Big In Budapest

How better to lift the spirits on a miserable Monday than with some Hungarian folk-rock? Answers on a postcard please.

I recently picked up an album called "Folcore" in an Oxfam shop for a couple of quid. Released in 2008, it is by an outfit called Yava, about whom I know no more than is on the sleeve notes. There are five of them, including two singers with the first names Polett and Szabolc. One is a man and one a woman, but I have no idea which is which. As well as the meat and potatoes rock instrumentation of guitar, bass and drums they spice things up by adding some lyre, lute, flute, bagpipe, saz, kaval and "tinkler". I have no idea what those last two are either.

There are twelve tracks that run the gamut from folk to rock, with most of the somewhere in between. I am not all that keen on the rockier numbers, but the folkier stuff isn't bad. Here are a couple of examples.

"O Castilia" - Yava

"Rejtsetek El Engem" (Hide Me) - Yava

And here they are performing the opening track from the album, "Szerelem" (Love):



I'm sorry, but while on the folk-rock theme I could not resist adding this:



Linking back to yesterday's clip of Sparks, it appears Maddy Prior is attempting to model Russell and Ron Mael's hairstyles at the same time in this video (without the nifty moustache of course).