Sorry for the lack of post, folks, I attended this pseudo-festival in Hungary called Sziget which was a bit exhausting. Back to posting. I know this might be a bit too much personal stuff even for blog-journalism but I’d love to do a ‘My Friend…’ series. Unfortunately I don’t have that many friends and, naturally, even less who make some music (for example, I’d love to write more about The Moog but they never send me anything). We’ve written about Hungary’s very first and still best (if there are any others) noise-pop band, Hammer of Gods. The mastermind behind HoG is Gergo and I dare say he’s the most multi-talented musician (I kinda hate this word but whatever) of Hungary’s underground with an awesome and huge skill-set. He sings and plays guitar in HoG. He’s the lyricist and the songwriter. He also drums for The Moog, for Norbert Kristof and occasionally plays in Népi Papa. From studio works, mastering, recording and production to field work with bands… I think it would be appropriate to call him a music-machine. He believes in many things that I find essential for music-making. The garage attitude, diy punkism, not-dilletant amateurism…but it would be a mistake to list it, if you listen to the songs, they suggest it implicitly. The reason for me writing about him this time is a new demo of HoG that he recorded, all instruments by himself. I think he missed a flight and was bored. And the song came out amazing. Gergo’s voice acquired some quality I haven’t spotted before, some different depth, something like Paul Banks’ or Robert Smith’s, something theatrical. Musically, the song has a cool noisy, fuzzy guitar line and the rhythm marches ahead lifting your soul up. Of course, I wouldn’t be so injust to leave the rest of the band out, I look forward to the full-band studio version and the live shows are great, everyone seems to be adding their share of music-spirit to the end-product. At this stage, the song reminds me of The Thermals. Both the tragedy hidden-not hidden inside and power that drags you until the end of these 3, very intense minutes. “The game is on!”

Hammer of Gods – Cathy by a Tree [mediafire] // [ysi]

Too often the Kunk boys are looking outside their own borders for shizz we wanna blog about — mostly stuff we play at our parties. And by ‘too often’, i mean, ‘all the time’. And by ‘outside their own borders’, i mean, ‘France’. But in all seriousness, there’s some local stuff of late that’s worth having a listen to — today that takes the shape of a young jockey with the moniker We Plants Are Happy Plants, and the Hungarian version of a noise pop supergroup, Hammer of Gods.

We Plants is off to an auspicious start, laying down attractive melodic lines across a variety of tracks. He doesn’t destroy the originals but gives them a subtle enjoyable punch… i expect in the coming months he’ll be finding his feet and turning it up a notch. He’s a member of the local Ektiv crew who are on top of all things fidgety and ravey ’round these parts — with my fave edit to date being dropped on the ubiquitous Frenchies Daft Punk, Superheroes.

Daft Punk – Superheroes (We Plants Are Happy Plants Remix) [zshare] // Daft Punk – Superheroes (We Plants Are Happy Plants Remix) [ysi]

And with that, Cigi I hand it over to you for some more local love…

Well, thank you, Brandon. Now it’s almost like podcast in writing. We should publish a book.

But before we do, let’s turn to Gods. Not for sacrifice or salvation but for a unique highlight of the basically non-existing Hungarian good-pop music-scene. First Audio Broadcast is the limited LP which was completed last year and self-releasing on concerts, etc, you know how it goes. It wouldn’t have to be like that, of course. If we had been in a better world it would’ve come out on Rough Trade or something. The supergroup involves Gergo from The Moog, Arpi from EZ Basic, Mezo and Andris. They self-declared themselves as “funeral folk” which is nice. Their influences include Syd Barrett, Guided By Voices and Sonic Youth. For me, this could be the Hungarian Arcade Fire. The sound is like a blend of noise, pop, distortion and experimenting punk-attitude. As for mood, every song has a blurry atmosphere of childish playfulness with older melancholic half-smiles, drunken pseudo-happiness, and some summer love. But the whole thing swims away with giant guitar-waves and heavy drums. The album was finished in winter but could be a perfect summer soundtrack.

The LP has a girl side and a boy side. Exciting, huh? I’ve chosen the hit pop-gem from the girl side which is titled Top 40.

Hammer of Gods – Top 40 (zshare)

Hammer of Gods – Top 40 (y. s. i.)

“we were more than this
the whim of your first kiss
kiss burn the scenes the story we used to be
what we’ll never be again again”