Tabbis is a new DSD Avant-Garde and Electroacoustic album from Attila Gyarfas and Balint Bolcso on the Hunnia Records label. The album is a Pure DSD 256 release that was recorded Live to Stereo DSD 256 at SuperSize Recording Studio, Hungary on August 16, 2021 using the Hapi Analog to Digital Converter from Merging Technologies.

Attila Gyarfas and Balint Bolcso tell us “Tabbis is an homage to Mihály Babits, one of the most influential Hungarian poets of the first half of the 20th century. We chose nine of his poems that resonated with us the most and we used them as sources of inspiration while recording the improvisations presented on this record. Our primary goal was not to find means to recreate the mood or to communicate the essence of these writings, but to treat these poems as additional influences besides the usual factors like our current state of mind, the presence of the audience or the acoustics and the lighting conditions of the room that we perform in.

The text of the poem Húnyt szemmel… is partly presented in the tracks Sue Lent My MHz and Mule Zest Hymn, and warped fragments of words taken from Sárga lobogó can be heard in the piece entitled Solar Goo Bag. The only improvisation on this album that has been recorded with a predetermined length is Seek Its Red, which features a synthesizer that was programmed to follow the pitch and rhythm of Babits’s voice on an early recording of his poem Esti kérdés, in which his unique approach to reciting becomes obvious.

We were sure that the titles of the improvisations had to be connected to the titles of the poems, however, we also felt it would have been too direct of a reference to use the same words since the link between the music and the texts is rather loose and abstract. Therefore, we decided to search for anagrams in English based on the letters of the original Hungarian titles, creating a new layer of playful secondary meanings.”

Attila Gyarfas – Drum Set, Gong Synth, Coron DS-7
Balint Bolcso – Electronics