One of the joys and adventures of music is coming across something you haven’t heard before, following connections and finding a new favourite artist or a whole new world of sound. One of the artists played on a recent KXSF radio show was Kati Kovács, a Hungarian singer. The song was a 1960s ‘Beat’ music tune. A search for the artist on Bandcamp turned up this track “Kérdés Önmagamhoz” (“A Question to Myself”) which is most definitely not 1960’s ‘Beat’ music, but very cool 1980 Euro synth pop or electronic disco… or something:
The release of “Kérdés Önmagamhoz” found on Bandcamp was re-released on a double 7″ by a German label in 2017 – the original track plus remixes.
Further research shows the original track is from a 1980 album called “Tiz” (Ten) released on Hungarian label Pepita. It’s a little bit odd and a lot of wonderful. The first couple of minutes is arpeggiated Kraftwerk-esque synth pop, then some vocoder vocals kick in, before – after a full two minutes – Kovács mix of spoken word and vocals transform the song into a kind of electronic pop-noir. It’s not ‘Italo Disco’, but something altogether more wonderful.
Kovács singing career started in Hungary in the 1960s, spanning a range of genres from 1960s ‘Beat’ pop, through ‘disco’ in the late 70s and 80s. She has performed throughout Europe, worked with the Hungarian rock band Locomotiv GT on three albums and also acted in several films. Needless to say there’s now a VG+ copy of the 1980 white vinyl pressing of Kovács ‘”Tiz” LP on its way to NZ. It’s never too late to start a 1980s Hungarian Euro-discos-synth-pop collection.
Pop Lib 