Szemző Tibor: Snapshot from the Island CD

1. Pillanatkép a Szigetről
2. Vizi-Csoda
3. Let's Go Out and Dance
Avant-Garde / Electro-Acoustic

Track 1 recorded on 22 November 1986 at Gayan Utteyak Mandal, Budapest; track 2 recorded on 18 June 1998 at HEAR Studio; track 3 recorded on 17 December 1985 at Landler Jenö utca 20

Tibor Szemzö, flutes, drum computer, sound installation (Revox G36 tube tape recorder, four Orion AR 612 Pacsirta tube radios)
Laszlo Hortobágyi, synthesizer (track 3); the birds of Comecon (tracks 2, 3), engineer

Leo Feigin Producer

Re-issue of the LP of the same title (1987) with which Tibor Szemzo took the minimal scene by storm, breaking it apart in the process!

One of the pieces, however, Water-Wonder, was recorded anew in 1998. And two remaining pieces have been re-mixed for the CD.



Tibor Szemző

Active Decades: '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: 1955 in Budapest, Hungary
Genre: Avant-Garde
Styles: Electro-Acoustic, Mixed Media, Tape Music

Hungarian electro-acoustic composer Tibor Szemzö was born in Budapest in 1955, beginning his musical studies at the Kodály method school at the age of six. Initally playing the violin, his subsequent discoveries of rock prompted a move to guitar; the influence of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus next inspired Szemzö to form his own jazz trio (later a quartet), and in 1979 he founded the minimalist ensemble Group 180. Embarking on a solo career in 1983, Szemzö began integrating spoken word and visual elements into projects otherwise dominated by flute and live electronics, and in 1987 he issued his first solo recording, Snapshot from the Island. The downfall of Hungary's communist rule allowed him to began collaborating with various artists throughout Europe, and in 1998 Szemzö also formed a new chamber ensemble, the Gordian Knot. Other notable works include Ain't Nothing But a Little Bit of Music for Moving Pictures (the score to a collection of black-and-white home movies compiled by friend Péter Forgács), The Conscience (a trilogy of narrative-based chamber compositions) and Tractatus (a half-hour piece inspired by the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein).
---Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide