Month: January 2018

UNSIGNED

Unsigned is an independent music label based in Budapest.

In featured image: Don’t Trump / Chillary – The Remixes EP available @ Unsigned Shop!
unsigned
Unsigned is an independent music label based in Budapest. Its Bandcamp platform contains about 50 proposals, and it is still massively growing to give a comprehensive overview of music that is worth to be listened. The label’s founder, Kálmán Pongrácz, is in fact working with the best sonority in the panorama, and becoming an important junction of the experimental Hungarian music.
How did you come up with the idea of creating an experimental music label?

I have been working with experimental music since 2002, as musician and organizer, running noise gigs in Budapest under the name Havizaj. On one hand, I needed to have an archive for the recordings I made here and, on the other hand, I was looking for a platform for my own music, so I did not have to give up on the rights that come with them.

Why such confusing name as Unsigned?

The Unsigned is a DIY [do it yourself] label, unofficial. It never wanted to be anything else, that is something I’m proud of.  It reflects its name.

One of the common line in the different artists’ music of your label is the complete abandon of the classic concept of composition or song. What do you think is so fascinating about it, and why do you think it fascinates also a public that, even small, is growing…

This sentence is a compliment for me. In fact, this question is often raised, and this is the reason why the I needed this kind of independent music channel. It is true that a moderate version of experimentation is penetrating into the mainstream pop culture today, but this approaching was never interesting for me.

How do you discover new sonority and which is the decision process you use in order to choose the best artists for your roster?

Although the label is a fully open channel, our motto is: if your band sounds like a lot of other bands, then please save you and us some time and do not get in touch with us. Luckily we often have a lot of interesting requests that we can take in consideration.

Your main sharing platform are Bandcamp and Facebook. Do you translate your online activity in something more concrete, as organizing events or going in different places to sell your music?

Yes, we are organizing concerts and we would like to present our label next year at the DIY trade fair in Budapest.

Unsigned is an Hungarian label. How is the scene in East Europe? Did it grow inside other extreme genres or it was born as a separate artistic culture?

This is a good question. Today I still don’t know exactly how unique the experimental music is in a country or even in a region. It was impossible to have such knowledge 20 years ago, but today it getting easier to get in contact with other realities, as the cyberspace breaks down the walls in between individualism.  And that’s good.

 

LEVIATHAN | t.F.S.o.S

I must admit that the first time I have heard about this peculiar guy was during the VICE documentary One Man Band,  in which he explains his music and how it was connected with his existence. I searched information about him, and I discovered his impressive career into Depressive Black Metal, but also how tormented is his life.

Jef Whitehead continues to make the scene talking about him, releasing The First Sublevel of Suicide, a compilation of the well-known The Tenth Sublevel of Suicide from 2002. In this compilation Leviathan is raw and thoughtful, spiritual and decadent, quiet and chaotic. You can hear despair in most of his album, infinity rage, a connection with the evil; however there are surprisingly moment of peace and acceptance.

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Leviathan style is mostly instrumental, as the best depressive black metal tradition, but with some screams and howls – this is quite particular for the genre. The vocals are made to point out the madness that surrounds the all concept, a dark world of fear or desolation, in which hope is not even possible to conceive.

After three years of inactivity, in which Leviathan project was considered closed, Jef come back in 2011 with a full length and he never stopped since then. The First Sublevel of Suicide is just a reminder that his prolific mind is continuously elaborating new way to express the most black and inhuman hate.

 

Discoveries | CALYPSO

Music is the way of humanity expresses itself. It was for century the core of every important social event, capable to give joy or relief to thousands of people during the century. It is interesting to see how the different style impacted to the local culture in a precise time of the history, as trying to resolve a complicate puzzle of humankind.

Calypso was a genre born during the 19th century in South America, more exactly in Trinidad and Tobago. As the voice of the slaves imported as worker in sugar plantations, it developed from a wonderful rainbow of roots, as Jamaican folk music or sings in French.

Calypso became pretty popular during from the 30s to the 50s, when Harry Belafonte decided to remake the reggae Banana Boat Song:

Today the genre became highly underground, but it still has the beautiful warming harmony of its homeland, although it collected different influences during the way.

 

KAZUYA ISHIGAMI

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If you like music being your catharsis, welcome to this post. If you are not afraid to experiment difficult sonority, you are in the right place. If you know about which artist I am going to talk about, I admire you.

Kazuya Ishigami is (as many noise drone artist) a sound designer, but not so many people will confirm him as a musician. In this release, Rec Drone, he plays heavily with the emotions of the public and he creates a crescendo of frequencies that may disturb sensitive souls.