(P) József Süveg
(P) József Süveg

Trance comes from the East

Following their concert last year, Korai Trancemission is returning to Ozora this summer: formed from a mother-band (Korai Öröm) that has been an active part of the European and naturally, the Hungarian psychedelic-tribal-ethno-acid-rock scene for decades – and in many ways also the one to define it. And of course, they were there at the very beginning of Ozora. Two veteran and major figures of the family (of both Korai Trancemission and Korai Öröm), bass guitarist Zoltán Kilián and drummer Viktor Csányi answer our questions.

The Ozorian Prophet: This year, as last year, a special production, a unique formation is performing at Ozora – in what way is it different from the mother-band?

Zoltán Kilián: Korai Öröm played at the very first festival held in Ozora in 1999 for the total solar eclipse already as an accomplished band with almost a decade of experience behind its back. In light of this, Korai Trancemission, debuting at last year’s Ozora, reached back to its Korai Öröm roots and its lineup is almost exactly the same as Korai Öröm’s. The only difference is that we are a smaller formation, without the singer, one of the guitarists and a percussionist, but Tibi Domokos from Óperentzia has joined us and therefore there are two keyboardists in the band. Returning to the beginnings, the first three years, we play purely instrumental music. This formation will be performing on the Main Stage on August 4 – and I’d also like to add that the next day, August 5th, you can also hear our Korai Acoustic Instrumental formation in the Dragon Nest: playing in part genuinely acoustic and obviously also electronic versions of Korai Trancemission pieces.

OP: Korai Öröm is past its 25-year anniversary, which is quite an achievement, if only considering that it has to keep a populous group of musicians together in one band. You’ve been playing this psychedelic, heavily percussive, tribally rhythmic and partially ethno-influenced rock music since the very beginning. How much was this unprecedented then in Hungary – also considering the members’ roots, many times reaching as far back as punk music?

Viktor Csányi: Korai had logical precedents, forerunners, as far as I am concerned for sure, since my earlier bands were similar. And I must mention one of our more renowned forerunners, VHK (Vágtázó Halottkémek). We were also already thinking in psychedelic, bit ethno-based process music at the end of the 80’s: there was the Niskender Tewtär, lead by my artist friend Sanyi Váli, (blending folk music with punk/hardcore and a kind of hysterical atmosphere). It was not as much a designed production divisible into tracks as Korai was later, but I also played in a band that was a bit more rock-punk called Wi.
ZK: I saw both, and for me Niskender was a ‘bellybutton-gazing’, slower, gloomier music, seldom or just almost intensifying. Korai, in comparison, has been guitar music, drums and the other percussion instruments, and the tribal rhythms they dictate, from the very start…
VCS: And the industrial rhythms.
ZK: … defined the sound. From this aspect it stood closer to VHK in the beginning – with the exception that the latter conveyed more of a shamanistic trance, while Korai revived the 60’s psychedelia, acid rock you also mentioned – from a new perspective, if only because it had been continuously shaped by several generations, newer and newer influences filling up classic psychedelic rock, or what you could call music with drug-like effects.
The free, unbound music making so characteristic of the band feeds from this tradition, with highs and lows, but also power in it.

OP: Is the 60’s ideology of such key importance to you?

ZK: The themes that came into focus in the 60’s and have since become of central significance have always played an important part in the Korai Öröm ideology: including female emancipation, human rights, environmental protection, renewable sources of energy, organic farming, the protection of nature, community building, a non-market-oriented lifestyle, namely, all the ideologies that you can experience at today’s psytrance parties, which started somewhere in the sixties. More and more, these things find their place in the world, and in happier countries some of them even gain economic importance, (think of solar energy or the wind turbines).
Needless to say, there have also been a great many other influences since then, as we went to see even the strangest productions, (I remember what a great impression it made on me when I saw Laibach for the first time in the spring of 1985 at the Ráday, a Budapest dive), and the traces of these, even if not consciously, are also imprinted in us.

OP: Korai Öröm has been a truly living, organic, hundred percent instrumental music production – at the same time, you are also strongly tied to the psychedelic dance music, party culture that had gained momentum by the beginning of the nineties, and you also DJ-ed to the audience after concerts, which was surprising at first, but then became even expected of you.

ZK: For sure, at the time when we started playing, that is, at the beginning of the nineties, the traditional rock music tone ruled in vibe and sound – and the sound that spread later with party culture was still missing. When, right about the same time, the DJs pioneering their own genres put on the fresh records, you could feel that a whole new sound was in the making. I think the reason why Korai was interesting is that it was-is not a retro band simply dusting off and resurrecting hippie culture and blues-based rock music exactly as it was. We let the influences, from industrial music to folk music, from jazz to electronic dance music, from punk to old-time hippie rock infiltrate our production, music program. Then again, we were strongly influenced by the 60’s feeling and part of what it had to say, of course. As, with notable exceptions of course, we were not well-trained musicians, we tried to deliver that feeling in our own simple way. The concerts simply poured out and as so many things had made an impact on us, probably in sound as well, we soaked in the influences like a sponge and this, on stage under pressure, broke free from us.

