If there’s any truth pounding upon us, it’s that life is fragile, everything is uncertain, we can’t count on anything being there tomorrow. Anything from abrupt, cataclysmic loss to an unanswered message can hit us at any moment. Covid and other diseases, the war in Ukraine, the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the extreme storms, and the strange unreality that surrounds us online—all this together makes loss both abstract and intensely personal. Some recent albums take this on without didacticism or dogma. I have talked about Dávid Korándi’s album, one of my favorites so far this year. Two others in this vein of global and personal loss are R.Ring’s War Poems, We Rested and Galaxisok’s Minket ne szeress!(Don’t Love Us!)
R.Ring is the duo project of Kelley Deal (of the Breeders) and Mike Montgomery (of Ampline). I have been listening to Kelley’s music for thirty years. When I first learned of R.Ring and watched their video of their song “Hundred Dollar Heat” (performed at the Texas State Capitol building during SXSW in 2012, I was captivated by the chemistry between them, the glances, the smiles, the sense of friendship, as well as the dreamy song itself. Over the course of many EPs and singles and two full-length albums, they have brought other musicians on board, including Joe Suer on vibraphone, Laura King on drums and Lori Goldston on cello, who play on the new album.
Their music is world-weary, sweet, upfront, and at times downright lovely. R.Ring describes it as “sparse, chaotic, abrasive and lulling, often within the same song”; Sometimes the chaotic and abrasive qualities get too much for me, but I wouldn’t wish them gone. Part of their point, I think, is to make the listener a little uncomfortable.
With War Poems, We Rested, the duo and their fellow musicians have hit something magical, both in the sound and in the searing, large-hearted lyrics that take up addiction and its scars, the craving for ease and relief, the pull toward and away from life, the sweetness and betrayal of sensuality. But there are hidden layers too; the whole album seems to be saying, past the words, look how much there is to be done in the world, look how much we waste, especially in our despair. The final song, “War Poems,” maybe the most beautiful on the album, finds its way into the conscience without words.
And the sound… alternating between bold, resounding rock and dreamy folk, with pauses, resonances, bursts of guitar, intriguing rhythms—for the sound alone, the album calls for many returns.
Galaxisok’s new album, Minket ne szeress! (Don’t Love Us!) surprised me with its brevity, its Everyman-style lyrics, its terrific and subtle sound, and the absence of other qualities that I would associate with Galaxisok. The musicians of Galaxisok are sophisticated and well listened (as well as well read); they draw on influences that many of us have never heard of, from a range of styles and eras (their guitarist, Ákos Günsberger, is also a classical guitarist and composer). To understand a Galaxisok album to the depths, you would have to understand these musical allusions. (Magyar Narancs has a wonderful article about how, on this new album, Galaxisok alludes to 80s pop music without any kind of cheap imitation or nostalgia.) But there’s much to understand, and to come to understand, even if you only know a fraction of their influences.
What surprises me on this album is the persona in the lyrics. On other Galaxisok albums, Benedek Szabó slips in and out of various characters—although they all seem to be him in a way—and tells stories about others too. Here there’s a consistent “I,” and a despondent one. Tongue-tied (yet verbose), bewildered, vaguely desirous, apathetic, astounded, resigned, the speaker of these songs peers at the possible end of the world and can do nothing except say what he feels and sees, if even that. Sometimes a perplexity takes over, as in “Utolsó pillanat” (“Last instant”), one of my favorite songs on the album.
Végre itt a világvége! Egy fagyit elnyalok, önfeledten dúdolom az ismerős dallamot.
Ó, ez nem lehet. Ó, ki érti ezt?
Ó, ez az utolsó pillanat, Ó, csak egy másodperc marad, Ó, ez az utolsó pillanat, Ó, engedd el magad!
Végre itt a világbéke! Nem találom a helyem. Zaklatottan keresem: valahol itt kell, hogy legyen.
The end of the world is here at last! I lick an ice cream cone, obliviously I croon the familiar melody.
Oh, this can’t be. Oh, who understands this?
