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Európa Kiadó

About:

Hungarian underground rock band formed in 1981 in Budapest from the members of the then freshly disbanded URH: László Kiss, András Salamon and lyricist-composer-guitarist-singer Jenő Menyhárt, joined by József Dénes and András Gerő. Soon keyboardist Gerő and drummer Salamon parted, and got replaced by János Másik and Péter Magyar. Európa Kiadó was, and is on the verge of breaking up all through its lifetime with many pauses and farewell concerts, A first attempt to record an album was done in 1981. The project called 'A pusztulás piszkozatai' (Drafts of decay) never got past the rehearsel proces since internal bickering let to the only result of people leaving in 1983, two years after its foundation. The 1997 album 'Love 82' features live performances from this period.

Jiří Stivín and János Másik continued and contributed the soundtrack to the movie Városbújócska (Urban hide and seek) in 1985. In a sense it was the true first studio recording of the band. On releasing their first studio album, Popzene in 1987 (which was preceded by many other recordings and concert programs that were published as albums much later, with irregular delays), Másik left the band for a while, Dönci, for religious reasons, for ever, to only return as cameo in later concerts; and on their 1989 album, Szavazz rám, Sziámi's János Gasner played the lead guitar. In 1990, not long before two of the founding members left the country for a longer period, Orsolya Varga became the permanent keyboardist, Péter Kirschner the guitarist, and the lineup remained unchanged until 2008, when Péter Magyar was appointed background percussionist, first accompanied by, then fully replaced by other drummers.

On the web:

- They don't have a website but we found and interesting background article

If you like this, you probably like... / european counterparts:

Goldene Zitronen (Germany)

Voo Voo (Poland)

What do we think:

DB: Is it a band or more a collective? With people active in the Hungarian new wave and punkscene hopping in and out. You can track down people who played or would play in bands like Kontroll Csoport and Sziámi. But this irradicate line up did not result in a consistant sound. Their debut can be regarded as a true band effort, the following output is a mixup of styles, bandmembers and live recording techniques. But, with the communist era breathing its last breath the first two albums also have a sense of urgency, like they're trying to make up for lost time in an anarchistic pop manor. For their keyrole in Hungarian alternative underground of the Eighties they are worth digging into.

Recommendations:

♪♪♪ - Popzene - 1987

♪♪♪ - Szavazz rám - 1989

- Itt kisértünk - Love'92 - 1993

- És mindig csak képeket - 1994

- Love '82 - 1997

- Jó lesz '84 - 1997

- Igy vonulunk be - 2005 

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♪♪♪♪♪ = outstanding album, an absolute must-have
♪♪♪♪ = great album, highly recomended
♪♪♪ = nice album
♪♪ = be careful, requires listening before buying
♪ = best to be avoided