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"breaks could be everything you want"
Chi Recordings, DJ Naga and the scene at Budapest
ENGLISH VERSION
The topic of the article is the hungarian Breakbeat-, Dub-, Psychedelic
Elektro and whateverkindasound-label Chi Recordings.
The text was written down in January 2002. As it were I have been
interested in the hungarian scene in the year 2001 when I also picked
up first records of Chi Recordings. As it were the article is a
result of this process. In the summer 2002 I met the first time
with Dj Naga, one of runner of Chi Recordings. We talked about the
Label, we philozophized about sounds & styles, we talked about
his live and how he became Dj and Producer.
Due to the size and the amount of content I arranged the stuff
in three parts.
1st part:
tells the story how I got to know Naga (in the Trancewave Recordstore
Reváy utca-Reváy street in Budapest). and about the
time we spend together. That features a small sight in the hungarian
microuniverse between recordstores, Tilos Radio ... Tilos Radio
has a very important function in the Budapest scene. The "forbidden
radio" serves as a network mainly for the electro- and club-music
scene, but also political for left oriented people in Budapest.
All the sophisticated Djs beside of Naga and other people support
the radio with regular mixes and radio shows (Palotai, Titusz, Mango,
Keyser& Shuriken ...). Tilos ist basisdemokratisch geleitet,
no one knows who really has sth. to say.
Naga studied English literature and finally graduate in culture
sciences and anthropology. The pseudonym ‚Naga' is normally
used in the indian culture, where it is the name of a symbolic snakes.
Balazs as Naga is commonly called started to produce music in 1998.
At this time he worked as Dj and in a recordstore. But he become
fed up with that when he notized people in a home studio next to
the store he worked who were producing their own music. He started
to work together with Deak Ambrus aka AMB. Together they developed
their technical skills and got the idea to found their label. Contemporary
Chi Recordings are AMB, Fine Cut Bodies and Naga. They are supported
by acts like Raster, Modul.
Chi is a very sophisticated and in spite of that in a professional
way improvising label. You can´t underestimate this fact in
the case of a label in Central and Eastern Europe. Chi consists
of three moduls: Artist LPs, Chi Classics Compilation and Vinyl-Eps.
2nd part:
is around the releases on Chi Recordings mainly the Lps of Naga
and Amb and the Chi-Classics-Sampler. The first release on Chi was
the Lp "Styledrop" by ‚Naga and AMB'. In my opinion
the sound on this release is unique and revolutionary. You can classify
it cautiously as dubby, goa-lasting psychedelic elektro (one and
only Detroit Elektro). Beside of that Naga and Amb show impressing
skills on the machines and a interesting producing quality. In a
way styledrop remembers me in the Cologne-sound of Walker, Jammin
Unit better to say Air Liquide.
The Chi-Classics-Series started with the release of Dub Local. The
idea of Chi Classics was to represent hungarian musicians and producers
with their own imagination of a special sound. Volume one turns
around dub. Dub Local! The sampler brings together people of different
parts of hungarian scene and doing so featuring the universe of
hungary. You find people like "virgacs" and "membran"
with their trancy Underground-Records-background, Anorganik, the
Chi Crew, talents like the sarkastic Titusz, Hortobágyí
László who impresses dub in a middle east way. And
not thinking dub in Hungary without the great Prieger Zsolt. It
is nice to see that the Chi-Crew and mainly Naga could motivate
such people and other (the female vocalist Kiss Erzsi, the Band
Korai Öröm) for the sampler.
This matter had been progressed on the actual Chi Classics Vol.
II called "Crash & Carry". The leading topic for Crash
& Carry was Breakbeat, so the Sampler represent the imagination
of a bunch of artists and producers in relation to this style. The
title of this article "so breaks can be everything what you
want" is a slogan, taken from Crash & Carry. Different
to the pluralistic dub sound on "Dub Local", the tracks
on Crash & Carry is more balanced out. You can see, the the
Hungarian Breakbeat means more or less monotone steppers not this
nervous jungle sound. It´s more like the Berlin Dangerous-Drums-Sound
3rd part:
herein I wrote about the vinyl-ep-releases and the enviroment of
Chi Recordings.
So to say Chi runs a regular party series in Budapest. It is taking
place every wednesday evening on a ship near Budapest Erzsebét
Bridge. The series has the very creative brand Ablak a dubra what
is a hungarian pun with the meaning: A window to dub. By the way
Naga and Fine Cut Bodies are the resident djs. In his dj-sets Naga
often represent dub in his own understanding. He plays a wide field
between Breakbeat steppers, Dub tech and also progressive house.
Ecclectic sound vs. Styledropping. But in between he likes to spice
his sets with tracks of his heroes Lee Perry and Augustus Pablo.
The Vinyl-Eps on Chi-Recordings are a very special and successful
part of Chi Recordings. It is an extension in Central and Eastern
Europe, where exist not so much labels who regularly are releasing
on Vinyl. They print and distribute their stuff in England. So on
the isle they are very successful. But in Germany they actually
aren´t so well known beside of Berlin. They are one of the
most selling labels in Deeroys Dubstore.
The Chi crew is also invited to Berlin on the 18th of April 03,
to promote their Crash & Carry sampler on a Dangerous-Drums-Event
in the Bastard/ Kastanienallee. We are looking for forward to this!!!!
Zu den Teilen... 1
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