Oh, this is the last instant, Oh, just a second remains, Oh, this is the last instant, Oh, let yourself go!
World peace is here at last! I can’t find my place. Vexed, I look for it: it must be somewhere around here.
The album has temporary relief from the despondency: the brief sensuality of “Tánc” (“Dance”); the brief but relieved return to nature in “Vissza a természetbe!” (“Back to Nature”), another of my favorites on the album, especially for its chords and interplay of instruments; and the rage, albeit helpless, of “Ez a nyár” (“This summer”). But the overall feeling is deliberately bleak and general. Anyone could step into these lyrics and believe them.
I miss the joy, wistfulness, melancholy, playfulness of the earlier Galaxisok song lyrics, but there are reasons why this album is the way it is. The music itself has those qualities and more; it offsets and plays with the lyrics. I will end here with the video of “Ez a nyár,” the first song on the album (released earlier as a single—I have brought it up here before).
After posting this, I added the rest of the lyrics of “Utolsó pillanat” (they can be heard in the song but don’t appear in the lyrics on Bandcamp).
For about two years now I have loved Cz.K. Sebő’s music (and written about it here and elsewhere). But his new EP Kesze-kusza (Topsy-Turvy), especially the first song (“Kesze-kusza nyár,” or “Topsy-Turvy Summer”), has new depth for me in terms of musicianship alone. The guitar is meditative and rich—he way it lets the pauses ring, the way the notes come forward and retreat. This quality was there before, but it has reached a new level. The acoustic tone (he borrowed an exceptional guitar for this) is so beautiful that I can listen to the whole EP, again and again, for the sake of that sound. You can hear not only wood, strings, and air, but wordless thoughts. On the first song, the accompaniment by Soma Bradák (drums, percussion) and Benedek Szabó (bass) is so subtle that you might not even hear them enter. And then, when you listen to what they are doing, this adds to the wonder.
The lyrics are dreamy and evocative, the syllables so well timed that they sing themselves. This time the words are not hidden. I love the sometimes muffled singing on How could I show you the beauty of a life in vain? (and with that, the ambivalence over words), but this is pure and bare.
The melody may sound familiar; this song inspired Platon Karataev’s “Létra,” the magnificent theme song of the film Magasságok és mélységek (Heights and Depths).
The album is just under fifteen minutes long; it sustains its mood and beauty from start to finish. Three of the other songs on the EP are instrumental (solo guitar, with some effects); the third song, “Értelmet,” also has lyrics. I think the last song, “1012,” is another favorite along with the first. It surprises quietly; it explores and finds its way.
Fruzsina Balogh’s wonderful cover art evokes not only the songs but the experience of listening to the EP.
I don’t think this will be a final musical destination or anything close; his capsule boy album, now in progress, will take different directions. But it touches on infinity.
The EP (and especially the first song) inspired a poem yesterday. The poem isn’t “about” the EP or the song, but this music was a source. If anything, the poem is about holding back from an instant reaction to music, giving myself a chance to take it in. The fourth stanza alludes to the last paragraph on p. 67 of Zàn Coaskòrd’s book A Valóság, Hit és léleK rejtett csodája; the last stanza hints at Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” So I’ll end here with the poem.
Listening
Diana Senechal
Today I tried something new (Or old in a new way): Saying nothing.
True, many stints of null Had marked my days before, But this nothing had
A pluck to it. Tuning, muting Its strings, gearing
Up for the miracle (As anything that comes From zero is miracle),
It befriended the oval. Later I thought of how The hush had given me time
To hear space sing, To see the clouds converge, Break up, glitter, and
Spatter the long sands, Daring me into a brief Collapse of words.
The words resurged, But with the glint of return From a private voyage:
“Later I looked up the name Of that beach whose waves Rough-sang the sky.”
The album Az utak kifürkészhetetlenül rögösek by cappuccino projekt (Dávid Korándi) came out in mid-December (2022). It’s haunting, rousing, lovely, raw. It sends me in search of music it reminds me of (I can’t figure out what just yet) but also pulls me into itself. It tells a story of a world ravaged by locusts and coming to an end, and three friends setting out on a voyage in the middle of it all. Not all of the songs have to do directly with the storyline, but they all form part of it. The lyrics move back and forth between spoken word and singing; the music, between power punk pop, watchful wandering, and slow, soulful song.