OP: But among these, the repetitiveness of electronic dance music was important, was it not?

ZK: That too, but we have to add that, for us, the founders (János Jócsik, active percussionist to this very day and Péter Takács, our one-time guitarist, singer, trumpet player who has unfortunately passed away) Joy Division was a great favorite, just like Test Department: and this is how these strange fusions pioneered the way. What’s more, Test Department was a pioneer as well in that they organized an after party with the DJs they brought along after their Budapest concert in the early nineties. The industrial sound, which we got to know there, already carried within itself this new kind of music too.

OP: Test Dept. also made a proper, almost-techno album in 1995…

ZK: For them, and for us as well, it seemed a natural consequence that our music would soak in these influences. People were not as trend-addicted at the time as they are today: we did many kinds of things, and there was also strong transitioning between genres.
VCS: Then a kind of vacuum also appeared: there weren’t many kinds of live music, at least not as many as today, and it wasn’t in fashion yet for people to stay on after concerts and party until dawn or even the morning. When the DJ-ing after concerts started we tried making it an all-night program in itself. Of course, this wasn’t something venues or audiences were used to yet.

OP: If I’m not mistaken, you were able to cause a surprise with this even during your tours in Western Europe?
VCS: That’s right. Even the German organizers, audiences were surprised.
ZK: In our Budapest clubs (for example, the Fiatal Művészek Klubja of the time) the program also included a movie in the evening and then a concert from midnight.

OP: This must have been strange in itself, because until then concerts typically lasted from 8 to 10…

ZK: Yeah, that’s right. But with us they got used to watching the film first and then a concert and after that we even held a party – playing music first from cassette tapes, then CDs, and after from vinyl.
VCS: Top underground DJs (Titusz-Tadeusz, Xyberwolf) joined in.
ZK: The FMK was an ideal place for this with its openness – in addition, it was also an important place because we were always aspiring to have a club of our own that would also be a kind of hatchery for our music. Moreover it also creates an audience.

OP: The music you play had its forerunners in Anglo-Saxon countries and in Western Europe too. What’s more, you toured a lot on the continent, even when

O.Z.O.R.A. Festival had not even existed yet – I suppose, you performed next to bands who also played this acid, tribal psychedelic, heavily percussive rock music?
ZK: The heavily percussive did not stand, just the guitars – I mean, for the bands we saw. They were more about rock than we were anyway, traditionally speaking.

OP: They followed the Hawkwind strand?

ZK: Yes, that’s what they were going for.
VCS: In addition, the already present goatrance, psytrance subculture was nowhere nearly as strongly connected to this wave of psychedelic music – that only happened a bit later. At the beginning of the 2000s we played at a party in Germany, which was held in a warehouse on a factory site next to Frankfurt (a classic warehouse party), where there was already a live music stage. That’s when you could feel that the psychedelic trance community was opening up to live music too.
ZK: Earlier these were separated: there was, for example, a progressive, live-music-centered hippie trend, with several kinds of festivals, and so in Germany it also had its own venues (e.g. Herzberg) and there were goaparties, and the two audiences only came together later on.

OP: In Hungary we are used to the opposite of this, thanks, amongst others, to Korai Öröm: there were already festivals in 1993-94-95 where the music productions were integrally followed by parties, where you could hear amazing, acid-doused house, techno and trance music.
ZK: I agree, we experienced this happening sooner: the whole scene was more concentrated; there were fewer clubs, where everyone knew everyone and openness towards something new, and receptivity, was also greater.
VCS: From this aspect, we can thank a lot to the DJs of Tilos Radio: from the moment they discovered it for themselves, it became popular very soon, to play this kind of electronic music from records. We ourselves had already tied concerts and DJ-ing together earlier. In Berlin, for example, the fact that we spin records after concerts still counted as a novelty in the mid-90s – we even had to bring along the record players to play on.

OP: Do you have any favorites from the psychedelic live music of today – anyone who had recently performed or could play at Ozora?

