In the frame of Festival Temps d’Images:
“You can’t get on the Budapest subway without hearing the track Bossa Astoria playing in our minds our head down to the Balaton without listening to Eastern Sugar or go to a festival without witnessing the audio-visual orgy that is Zagar.”
Balázs Zságer, leader of the band Zagar isn’t a modest guy by a long shot. The first song on his debut album, Local Broadcast, from 2002 was entitled Parachute To Eternity, catapulting himself into perpetuity. He could’ve missed the jump and then it would’ve seemed like he was pompously bragging by starting off his new “career” with a song title like that, but he didn’t. In fact, Parachute To Eternity was the most beautiful, stylish and all-encompassing opening move that could’ve possibly been accomplished under three minutes. In summary, and with hindsight, we can say that it foreshadowed everything that was to come: an instantly recognizable oeuvre that’s characterized by perfectly unique traits, and one which is Eastern European in nature, but actually isn’t, one which is intrinsically Hungarian, yet really isn’t Hungarian, and one which has a Budapest-like feel to it, yet actually isn’t what it seems like, but rather is truly universal instead and is far from being over. The truth is that the works of Zagar (Local Broadcast, Szezon-Eastern Sugar, Cannot Walk Fly Instead, just to list the albums) stand the test of time, in fact, let’s not be modest: they’re eternal works, since they’re about the ever-lasting feelings of man, which they address, convey and bring to a new life...
Still, we could go on to list all their awards and the almost forty compilations they appeared on, the various nominations and recognitions (for example, the fact that Wings of Love came in second out of 15 thousand songs, with a jury consisted of members such as Tom Waits).
For their anniversary concert, we can certainly expect a fair dose of rapture – in fact, that’s exactly what we can count on. The band is currently working on its forth album and according to plans, apart from playing the old, classic Zagar-tunes, we can expect to get a taste of their new songs as well. They’ll be joined by a host of guest artists on stage, the identity of whom is naturally still a mystery, but we can surely count on the presence of Kemuri and the Urbanizer team, who will do their best with their projections to make sure everyone gets what they visually expected from the event.
ZSÁGER Balázs – keyboard, electronics, vocal
ZSÁGER-VARGA Ákos – bass
LIGETI György – vocal, guitar
DJ BOOTSIE – scratch
LÁZÁR Tibor – drums
Kemuri – visuals
Urbanizer – visuals
+ special guests!
www.zagarmusic.com
www.myspace.com/zagar
