Flagrum - Occulitur Ante Verba -1996- (Cassette, Mastix Materiae), Hungary

Here we have another obscurity from the Hungarian underground of the 90's. Flagrum was an experimental minimalist metal band from Budapest that consisted of Tibor Gáll, János Gáll and  Levente Borsay. They started around 1992 and released their first album Per Ipsum in 1995 both domestically (cassette) and on the Czech Malarie label (vinyl). However, their second album Occulitur Ante Verba is probably their best work and even less known.

During the 90's there were obviously lots of different bands in Hungary. The metal, punk and hardcore genres were very much alive during that decade. That music was cultivated on aesthetics and ideologies that were not easy to put forward before the collapse of the totalitarian socialist regime. Surely these genres were already developing during communist times, but the full potential wasn't felt publicly yet because there was no infrastructure for their output. It was only from the 1990's on that alternative festivals were created and new communities of people started to carry alternative and independent culture through music and lifestyle.

Flagrum is one of those bands that operated deeply in the Hungarian underground of the 90's. Even in Hungary they are largely a mystery. During an era in which lots of new music from outside was rapidly entering the country a large proportion of bands was just imitating whatever they could hear. Flagrum on the other hand was more alone in its genre. They had a sort of doomish metal sound, but stripped it down to the bare minimum. Their music is fully instrumental, minimal and repetitive leaning towards an experimental No-Wave sound that is perhaps a bit reminiscent of Swans. There's a Godflesh inspiration too. I wrote about that some time ago regarding the Hungarian band Carwashtagnacht.

More unknown sounds from the Eastern European alternative music landscape of the 90's. (If you can, try to listen to this while having an Unicum!). Élvezd!

Get it HERE

Carwashtagnacht - Distance -1996- (Cassette, Self-Released), Hungary

Carwashtagnacht was a Hungarian industrial metal band from the small city of Békéscaba in the south-east of Hungary formed by Kiss Balázs (guitar), Knyihár Pál (bass guitar) and Sörös Gergö (vocals and programming). They played a Godflesh inspired style in which long-lasting repetitive metal riffs were combined with drum machine patterns with in this case gloomy distorted vocals in Hungarian and English. A band like Godflesh has had a lot of influence in Eastern Europe after the change of the political system in the 90's. Because of the lack of musical extremes in dominant music culture in socialist countries like Hungary before the 90's, many people were inspired by metal and punk bands.

Those type of foreign alternative bands were also some of the first to tour the smaller cities in Eastern Europe. At first many of these unclassifiable alternative experimental metal bands came from Italy for example, but eventually even bands from Latin America came to play. Eastern Europe became a new fertile domain after it had previously been closed for tours of such bands. This development also had its influence on locals that in turn started bands with a similar sound. I think it's also a reason why metal and alternative rock styles are still big in Eastern Europe. But aside from that: the 90's was just an insane decade for the development of any genre really. More than end results and completion, potential ruled the musical output.

In the late 90's Carwashtagnacht published a CD on the legendary Trottel Records in Hungary that together with the label Bahia was responsible for the output of alternative and experimental bands in Hungary. The label revolved around the alter-rock band Trottel that started out in the early 80's as a punk band and later evolved into an ethno-experimental-space-band.

This particular cassette of Carwashtagnacht seems to be some sort of demo tape that was self-released a long time before their official album. The musical style is somewhat different to what usually finds itself to the blog, but it's important to keep extending genres and to shed light on the Hungarian underground of the 90's that is totally overlooked and that I happen to have an access to. The term rare doesn't even qualify anymore for a cassette like this. Specially since the band comes from the countryside and not from the capital Budapest.

More obscure Hungarian tapes will be gradually uploaded to the blog.

Get it HERE