Tigrics: Hungarian Heart

Budapest is a proud, rough city. Miles of once stately Hapsburg buildings sit under a century’s film of dust, their tall windows peering down onto broad avenues. The bars, found even in underground pedestrian walkways, stay open until the wee hours. The homeless camp out in unused doorways while the city bustles.

“I travel a hell of a lot, so it’s okay,” states Róbert Bereznyei (a.k.a. Tigrics), when asked about the city he’s lived in since he was a teenager, when he ran away from home in a nearby mining community with money he saved from tattooing. “I tattooed half the underworld in that industrial town–it made for good protection,” says Bereznyei, who is always one to look on the bright side. “I was a problem child. I’m the type of guy who needs to figure out things by himself, you know?” It follows that his electronic music fuses the wild and the restless with the childish and the sublime–a vital, unorthodox combination evident on Synki, his new album for Highpoint Lowlife.

Bereznyei began fiddling with two tape decks and a mixer in 1995, and played in the noise band Rianás until 2000. “We played with whatever we could get, really, to disastrous effect,” he jokes. “I do love and admire the ridiculousness factor in music. I’d rather sound stupid than just plain pretentious, but I also like deep, dark mixes.”

In this spirit he molds a coherent album out of Synki‘s divergent songs, each one ricocheting between inner peace and the obsessions of a hyperactive mind. “Ja’tzkin,” the album’s 22-minute centerpiece, counterbalances gentle ambience and field recordings of birdsong with the sounds of tumbling dice, grinding tram wheels, and off-kilter pattering.

Some of the album’s tracks “were recorded straight, with everything set up around me,” explains Bereznyei. “It’s sort of a sport: I’m pretending to be a band and trying to do a good take that has the feel I want, rather than just edit the hell out of [the songs]. But then again, I tend to do that a lot too.”

Such is the case on “203 mibajodvan”: in four-and-a-half tight minutes, claustrophobic, skittering percussion and strange sounds jostle one another, then fade uneasily into a bumpy bassline and heartstring twangs from an oddly tuned guitar.

Pushed for Budapest’s finer points, Bereznyei mentions pals Ovek Finn and solo minimalists Nicron and Prell, as well as the Ultrahang Foundation, which releases CD-Rs by locals and organizes an annual boundary-pushing music festival. “It’s a cool city, but difficult to live in,” he sums up. “It’s very bureaucratic and neglected. The theory is: if you survive here, you can survive anywhere.”

No Longer A Minor Reggae Label

Patiently, expertly, reggaematically, a Brother from another has been building a superb label.

The Minor7Flat5 imprint was founded 1999 by Andreas “Brotherman“ Christophersen, and although the label has its roots in Hamburg, Germany–where Christophersen cut his teeth playing in reggae bands in the early ’90s–the M5F7 is now based on an island, Gran Canaria Island (Spain), to be exact. In the span of five years, Christophersen’s indie imprint, which began with album releases from Luciano and Turbulence, has grown into a formidable player on the new roots reggae scene.

M5F7’s recordings resonate with sincerity and musicality. In an era of cookie-cutter riddims and squelchy, thin-sounding, computer-based production, Christophersen’s output is striking for its earthy and acoustic sonic construction. He combs Jamaica in search of the best live musicians (he’s worked with greats Leroy “Horsemouth” Wallace, Dean Frazer, Gibby Morrison, and Bongo Herman, among others), records at legendary studios like Tuff Gong, and finds raw, up-and-coming talent to create fresh, exuberant reggae recordings.

In addition to strong recent albums from Tony Tuff and Turbulence, Christophersen’s latest masterwork is Ras Myrhdak’s Prince of Fyah album, out May 5 in the States. Myrhdak is stylistically cut from the same kente cloth as Capleton, Natural Black, or Norris Man, and a righteous rasta with a positive, joyful, and edifying message.

Based on Myrhdak and previous albums, it’s clear M5F7 is building a catalog of music not unlike reggae giants Nighthawk or Shanachie Recordings–labels who have made timeless roots reggae albums packed with songs that became radio staples. Such a fate seems fine with Christophersen, who says, “we are an international label with friends all over the world who contribute their work to deliver the best to our fans. The world is our home!”

Walt Disney Concert Hall Hosts Pravda

L.A.’s Walt Disney Concert Hall is set to host Pravda (“truth,” in Russian), a less family-friendly event series, namely one that examines the role of artistic repression in Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Though the series has several parts, the gem in the crown takes place on Saturday, May 26, when Amon Tobin, Cut Chemist, DJ Spooky, J-Rocc, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Mumbles & Gone, along with the dublab soundsystem, perform remixes of the music of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and Mosolov. Images from iconic Russian films The Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, The Cranes are Flying, and Soy Cuba will be manipulated and projected in conjunction with the audio, providing a historical reference point on Russian culture for event attendees.

Following this initial showcase, German-born musician Christoph Bull will give a special organ performance, and Leon Theremin’s full ten Theremin Orchestra–originally written for the world’s first electronic orchestra–will be performed for the first time since its original screening at Carnegie Hall, in 1932.

