István Mártha is a leading Hungarian composer, equally at home in classical, industrial and experimental rock music. His minimalist rock album "Hearts" became a cult classic in the early 80's. In 1986 Hungaraton, the Hungarian state record company, commissioned him to produce two albums of "Switched on Mozart". He agreed on the condition that he would be funded to produce an album of absolutely anything he wanted to do! Thus The Wind Rises was born, and released to critical acclaim in 1987.
The idea behind The Wind Rises was to take a recording studio into the Transylvanian countryside, and make an album "in the open air", a "Sound Diary" of village sounds, musicians, and recorded them on location. It was all bound together with state of the art studio and production techniques.
They produced one of the great albums of the decade, an epic which manages to work as an overwhelming fusion of rock, classical, ambient, industrial and folk styles. The album combines found sounds with mediaeval instruments, industrial percussion, excerpts from an operetta as if performed by Laibach, startlingly aggressive cymbalon, a cast of thousands, the astonishing traditional singing of Márta Sebestyén, and guttural saxophones rising out of the mist. Some of the music was improvised on location, some scored for early music ensembles, rock bands and traditional instrumentalists. Especially featured are jazz saxophonist Lázló Dés, the Cymbalon player Kálmán Balog, the Amandinda percussion ensemble, and the WYXIMFONIC orchestral group.
The whole piece is structured as a dream, which sucks you in to the ancient spiritual struggles of rural Hungarian life, and expands to take on national oppression, surreaslism and post modernism.
The Wind Rises was conceived by István Mártha in collaboration with:
Endre Skárosi texts, vocals. Endres is known for his Hungarian rock groups "Konnektor RT" and for his work with UK group Towering Inferno on their album "Kaddish". He has published several volumes of poetry, and edits a leading Hungarian literary journal.
Sándor Bernáth guitar, vocals, suck & blow. Sándor designed instrumental and sonic backdrops for the album, and structured the hours of recording into a coherent whole. He is a leader of gothic punk band "Matushka Silversound", and is a well known graphic designer.
Márta Sebestyén vocals. Well know as the lead vocalist with traditional outfit Muzicas, on such recordings as The Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania. She has recently been heard on the sound track of the Oscar winning movie The English Patient.
This album was produced at a time when musicians in the Eastern Bloc were forced to develop an allegorical language to bypass communist censorship, and ironically this helped them to produce exciting new artistic forms. The album attained cult status on its first release, and ReR is proud to introduce it to a wider audience. It's an extraordinary, passionate and totally convincing album.
"An earth shattering collaboration - everyone should hear this!" Towering Inferno
source: RéR promotional onesheet