As for what it evokes, the closest I have come is Blondie, Bowie, Hüsker Dü (New Day Rising), Slint (Spiderland), Grandaddy (The Sophtware Slump), the Breeders. Sometimes it reminds me of people playing music in my living room in New Haven or San Francisco, or of obscure albums that I somehow came upon and loved. There’s a songful ease to it; “nem arra” repeats and repeats, opens and opens, changes and changes. The album’s sound is rich and thrilling, ranging from solo voice and guitar to a full band, with Korandi, Gallus Balogh, Zita Csordás, Soma Bradák, István Hromkó, and Benedek Szabó. Cz.K. Sebő wrote the vocal melody for the fourth song, “promenade,” one of my favorites on the album.
I love the album as a whole: for the scary but calm (and sometimes anxious) story it tells, the musical roads it takes (listen to “bolognai nyár,” for instance, or “egy epikureus fulladása“), the solitude combined with companionship, the outspokenness. It’s outspoken not just because of its willingness to look disaster in the face, but because of its musical freedom and zest. I think you can listen to it without knowing any Hungarian and understand so much from the sounds themselves. Or you can run some of the lyrics through your favorite translator and get a vague idea of what they’re about. Or a mixture of both. But whatever you do, listen to “kezek.”
I first learned of cappuccino projekt when I started to listen to Cz.K. Sebő two years ago; Korándi played on “Light as the Breeze,” which I have brought up many times here. I heard him play solo twice: once at a benefit along with Cz.K. Sebő and László Sallai, and another time in with Grand Bleu. He is one of the early members of Felső Tízezer, and rejoined not too long ago. It also seems that life explorations, questioning, travels are a kind of musical practice for him. The album was in the making for five years; during this time he visited and lived in various countries, including Scotland and Czekhia. The ninth song, “nao vou nao amor,” was recorded in Portugal (and reminds me a little of “Elephant” by beloved 20 Minute Loop).
I hope this album gets many listens around the world. I can imagine returning to it with wonder in twenty years, just as I have lately returned to Grandaddy and others, but long before then, I look forward to many hours with it.
One of the great highlights of this week was reading John Cheever. I bought a big collection of his stories; this was inspired by Benedek Szabó’s online recommendation of “The Swimmer.” Before buying the book, I read “The Swimmer” and two other Szabó favorites, “Goodbye, My Brother” and “The Country Husband” (all three are fantastic) and reread two, “The Enormous Radio” and “Reunion.” Once I had the book, I started opening up to a random place and reading that űstory; in that way I have read (so far) “Clementina,” “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill,” “A Vision of the World,” “The Music Teacher,” and (my favorite of these five) “Metamorphoses.” Although the female characters sometimes lack depth (and not always), these stories are both brilliant and addictive, a great combination for someone who doesn’t very often sink into reading for sheer fun. My reading is usually slow and preparatory; I am getting ready for class, translation, leyning, or something else. I enjoy that kind of reading, or I wouldn’t do it—but it’s great to have this thick book of Cheever and to know that I’m going to read it fast.
I have already brought up some of the other highlights of the week, but one of them deserves a repetition. Cz.K. Sebő’s instrumental song “4224” is gorgeous. Listen to it here. The cover art is by Fruzsina Balogh.
Two interviews were published or announced this week, one from last week, one taking place next Thursday. My Chametzky Translation Prize interview with Aviva Palencia, summer intern at The Massachusetts Review, can now be viewed on YouTube.
And next Thursday at 2:30 p.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. in Hungary), Matt Barnes and Keil Dumsch will interview me about my ten-year-old book, Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture. Everyone is welcome; to join, you need to be registered on LinkedIn.