Pravda takes place beginning at 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 26, at The Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A.
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Graffiti Returns to the Subway

Seven of the world’s best graffiti artists usher in Adidas’ Spring line with the End to End Project, in which these champions of urban street art will work together painting a full-sized replica of a subway car from, uh, end to end. Think of it as a gigantic live painting endeavor, planted for public viewing at a busy New York intersection.

The artists–Siloette, Rime, Smart, Scien, Can2, Atom, and Skore–recently visited London and worked for three days in a gutted warehouse, developing an effective approach to the project. They’ll take the results of their brainstorming to the subway car on Tuesday, April 10, for a full-day painting extravaganza. Those not in New York will delight in knowing the project will also be available as a clothing line, sold exclusively at Foot Locker.

DJ Enuff, Iron Lyon, and Complex will provide music for the event, which takes place between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on the Northwest corner of Houston and Lafayette streets in New York. Adidas’ spring line will also be on display.

Nadja Touched

Toronto-based artists Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff return with an album of destructive dirges. Touched, the duo’s second full-length as Nadja, is full of experimental doom-the sound conforms closely to a scratchy, noisy aesthetic, though there’s a more traditional underlying structure to the tracks compared to most in the genre. The opener, “Mutagen,” begins with multiple layers of feedback and loops that dissolve into a blissed-out ball of fuzz. “Incubation/Metamorphosis” is a 20-minute long oscillating journey through all of the highs and lows the group has to offer, narrated by distant vocals. If you can cut through the thicket, you’ll find a symphony of destruction here.

Various Artists Dirt Crew Presents: Collection 01

Berlin’s Dirt Crew loudly proclaims the gospel of dance on its second-year-anniversary compilation, where two discs of the label’s best singles and new cuts further convince listeners these guys are worth paying attention to. Disc One showcases Dirt Crew artists at their finest and dirtiest, be it Dominik Eulberg remixing the dancefloor weapon “Largo” or rumbling tech-house tracks from the likes of Drum Cult and 2020 Soundsystem. Disc Two wanders into the moodier, even more minimal territory of Dirt Crew sub-label Players Paradise; newcomers like Mash and Thughfucker deliver tightly arranged house compositions that quietly compliment Disc One’s heavier numbers. With nary a weak track on either disc, it’s likely the crew will soon hold the undivided attention of minimal techno fans around the globe-and maybe even get them to dance.

Parts & Labor Mapmaker

Sounding enormous isn’t necessarily about being enormous. Proof: Exactly three dudes comprise Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor, but the 12 songs on their latest release-the fiery, frantic Mapmaker-manage to sound utterly massive. Thank the synergy-drummer Chris Weingarten’s schizoid kit work is matched fit-for-fit by singer Dan Friel’s bulging-neck-vein delivery, and his burring, whirring guitar. Together, there’s an almost frightening amount of verve and dynamism. About three minutes into the aptly titled punk pummel “Fractured Skulls,” Weingarten’s hi-hats and snares gnash their teeth underneath a rousing synth-horn fanfare. The rest of the album falls in line behind these theatrics, each track exploding like a magnificent noise-pop firework display. It doesn’t get much bigger than that.

Various Artists Berlin Insane IV

Still finding ways to mix rock and techno elements together in a post-electro (clash) world, the Berliners featured on Insane IV manage to keep much of their material surprisingly fresh. Though a few tracks do rely too heavily on hackneyed themes (anarchy, androgyny), standouts such as Grizzly’s “Dich” and Planningtorock’s “Local Foreigner” take the fun and mayhem of the previous compilations into truly experimental realms. And to tell you the truth, even the more clichéd tracks are fun, in a pure dancefloor kind of way. A good find for someone with no Adult. in their collection.

Various Artists Poker Flat Vol. 5: Beats N Bluffs

Here to show off what the Poker Flat crew has been up to, Steve Bug compiles a CD containing the essence of this past season’s top releases as well as a taste of what the future has to offer. From quirky soundscapes and funk-driven hip shakers to trippy bare minimalism and skeletal arrangements, the album covers a full range of what forward-thinking electronic music sounds like. As a bonus, a second CD containing a mix from Martin Landsky arranges released and unreleased material from Trentemøller, Martini Bros, Guido Schneider, and Tazmann into a cutting-edge minimal masterpiece.

Patrick Pulsinger Dogmatic Sequences: The Series 1994-2006

Patrick Pulsinger’s name is synonymous with the punishing four-to-the-floor techno of the ’90s, when his Dogmatic Sequences vinyl series was a natural choice for mixing in a dark mood or three. Dogmatic Sequences: The Series 1994-2006 is vintage Pulsinger, where angular techno moves like shifting Teutonic plates against synth noise and off-kilter tones. Classics like “Babylon 17, 15” plunge into hard, murky acid, while minimal pieces like “Viagem” show why Pulsinger was a such perfect companion to the stripped-down aesthetic of Basic Channel. Some tracks digress into cinematic acid jazz (“City Lights”), but The Series demonstrates that Pulsinger’s pieces were created to be building blocks for any techno DJ’s toolbox.

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