ROTW: Transreplica Meccano!

Ooooh. Another desirable reissue to fill this week’s ROTW slot. We would have loved to have had a reissue of this to list back in the aQ days! 

Originally released as an LP in 1989, and then reissued on cd & vinyl again in 1991, this is the long-out-of-print debut solo album from Hungarian ethnomusicological electronic maestro László Hortobágyi. In the years since, has added quite a few more discs to his idiosyncratic discography, which sometimes veers a bit too far into ravey nineties cyber-electronica territory for our tastes, although his detailed faux-ethno concepts are always intriguing. In any case, this debut, recorded circa '88-'89, is solidly recommended.

Transreplica Meccano is a beautiful, unsettling, mysterious masterpiece of ambient/drone ethno-forgery utilizing sampling and synthesis. Now it’s being reissued on vinyl by discerning Dutch label Lullabies For Insomniacs (official street date this Friday, September 30th).

We should note it has slightly different track list than previous editions. Same actual tracks though, essentially. Apparently, Hortobágyi remastered and reworked the songs in 2006, making some small changes to the vocals and mixes, as well as to the running order of the album, and slightly altering the track titles too, for some reason (a la German Oak, who apparently had their children come up with new titles for their songs, which explains a lot, see our ROTW two weeks ago). It’s still full of creepy vocal intonations, blissful sinister ambience, and esoteric industrial ‘world music’ atmosphere, however!

Samples on this album are said to include:

Insectofon

Ageng Gong from Java

A. Hitler

Balinese Tjak Choir

Saron from Sunda

Voice of Girija Devi, Gwailor

Muezzin from Mecca

St. Sophia Cathedral Choir of Nowgorod

Flute sample from Cirebon Area of West-Java

Vocoder demo by I.R.C.A.M

Also quite recommended, by the way, and reportedly getting a small repress this month, is the same label's recent vinyl reissue of early '80s Japanese electronic composer Yasuo Sugibayashi's The Mask Of The Imperial Family.