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Written in Folk Roots issue 154, 1996
IRÉN LOVÁSZ
Rosebuds In A Stoneyard
Erdenklang 60892 (1996)
Irén Lovász is a notable singer with a calm, serene delivery, never overtly
impassioned but bringing out the subtlety of 23 songs from throughout the
environs of Hungary - Transdanubia, the north, the Great Plain, Transylvania and
Moldavia. Her voice has less of the edge of, say, Márta Sebestyén, but hearing
her alighting naturally and accurately on those microtonal melodic ledges is a
delight.
Essentially this is an unaccompanied vocal album
with added accompaniment in form of samples and electronics from László
Hortobágyi. In principle this could be a fine way to go about things, letting
the songs go their own way and occasionally interpolating sounds to support and
enhance the concentration of the listener rather than providing a formal and
perhaps constraining accompaniment, but, though sometimes it’s effective, the
overwhelming image is not of a strange landscape surrounding the songs but of
keys, faders and knobs - a boffin playing with sounds in a stuffy studio, of air
not being shifted. Actually, during my first listen-through a cacophony of
police and ambulance sirens struck up outside, and had no lesser musical effect
than a spot of woo-woo Hortobágyi uses later in the album.
Never mind, the singing and the songs (many
apparently collected by Lovász herself) are fine, and it’s the sort of album
that if tracks were played through the PA before a gig there’d be a queue of
inquirers at the mixing desk.
© 1996
Andrew Cronshaw
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