Laszlo Hortobagyi
The Arcadian Collection

The work of the Hungarian Laszlo Hortobagyi, released in 1994, is an eccentric compilation recorded by his secret music society created in Budapest in 1981 under the name of The Gáyan Uttejak Society.

And one quickly gets confused, starting from the cover notes.

The latter also depicts a female figure entwined by a Kundalini snake, often described as a dormant serpent at the base of the spine.

The snake represents the powerful energy of the life force often dormant, lying in its potential within all individuals.

But if the information contained in the CD cover is true, it seems more than 100 musicians worked on it, including various choirs, many sitar players, tablas, guitars, synthesizers, flutes, and other instruments, in short, a gamelan orchestra.

However, I'm not sure if this is true, and what is stated should be evaluated with caution. On the other hand, in this album, the Magyar manages to give the impression of being a band, so we remain in doubt, such is the convincingly achieved result. It really seems like a deeply felt choral work.

The journey takes us to Arcadia, a promised land which, in its literary transfiguration, is a place of serene pastoral life dedicated to the pleasures of nature and song. A bucolic land where one lives in symbiosis with the rhythms of nature, amidst pleasant landscapes and idyllic scenarios.

But I don’t think it’s always like that.

One hears a mix of mantra choirs, orchestral percussion, drum machine rhythms, Gregorian music choirs, ragas with sitars, tablas, and gongs. Besides, there's funeral music to accompany the flames of funeral pyres by the Ganges.

All harmonically executed to compose a puzzle of auditory sensations that form an ascetic and mystical unicum.

Among the tracks, the more traditional ones to note are Samsara, Stasi Binkar, Karmaraga. Those introducing elements of electronic sounds and drum machines are Naganavarasa, Jah-Indollah.

The last track, Arabesque, returns to the trance, as in the first track, where Indian features meet more contemporary rhythms and sounds.

Here a Brahmin recites the end of the world on a church organ played by a madman who strikes the keys with a mining hammer, accompanied by solemn funeral music that includes three-tone bells, to mark the time of the ritual of life that flows and that will be.

It's a world of gravitational currents, space-time disturbances propagating like waves, which can be accessed synchronously by closing the eyes and succumbing to the charm of inner silence.