theme for oboe and strings.


© 1997 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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