Yesterday I had a beautiful day. I went to Budapest for two performances: first, Platon Karataev at the MOMkult, for the opening of the exhibition in memory of Tamási Áron. It was an absorbing and dreamy performance; I think “Tágul” was my favorite, though it’s hard to say.
Then I walked briskly to the Városmajori Szabadtéri Színpad to see the premiere of a musical adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days (in Hungarian: 80 nap alatt a Föld körül). It was lively, funny, and inventive, with colorful song and dance, umbrellas, digital scenery, and a terrific cast. The libretto is by Réka Divinyi, and the music is by the band Lóci játszik. For years I had wanted to see Around the World in 80 Days on stage, having read about a performance in NYC. Here are some photos.
And there was much more: translating, writing, running, preparing for the ALSCW conference and October trip, listening to music, spending time with the cats, thinking, walking around Budapest, discovering new places and buildings. And now the sun is setting, and I will try to rest a little. Shabbat Shalom.
I have been looking forward to this post—the sixth in my Listen Up series—for a while, with some trepidation: What do I say about Galaxisok? Their music is serious fun, with catchy rhythms and melodies, subtle textures and chords, and some heartbreak and worries mixed in. The songs evoke pictures, films, states of mind, eras, stages of life; they tell stories, ponder dilemmas, and crack wry jokes. They sink into you, so that when you remember them, they are already classics for you. But what is the music like? Their own description (at least I think it’s theirs) offers more questions than answers. All I can do is bring up a few songs. But another problem with Galaxisok is that they have so many good songs, it’s hard to pick just a few. On the other hand, it’s hard to go wrong.
The band members — Benedek Szabó, László Sallai, Ákos Günsberger, and Soma Bradák — have substantial and multifarious musical knowledge (and knowledge of other arts), unusual views of the world, and a knack for a good hook. They bring their own different perspectives and influences together into that undefinable entity that is Galaxisok. There’s something about that tuneful, beatful music, the surreal world-weariness, that not only pulls me to the albums and songs but suggests that there will be many more. The songwriter and lead singer, Benedek Szabó, who grew up in Baja (one of my favorite cities in Hungary), has more stories to tell, more moods to draw and paint, more questions to raise.
At the Müpa concert this coming Wednesday, they will be playing their favorite songs from across their repertoire. So let me bring up some of my own favorites here. I bet there will be a little overlap.
I have to begin with “Galaxisok,” which appears on the first Galaxisok LP, Kapuzárási Piknik, which is basically a Benedek Szabó solo album, with Péter Futó on keyboards on five of the songs. The album title’s literal translation is “Gate-closing picnic,” but it’s a play on “kapuzárási pánik,” “closing gate panic,” or Torschlusspanik in German: the psychological state of terror over getting older, and the behavior that accompanies such panic: trying to act like you’re younger, doing things that younger people do, going out with younger people, etc. The title song sings of a point in life where you wonder if you’ve already lived more than you will live, and other questions and worries that come with that. As for the picnic aspect, there are lots of ways to understand it; I will leave that to you!
The album was released on Szabó’s 26th birthday (March 14, 2013) and was heralded with a wonderful write-up in Recorder.hu. At this point Szabó was already well known as the lead singer and songwriter of the dream-punk band Zombie Girlfriend, whose songs are in English. Kapuzárási Piknik is Szabó’s first album in Hungarian. I have no idea whether the idea was already in place for a band named Galaxisok, but I suspect the song came first, and then the band was named after it. The music is strongly reminiscent of the legendary ensemble Kaláka, but the lyrics take a different direction.
Wait, but now I have to digress, because this Zombie Girlfriend song “Stories of You and Me” (recorded in 2011, a full eleven years ago) is so good. I don’t know who else is playing on this song, but later the lineup included László Sallai, Eszter Kádár (about whom I know nothing), and, on a few of the songs, Dávid Korándi (Felső Tízezer, Cappuccino Projekt).
