OUT NOW: Sturmast - Ibis redibis nunquam in bello peribis CD, CMI.175
"Sturmast from Hungary plays a unique kind of folk influenced martial
industrial music. Far from being an instrumental one-man computer
band putting some classical loops and battle sounds together,
Sturmast is a collective fronted by Varga Gabor. Here real musicians
play real instruments, thus introducing the good old band-feeling to the
martial industrial scene. The music contains powerful, eruptive live
drums (toms, snare, bass drum), haunting violin and cello, acoustic
guitar, and a selection of traditional folk instruments (e.g. kaval, jaw
harp). Even the keyboards are "live" recorded in some ways, and a
considerable part of the samples and special effects are made by the
band itself. Absorbing atmosphere links the compositions which vary
from hypnotic monotonous to marching repetitive, from moody
experimental to beautiful, melancholy-filled delicate. The lyrics,
portraying the fight of the historic and modern, spiritual and secular,
uplifting and ill-fated, are mostly in Hungarian (one song is in German),
with English translations in the stylish digipak booklet.
My organisations (Varga Gábor) Hyperborea Festival-myspace.com/hyperboreafest
