Villanypásztor
(Hungaraton) Used LP $15.00
A quietly influential, if not leftfield, mix of Old Central European and even older nationless European folk musics, népzene has moved Bela Bartok, Franz Liszt, and Martin György to toy with transforming its deep pentatonic melodies through all sorts of windy compositions. Villanypásztor (“Electric Shepherd” in English) by this Hungarian band whose name translates as “Aquarius” bridged another interesting gap by tying the fourth world aesthetic to the idea of a never-ending Hungarian folk tradition. This album from 1987 is full of originals with no adapted music, just “contemporary music for the man of this age, a music seminal with its own message,” a Hungarian folk album that mines its past to marry it with a new electronic future.