WOMEX 2002 Essen Showcase artist
Friday 25 October, 23:40, WOMEXclub (Hall 23)
Not just an orgy of liquid funk, sampled-up folk and broken beats, Hungary’s indisputed #1 club act are old-skool conscious dissidents of the finest kind, the bete noire of the Hungarian far right. More than any other dance music act in the former East, these guys tear up the stage with a totally fresh sound that draws inspiration from London & NYC without ever imitating. It will come as no surprise to hear that they have rocked club and festival crowds across Europe with everyone from Goldie and Kruder&Dorfmeister to Faithless and Asian Dub Foundation.
Of the many DJs, turntablists & world/jazz club acts across the ex-East, there are perhaps few who can really cut it on the international stage. Remember where you heard it first…
Coming from a small town in Western Hungary, Anima Sound System are a group of musicians from varying musical and intellectual backgrounds and generations. Together, live, they create a true meltdown of all the dance music genres and styles of Middle-East Europe across the ages.
Anima Sound System takes leading role in civic actions against racism and homophobia. They initiated a now infamous campaign against an extreme right wing radio station, forbidding them to play their music, and their stance was followed by 60 other Hungarian bands. Independence, action and experimentation are key words for the band: they have said no! to moneybags who wanted to market them as the Hungarian Deep Forest. Their creativity in sample manipulation, using everything from Hapsburg-era folk 78s to old Hungarian Communist speeches, is a perfect illustration of their irreverent humour and ironic take on their history. It is their desire to keep the music live, recording with some of the most respected Hungarian and Gypsy artists, and their refusal to use folk music as a token that keeps their sound so consistently innovative and successful.
Since the release of their debut album (Shalom, 1995) Anima Sound System has become one of the most popular Hungarian bands of the new generation. Headlining most of the Hungarian festivals, Anima Sound System regularly play to crowds of between two and forty thousand.
During their extensive live performances in Hungary, Austria and Germany they have shared the stage with Kruder & Dorfmeister, Dub Syndicate, Faithless, Goldie, Asian Dub Foundation, John Carter, the Space DJz, Transglobal Underground, Freddy Fresh, David Holmes and DJ Krust.
Their third (untitled) album was released late 1997. Bartók meets King Tubby in Transsylvania, Gypsyland. Asked about their stylistic versatility, they refer to Bela Bartok, quoting his oft-repeated comment that racial impurity has a definitely positive and fruitful effect.
The Hungarian press called their third album the dance record of the year. The leading daily Népszabadság called Anima Sound System most promising, normal and worth to be loved act of the local dance music scene of our time. Their single entitled ´68 and its low budget trash video was an immediate success and were on heavy rotation on most Hungarian TV and radio channels.
The German SFB radio called their live contribution the most interesting and promising act of the Fete de la Musique three years ago in Berlin. In the week of its release, ´68 remixes (by Bassface Sascha and De-Phazz) went straight number one on the official Hungarian single sales charts.
Rising international interest is proven by the fact, that several Anima Sound System tracks have been licensed to various respected compilation series in Germany (MOLE / Listening Pearls), France (Pschent / Buddha Bar - besides Faithless and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) and Switzerland (Energetic / Science Fiction Jazz vol. 4). Both volumes of the internationally respected compilation series Future Sound of Budapest feature one of their recent tracks each.
Anima Sound System has produced the full soundtrack to a Hungarian movie (Close to Love) that has been premiered at the 30th Budapest Film Festival in February 1999. The soundtrack was released by the Under Cover Music Group Hungary and is distributed worldwide by interGROOVE Germany.
A compilation album Mariguana cha-cha-cha (that includes the remake of a forty year old Hungarian radiohit by Stefi Ákos) was released in Germany. Thanks to Juci’s (Judit Németh) sweet and gorgeous singing, Mariguana cha-cha-cha went straight number one at the official domestic single sales charts in Hungary within the week of release.
At the end of 1999 Transglobal Underground made a remix of their track called Bujdosó (Exile). The single Bujdosó includes this and the remix of the Hungarian national Anthem. The latter became a national scandal because the extreme right wing party sued Anima for offending a national symbol. In the spring of 2000, the most succesful of all the albums so far, came out called Gipsy Sound Clash, that smashed all previous records in the Hungarian dance music scene.
In 2001 Zsolt Prieger and Gergely Nemeth – the two leading figures of Anima – finished the first album of their new project called Dubcity Fanatikz. In 2001 before their joint gig with Asian Dub Foundation in Budapest, Anima recorded the anti-racist track Enough with MC Spex and MC Aktarvata of Asian Dub Foundation. This track together with 2 of its remixes will be released soon on EP.
A compilation of Anima's first three albums was released in the US under the title Hungarian Astronaut. For their album, Gypsy Sound Clash, they won the Golden Giraffe award - Hungary's most prestigious musical prize in the non classical music business – as the best Hungarian world music band of the year in 2001.
LINE UP
Gergely Németh, arrangement, electronic instruments, bass, turntables
Szabolcs Prieger, arrangement, electronic instruments, guitar
Zsolt Prieger, arrangement, electronic instruments, effects
Judit Németh, vocal, flute
Tamás Soos, brass, vocal
Ákos Angler, drums
Béla Horvath, vocals
DISCOGRAPHY
Enough, EP, Hungaroton, August 2002
Gipsy Sound Clash, CD, Hungaroton, 2000
Bujdosó, maxi single, UCMG, 2000, incl. Transglobal Underground remix
Close to Love, soundtrack-album, UCMG, 1999
Mariguana cha-cha-cha, maxi single, UCMG, 1999, inc. Terry Lee Brown Jr remix
68, maxi-single, KO.Rec + UCMG, 1998, incl. DJ Palotai, Dee Phazz and Bassface Sacha remixes
Anima, CD, KO Rec., 1997
Hungarian Astronaut, CD, KO Rec., 1996
Shalom, CD, author’s issue, 1995
Anima 001, Trottel Rec., 1994
COMING SOON!!
Aquanistan, CD, Hungaroton – autumn 2002
ANIMA PROJECT
DUBCITY FANATIKZ : aerodynamics, CD, 2001 Bahia