And now for the “Galaxisok” song! I will translate it, since I think that will help things. I take a few liberties with the translation, to preserve the rhyme, the rhythm, and the couplets. With the syllables placed correctly, this translation could be sung to the melody.
nedves a szemed, száraz a szád spirálkarokkal ölelnek át a galaxisok, a kertben a fák az ablakod alatt ringatják a lombjaikat, de te nem szereted se az égieket, se a földieket
viszket a bőröd, a kezed remeg könnyűnek lenni a legnehezebb két hete folyton fáj a fejed az orrodban apró kis hajszálerek kárörvendően pattannak el nézed a véred és nem érdekel
wet are your eyes, dry is your mouth the galaxies hug you and spin you about with spiral arms, in the garden the trees under your window rustle their leaves but you have no love for those in the skies or those on earth below your eyes
your skin is itchy, your hands trembling being light is the heaviest thing for two whole weeks your head has ached, two capillaries within your nose break, snapping for good, no chance of repair, you look at your blood and don’t even care
This song has the mixture of lightness, world-jadedness, and slightly grotesque beauty that I hear in other Galaxisok songs. Its quasi-abstract anxiety seems to flow out of the preceding song, “Huszonöt” (“Twenty-five”), which is about being twenty-five and still not knowing what you want in life but finding it harder to do the youthful things; being too old to rebel and too young to acquiesce; not knowing if you have a place in life at all. “Huszonöt” has a slow, dark texture, with a hint of Bowie, I think.
Their second album, A legszebb éveink (Our Loveliest Years, 2015), now has László Sallai on bass and vocals (in addition to Szabó and Futó). It has beautiful piano, keyboards, organ, and other instruments. You can listen to it and love it without understanding a word. In the interest of time, I’ll just bring up the first song, “A teljesség felé” (Towards wholeness), whose lyrics contain the album title. Interestingly, the video features not only Szabó, but Ákos Günsberger and Soma Bradák, who were soon to form Galaxisok along with Szabó and Sallai. Or probably, by the time of the video, they already had. The song, which begins, “esküszöm, hogy nem fogok hányni” – mondtam a taxisnak az astorián” (“I swear I’m not going to vomit,” I told the taxi driver at Astoria) has to do with solitude, feeling ill-adjusted to life, yet realizing that these are our loveliest years, years of getting up, going to work, getting drunk, lying down, and getting up again.
Their next album, their masterpiece Focipályákon sétálsz át éjszaka (You Walk Across the Football Field at Night, 2017), is the first album with the full band (at the time known as Szabó Benedek és a Galaxisok, later Galaxisok). If you like this kind of music and listen to this album enough, it could easily become one of your favorite albums in the world. It has become one of mine. Brooding, rocking nocturnal songs, with titles like “Boldoggá akarlak tenni (de nem tudom, hogy kell)” (I Want to Make You Happy but Don’t Know How,” “Húsvéti reggeli a Sátánnal” (Easter Breakfast with Satan), etc. “Éjfél” (Midnight), my favorite song on the album, has Domokos Lázár (of Esti Kornél and Lázár tesók) on “angel vocals.” But I am going to talk about another favorite, “Innen El” (Away from Here), because of its brilliant simplicity.
The guitar melody reminds me of other songs by other musicians, the vocal melody of other Galaxisok songs, yet this song stands out with its contemplative tempo, the sparseness of its syllables, its filmlike feel. It is at once a pop song and as far as you can get from a pop song. The lyrics are too sad and cryptic for pop, the arrangement too sparse, the pace too slow; that is precisely the song’s beauty. I love the drum/bass syncopation, the chords just before the chorus, and the slow ascending scale in the break. The song has to do with the dream of taking someone away from here but realizing that that would only be a trap, because the person would have to start all over again with a half-alien. In the song, distance exists not only in space, but in the mind, and in both cases, there is no way to go away; the faraway place exists in the imagination only. The chorus goes (I took slight liberties with the translation, to convey the cadences),
Én már csak képzeletben viszlek innen el. Csak akkor figyellek, ha senki nem figyel. Messziről nézni úgyis sokkal biztosabb, mindig távolról voltam boldogabb.
I whisk you away from here only in my mind. I watch you only when the world pays you no mind. Gazing from far away is trustier by far, I have always been happier from afar.
