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OMEGA RED STAR: FROM HUNGARY

Omega

Psychedelic/Space Rock


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3 stars Rock Around The Bloc ! Communist Hippies?

Hungary's Omega was the first pop band from an eastern bloc country to perform and record in the west. Heavily influenced by the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other British psychedelia the band was brought to England by the manager of The Spencer Davis Group, John Martin, in May 1968 to record an album in the English language on the Decca Record label. The album was recorded over a three day period and coincided with two short tours in and around London with favourable reactions from the local media as well as Eric Clapton and George Harrison before they were whisked back to Hungary due to sensitive political reasons, namely the Prague Spring uprising against Soviet rule in Czeckoslovakia in August 1968. Although unfinished ( clocking in at only 37 minutes ), Decca nevertheless decided to release the album altering the band's name from simply Omega to Omega Red Star for commercial impact.

Politics aside,this psychedelic album is perhaps even more psychedelic than the psychedelia which inspired it ! Think of the Flower People Spinal Tap incarnation and one has a good idea what to expect here on tracks like Red Rose and Tomorrow. Having previously released several singles in their native Hungary which included cover versions of songs by Herman's Hermits, The Hollies, The Beatles and Rolling Stones in addition to original Hungarian material, Omega were already established as one of the leading pop bands in their native country who were also by this time individually accomplished musicians. The music here might come as a suprise to those familiar with the later more progressive sound they established in the seventies but there are also many interesting aspects to this early pop music from this then communist country. Not only did the music introplate traditional gypsy folk stylings ( I once Knew A Girl, Hungarian Folk Song ) but also utilized instrumentation not normally heard in pop music including the trumpet, flute, recorder and a traditional stringed instrument called a citero which is a smaller version of the zither to great effect. Incorporating jazz and classical elements the music, mostly about love and peace was also very poetic at times ( Dead Are The Flowers, If I Were The Wind ) with all the lyrics being penned by phantom member Anna Adamis, a young law student at the time. The album is also somewhat keyboard heavy as keyboardist/voocalist Gabor Presser was the band's main composer and orchestrator with the lyrics being worked in afterwards. There are also not as many guitar pyrotechnics being heard here than in contemporary western pop muisc at the time with the guitar being used mostly as an accompanying instrument. Most of the album was recorded later in 1968 in the Hungarian language upon the group's return to Hungary under the name Trombitas Fredi es a rettenetes emberek and the songs are considerably more effective in their mother tongue.

Although an original ( and extremely scarce ! ) Decca vinyl pressing was used for this short review, Omega Red Star From Hungary was remastered in 2007 and is currently available on the Hungarian Universal label. Perhaps no more of just a passing interest to the progrock fan Omega Red Star From Hungary is nonetheless a testament to the the longevity of a band from a once opressed country who have been around as long as The Rolling Stones. Three stars for historical signifigance.

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Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 | Review Permalink
snobb
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Very early Hungarian supergroup Omega's release - released in UK under the name " Omega Red Star". One of the very first Eastern European bands release in Western Europe, with English lyrics.

Unhappily I never saw Omega playing life till now! Somewhere in early 90-s I saw Gabor Pressner, their composer and multi-instrumentalist, who became a serious music composer at that time, when he bring his modern ballet to Vilnius Opera. And these early beat, psychedelic and rock roots were all very feel-able in his music.

There on this release Omega's fan can enjoy they roots - beat-based early psychedelia, some hard rock, strongly mixed with Hungarian folklore. It's still far not that music with bring fame to this band. But melodic and folksy moments with strong vocals are really enjoyable there.

Late 00's CD re-release has quite good clear sound and nice mixing.

Report this review (#307080)
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2010 | Review Permalink
siLLy puPPy
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
3 stars OMEGA has been and remains the most successful Hungarian band in all of rock history having formed all the way back in 1962 in Budapest and still going strong. Sadly singer János Kóbor remained with the band since the beginning has passed away in 2021 and keyboardist/singer László Benkő who also co-founded the band only recently passed away in 2020 but officially this band is still together and will probably go the route of Gong and Yes without its core members. It cannot be understated how much of a cultural icon OMEGA has been for the Hungarian nation since the band flourished despite battling the social, economic and political forces that were stacked against rock music much less bands that were progressive.

The band floundered around in its early years mostly covering British rock songs but with the addition of organist / flautist / vocalist Gábor Presser in 1967, the band benefited greatly from his seasoned talent in the genres of rock, jazz and folk songwriting. It didn't take long at all for OMEGA's reputation as a live band to leak out of Hungary and in 1968 they were invited to England to record this debut album OMEGA RED STAR: FROM HUNGARY which was released in English on Decca Records. The band didn't abandon its Hungarian roots though and all throughout its career released albums in both English and Hungarian. Although more famous as a progressive rock band, in these early years OMEGA engaged in the typical psychedelic rock that was taking over the world although even at this early stage some proggy moments were developing such as the extended organ solo on "Holnap."

The typical vinyl album's running time of nearly 37 minutes, OMEGA RED STAR FROM HUNGARY could've been any old British psych band with its ability to adopt all the attributes of the Western musical paradigm. What OMEGA brought to the table was the occasional use of Hungarian folk music in the mix. At this stage OMEGA's sound was beyond the average psych rock band with not only the use of guitars, bass, drums and keyboards but also incorporated flutes, trumpet and the citera, a strange looking Hungarian stringed instrument. The band spent 1968 touring England and although the titles of the songs are in the band's native Hungarian, the lyrics were sung in English. This exotic edge was exactly what OMEGA needed to get them noticed in the sea of excellent British rock that was taking over the world in the 1960s.

Sounding something like a mix of The Beatles, The Doors and Traffic, early OMEGA ticked off all the British psych boxes with strong melodic and catchy pop hooks. Heavy use of dramatic organ sounds, a Kinks-like use of rhythm along with the psychedelic pop sensibilities of early Pink Floyd. The band stood out for its liberal use of flute (long before UK bands like Jethro Tull existed) and mix of Hungarian folk musical scales as well as what sounds like Communist Party propaganda musical form. Given the censorship and iron fist control of music behind the former Iron Curtain and its satellite affiliates, OMEGA was more subversive than a Western band in conveying its opposition to the system it found itself controlled by.

OMEGA is primarily known for its 10 album run of progressive rock albums that started in 1971 when Presser left the band and took his folk and jazz style with him however it's well worth going back to these early years to explore the band's origins. While not some long lost masterpiece, it's fascinating to hear how a band from communist Hungary swam upstream against all odds to become an international sensation in these early years. OMEGA may not have been the next Beatles but the band was quite competent at crafting instantly catchy tunes that perfectly evoke the era of the tumultuous late 1960s from a part of the world most of the era were rather unaware of. While not an essential listening experience by any means, OMEGA RED HISTORY: FROM HUNGARY is a interesting slice of Eastern European history that propelled the band into the international stars they would soon become.

Report this review (#2650783)
Posted Thursday, December 9, 2021 | Review Permalink

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