Kommandó By Night

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2003

Label: Tempo

"In the highest settlement of Kovászna County, in the lap of dense pine forests, the Kommando Gypsy Folklore Camp is held every year, and its residents spend unforgettable hours by the evening campfires for a week. Some people come with blankets and thicker clothes, others with bottles of wine or bacon on skewers, and slowly acquaintances begin and friendships are forged. The musicians also appear, with their ceremonial preparation they provide a way to "warm up": they comfortably take out their instruments, patiently wax, carefully tune - knowing that the night is still long!
The first song plays softly, creeping into the words of those who are still hanging out, chatting, tactfully warning them: the fun is about to begin! The musicians - the French gypsies from faraway lands and the natives from Chasava - play the guitar and accordion, as well as the violin, viola, and bass, as naturally as if they had been playing music together all their lives. The guests of the camp who return year after year - the gypsies from Órkő - don't need to be encouraged for long, and once they get up to dance, the gentle pace soon accelerates to a wild pace: Rémuszék are famously virtuoso dancers. Their legs zigzag with lightning speed, their limbs are barely able to be followed by the human eye, and their blows are piled up in unconscious rhythms. Their whole being, glowing with inner fire - perhaps also due to the play of light from the tongues of flame - becomes almost devilish, mesmerizing those gathered around the fire...
While the former are waxing, the company starts singing together: at this time, "Come boys...", "Ricsi", bufaen and other snare songs are played. Later, the music of the people of Csávás warms up the dancers' feet again, their melodies testify to a wide knowledge of the material: they confidently choose the most authentic jingles alongside music from popular film series, and they also conjure up a Hungarian rhapsody borrowed from Brahms... their dance words, their inarticulate moans, radiate unbridled primal power that sweeps everyone along. At the height of the darido, the company resembles a fiery crater, and the dancers, who have apparently lost their self-control due to the rampage, even compete with the flying sparks that have sprung from the fire and writhe together following the movements of the musicians. In the chaotic picture, there is only one solid point, radiating unshakable calm. Sometimes lying on his stomach under the hissing feet of the dancers, sometimes reaching across the tongues of fire, and if necessary, squatting for half an hour at the feet of the musicians, a strange figure always held his microphone fixed with even more strange solutions towards the most exciting sound sources. And if the situation demanded it - Dénes Kiss, an employee of the Marosvásárhely radio station - because he was the only one who was able to tear himself away from the frenzied atmosphere for the sake of these recordings, he accompanied the singers' frenzied swing with his microphone, capturing the party on July 23, 2001, like a pendulum, even in half sleep."
Liner notes by Orza Călin (Google translation from Hungarian)