This album deserves attention to every song. But let’s go on to their 2018 album, Lehet, hogy rólad álmodtam (I might have dreamt about you), and in particular to the second song, “Láthatatlan lovak” (Invisible Horses), which I am pretty sure Szabó played in his solo concert in 2021. This song is important to the Galaxisok repertoire, not only because of the role that a dream plays in it (dreams and half-dreams figure largely in their songs overall) but because of the musical details. Here’s a wonderful video of Szabó commenting on the song and playing parts of it on piano.
This time, for the sake of space (this is already the second-to-last song that I will bring up in this post), I will just give a prose translation of the lyrics. You can listen to the song and read the original lyrics at the link below.
Prose translation, without the verse breaks that exist in the original:
In my dream it was summer again. In the mid-nineties, beside our old house, we wandered in the woods, you and I. Invisible horses were neighing in the garden, in the sky thousands of planes moved in a special pattern. We were waiting for piano class, but it’s also possible it was over. One of my friends’ brother found an old video. It was made on a residential block — lush trees and a playground, it’s evening, but still light. I know you lived there long ago. And you’re really in the picture, your semi-long hair is blurred. We don’t know each other yet, but you look happy from here. I was standing in the water in a suit, throwing frogs ashore. I got lost around our house when we headed back. In my dream it was summer again. We went up to the castle, but it was higher than I thought. For hours we were walking down.
And now I have to do the unthinkable and choose just one song from their most recent two albums, both released in 2020, Cím nélküli ötödik lemez (Untitled Fifth Album) and Történetek mások életéből (Stories from the Lives of Others). I have brought up a couple of songs from the latter on this blog, so I am going to cheat and choose a song on neither of the albums: their most recent single, “Ez a nyár” (This Summer). It has a punk feel, a mood of anger and anxiety, a rich sound, a terrific video (filmed in their practice space), and a particular chord that I love (at “egyhamar”). “Ohh, ez a nyár más mint a többi, ohh, ez a nyár nem múlik el egyhamar….” (Ohh, this summer is different from the others, ohh, this summer isn’t ending any time soon….). You can read more about it in Hungarian on the KERET blog.
Before wrapping up, I should mention Szabó and Sallai’s tradition of releasing a two-song Christmas EP together, with a song by each. There are three of these (from 2018, 2019, and 2020), as far as I know. There are also demos, live recordings, and other rarities. This is just a brief introduction to Galaxisok, but I hope someone will come upon this piece, listen to a few of the songs, and then go listen to more. I am lucky that the music is so close by, not just here in my room, but at concerts that I can attend. May this be the case for years and years.
The next Listen Up piece will be devoted to Sonny Smith / Sonny & the Sunsets, whose music I have listened to for over two decades. I hear some kind of affinity between them and Galaxisok. I keep dreaming that one day they will play a show together, in San Francisco, Budapest, or both. Who knows; it might happen. But whether or not it does, they will be neighbors in this series.
Update: The Müpa concert was so good that I forgot to pick up my backpack at the coat check afterwards! Playing and speaking about their own favorites, they gave us a thrilling long concert that included a few songs mentioned here and many others too—some of them already beloved in my ears, others still on my periphery. I can’t wait to go back to the albums this weekend (and will also go back to the Müpa for my bag).
Since November 2017, she has been teaching English, American civilization, and British civilization at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium in Szolnok, Hungary. From 2011 to 2016, she helped shape and teach the philosophy program at Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science & Engineering in New York City. In 2014, she and her students founded the philosophy journal CONTRARIWISE, which now has international participation and readership. In 2020, at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium, she and her students released the first issue of the online literary journal Folyosó.
On this blog, Take Away the Takeaway, I discuss literature, music, education, and other things. Some of the pieces are satirical and assigned (for clarity) to the satire category.
When I revise a piece substantially after posting it, I note this at the end. Minor corrections (e.g., of punctuation and spelling) may go unannounced.
Speaking of imperfection, my other blog, Megfogalmazások, abounds with imperfect Hungarian.
Take Away the Takeaway 