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Cziglan Istvan - Alhambra Kapui

Artist:	Cziglan Istvan
Title:	Alhambra Kapui
Label:	Periferic Recorsds BGCD 044
Length(s):	64 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	12/1999

Line up

Cziglan Istvan - guitars, synthesizers, programming
Zsuzsa Ullmann - vocals
Lilla Vincze - vocals
Csaba Bogdan - electric guitar
Robert Erdesz - keyboards, akai s6000
Laszlo Gomor - drums, percussions
Gabor Kisszabo - bass
Attila Kollar - flute, recorder, tambourine
Tamas Pocs - bass
Zsolt Vamos - guitar

Tracks

1)	Personal Gravity	17.11
2)	Tango Tango	4.42
3)	Bangkok	4.08
4)	Old Lady With Cat	7.35
5)	April	6.21
6)	Seven Gates Of Alhambra	10.11
7)	Swan Song	3.32
8)	For Beginners... (bonus)	3.15
9)	April Radio Edit (bonus)	3.33
10)	Personal Gravity Radio Edit (bonus)	3.46

Summary

Cziglan Istvan was the guitar player of the Hungarian band Solaris. In 1998 he died leaving the music for this album. The people of Solaris have worked on the music and Periferic has packaged it nicely indeed. The band has changed the songs a little, but not overly much.

The music

The album opens with the seventeen minutes of Personal Gravity. The music is very melodic, with lots of things going on, but still rather quiet and very well produced. There are both clear female vocals (but wordless) and some (Tibetan?) male vocal samples. The first contains mostly piano like playing, but later something akin to church organ is used. The guitar is only used here as a accompaniment. The second part (or what I would call the second part) features the female vocals, but also Spanish guitar, flute like keyboards and on the whole has a flamenco like atmosphere. One might compare the music with things like Adiemus, but the music is certainly more potent, especially as the guitar sets in and the music obtains a majestic quality. After this more powerful part the music moves into the realm of world music, but the guitar is still present. There are some great, moving melodies here. I do feel the male vocal part could have been left out: this kind of vocals is often misused in New Age music to give the music a world music spirit. Actually the music here can be both liked by lovers of progressive rock as well as electronic music. Finally some Gregorian Chant choirs are thrown in for good measure and the song starts to sound a bit fragmentary and later a bit too mellow. At the end the music becomes a bit more involved again with flute and stronger percussion and strong pieces of guitar thrown in. The song ends very abruptly. Tango Tango is a dark percussive track with marimba and crackling thunderous sounds. Again the music seems keyboard dominated, but with a nice driving rhythm. With the Asiatic sounding, up-tempo Bangkok we move into the realm of Jean-Michel Jarre. Quite danceable this electronic track. Old Lady With Cat is again mostly keyboards (quite highpitched) and a much quieter piece than the previous. It sounds vaguely classical, but is as always very melodic and a bit waltzlike. For me, the track is a bit too uneventful. April is a slightly percussive piece with warped female vocals and overall of a mellow disposition. The title track is with its ten minutes the second in length. The album opens with keyboards and bass playing the melodies. The melody is Arabic/Hispanic and the music sounds more complex than on the previous songs. The structure is again classical sounding and some of the parts might very well have been used for music with television or a romantic movie. At times I think of Diethelm/Famulari, but not as speedy. The regular album closes with Swan Song. This is a rather gloomy piece, although the acoustic guitar has a rather hopeful sound. For me it has a bit of that feeling of Pink Floyds If. The first of the bonus tracks is For Beginners... This is a bit of joke with mechanical sounding keyboard and percussion based on a circus melody combined with a stadium rock guitar. The last two bonustracks are radio edits, of April and Personal Gravity.

Conclusion

The legacy of Czgilan Istvan is quite different from what Solaris does. They have in common a strong sense of melody and harmony, but the approach on this album is very electronic and with rather little guitar work. I find this sad, because the powerful guitar parts are the most worthwhile to me. The shorter songs are often a bit too accessible, but generally pleasant to listen to. The best song is the opener Personal Gravity.