ZK: I like Shpongle a lot, I play their albums as a DJ, I also went to see them 2 years ago on the Main Stage and they were really impressive – a lot of instruments, a great deal of imagination.
VCS: It’s also true that when we saw them, they were already a star production, and a big band; dancers followed the two veteran members (Simon Posford, Raja Ram). Otherwise, I could not name too many bands, producers.
ZK: In the beginning we had a brother-band from St. Petersburg, Ole Lukkoye that played a similar kind of music: mixing psychedelia with modern music…
VCS: And folk music…
ZK: Somehow, they blended the influences naturally: there was a bassoon, guitars, synth, song, female vocals, and percussionists. It was a much slower, more flowy music, very progressive for its time: unfortunately it died out eventually due to the geographic distances between the members, though, if I am not mistaken, they are recently giving it another go. In contrast to this, I got to know Ozric Tentacles much later, we had already been playing with Korai for a while by then: I like a lot of things in their music, but it’s a bit too rocky for me.
VCS: Western bands basically reach back to folk-, ethno-, oriental themes in a different way – as if this thing was not their own. A German psychedelic band would use Indian strands sooner in its electronic, trancey, psychedelic music than traditional German, schrammel, yodel music. West from us, trends have a strong influence – there are few productions in which they reach back to their own roots.
OP: Isn’t it possible that Hungarian’s and the neighboring people’s music fits in better with this rock-based, but still danceable music?

ZK: I think other, west European folk music, for example, would fit in just as well with a production like this, I would just say that norms have a different effect there…
VCS: And pulling away from them is also so normalized!
ZK: Moreover, trend-like. And that’s exactly why you experience that there are many aspirations, and ideas, in their music, but it doesn’t necessarily break free from them in a way, or authentically enough to make you feel its truly genuine.

OP: There’s more predictability and less instinctiveness? The productions are too mathematical?

VCS: They mechanically incorporate what they need, but this is not necessarily dictated by an inner urge.
ZK: They live in a much more livable society and detach from it, while in the case of the Eastern European bands it’s more characteristic that we were and are under a much greater pressure to this very day: once you take the plunge, you don’t hold back, it bursts out from you. You don’t really think about compromises at this point.
VCS: And I think everything has become industrialized there, the music industry as well, categories are much more important and adapting to these – for the sake of getting ahead, and even for making selections in the first place. But it has its advantages as well: it’s very professional, the music sounds great.
ZK: I’ve just heard a lot less of original music coming from there – at, let’s say, festivals.
VCS: I think Ozora is very different from this aspect: it’s top category among festivals from a music perspective too. Any stage I listened in on, whether it was electronic or live music, I pricked up my ears – even at 4 in the afternoon.
I hear that it belongs to the same genre, but not really, because it is the best within that genre. Moreover I like the openness, that dance productions, performance arts, theater also have their place next to the music: they keep alive the original, deepest function of music, to bring people together and wash away the taut borders between them.
OP: It’s true from this standpoint that Korai Öröm and Trancemission is community-building music itself, what’s more, it has a séance-like nature as well: everyone dances to your music from the very start.
VCS: We hope this won’t be any different this time either.

OP: You were there at the first Ozora, but supposedly your performance didn’t turn out the best way possible…

ZK: Naturally, we were there at the first Ozora, I also worked there – then, and later on as well. For example, in 1999 I transported our keyboardist, Emil, who was also a festival organizer, to the site, and the members of Zion Train and other artists, and even guests. I even remember the expectations surrounding the festival, on part of the locals too, and what moving gestures of hospitality we experienced from their part. Our own performance compared to this turned out quite strange: there was no real stage; we played on the platform of a truck. They borrowed my bass guitar before the concert and they gave it back to me not working. It’s true that nobody noticed this, because we had barely started the concert when some English guys making a contra-party at the entrance started disconnecting and taking away cables that belonged to the aggregator and the stage equipment. We gave a very strange concert, which consisted mainly of drumming: sometimes you could hear the stage and sometimes you could not. We were really set on making a great party, so considering this it was a bit of a disappointment and we were more than a bit frustrated by it, so it almost became a failure because of it.

OP: How many times have you played at Ozora since then?

ZK: The year before the last and last year too: in 2013 Korai Öröm, in 2014 Korai Trancemission played on the Dragon Nest stage.
VCS: But there was no festival after the first one for five years…
ZK: After 2004 we went several times again: putting on records or drumming, but with a proper band lineup only from 2013. In the past 3-4 years more and more live, instrumental productions are being invited; this is how our turn came again.
VCS: Ozora is growing more beautiful, it’s evolving, and you can find more and more stages, with ever-richening programs.
ZK: It has evolved a lot and has become more professional since the heroic ages. But I remember times when there wasn’t even running water at the festival, and now you also have that. How dumbfounded the single county deputy sheriff was, impotently watching the several-thousand carefree revelers – 90 percent of which were foreigners, and not understanding a single word they were saying. It hasn’t become one of the best festivals of the continent for no reason: it’s great to see how much energy and money they invest in its improvement.

OP: Has Korai Trancemission recorded its first piece of music?

ZK: The mixing is just about to be finished.
VCS: It’s a concert recording.
ZK: We made it in Nagymaros, in the house of Gábor Bánházi, the drummer of the Óperentzia band, where we made a concert-like studio recording. Basically it will be a digital release, but we may release a couple of tracks later on vinyl as well.

-minek-

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