Anima Sound System (they have an excellent website, btw- you can also listen to many of their musical pieces there) is one of my favourite Hungarian bands (if not THE favourite). I saw them performing live in 1999, at the Sziget Festival (then it was called Pepsi Sziget…) in Budapest- Daniel, are you reading this 🙂 ? – and I tried to follow their musical development since then (see here a short info section on the band’s evolution – inter alia, with complete discography – focusing on their latest album, from last year). I would say that their comparative advantage lies in the ability to combine Eastern European (with focus on Hungary) folk motives and modern electronic rhythms, but this band is also amazingly dynamic and adaptive to other styles, as you’ll also see from the examples. I’ll use again YouTube to select some great musical pieces performed by them (some are remixes of older songs that sound, however, much better in the Anima Sound System version!). The first selection is the song of the day for today, the excellent ” ’68” (with its original video). Another great piece and perhaps their most famous – even today- is “Mariguana Cha Cha Cha“. Other songs from them that you should not miss are “Csango” (a perfect example for the combination Hungarian folk+electronic jazz) or “Legyen igy” (great music, great clip). Of course we should also look at one of their latest pieces. Revolution– from the succesful album released in June 2006, ‘We Strike’!- is one that I consider extremely good- and one that comes also with a new style.
