Milestones

Locomotiv GT

Name: Locomotiv GT – Loksi
Item: Loksi
Author: Federico Romagnoli

Loksi

1980 (Pepita)

art-rock

by Federico Romagnoli

Gábor Presser could well be described as the most important artist in the history of Hungarian popular music: from 1967 to 1971 he was a member of Omega, for whom he wrote nearly all the songs of that period, including what remain to this day the most famous tracks in their catalogue ("Ha én szél lehetnék", "Petróleum lámpa" and "Gyöngyhajú lány" [note 1], the latter a kind of unofficial national anthem). Omega's album "10000 lépés", released in that same 1969 that saw the debuts of Genesis, King Crimson and Yes, is, among other things, one of the earliest progressive rock records.

After leaving the band in 1971, Presser founded Locomotiv GT (the name, meaning Locomotive Grand Turismo, is almost always shortened for convenience to LGT), a group that over the course of their decades-long career stood out for their ability to move through the most disparate styles, with an oblique, experimental streak that's all the more surprising given the mainstream success they achieved.

This article will focus on an analysis of the 1980 album "Loksi". LGT's discography is rather complex: "Loksi" is the band's eighth album sung in Hungarian (they also recorded several in English, which, truth be told, never quite came off). To understand its content, it's useful to know the path that preceded it, which can be summed up as follows: from beginnings straddling hard rock and prog, the band evolved by incorporating jazz and funk elements (already very evident in the mid- the Seventies, gradually developing a smooth, polished sound in contrast with its initial rawness.

In 1980, "Loksi" marked the maturity of this incarnation of the band, deploying an imposing array of technology and production values, effectively reaching one of the peaks of rock music recorded on the other side of the Iron Curtain (thanks also to their many trips abroad, the band at that point had access to the most advanced instruments available, including Yamaha pianos, a Korg vocoder and a Roland Jupiter-4 synthesizer).

By the time of this recording, LGT had been settled for four years into what would remain their definitive line-up, with Presser (vocals and keyboards) joined by János Karácsony (vocals and guitar) and János Solti (drums), both formerly of Generál, and Tamás Somló (vocals, bass and horns), a former member of Kex.

Three key collaborators took part in the making of the album: producer Péter Péterdi, lyricist Dusán Sztevanovity (Serbian by origin, but raised in Hungary since the age of three) and sound engineer György Kovács, all of whom had already been working with the band for some years. Péterdi in particular had also been a guiding hand for singer-songwriter Tamás Cseh, for historic rock bands such as Edda Mũvek, Piramis, Skorpió and Bikini, as well as for classical and traditional music records.

“Loksi” (the title is an affectionate nickname for the band) was released as a double LP at the end of 1980 and immediately caused a sensation. Critic Péter Bálint, in an issue of the magazine “Pesti Mũsor” published in December of that year, minced no words on the matter:

The greatest, most anguished, most versatile, most demanding and wisest work in the history of Hungarian pop music. [...] In eighty minutes, everything that can be said, played and expressed in the language of pop music is said.

These aren't just words dictated by the enthusiasm of the moment: the album still comes across as remarkably eclectic today, even though the internet now offers far more points of comparison than were available in Hungary in 1980.

The tracklist opens with the mission statement "Prológ és trialóg" ("Prologue and Trialogue"). The first minute is filled only with a hum, background chatter and Sztevanovity's words, which announce:

Everyone knows there's nothing else to do.

Life is just an arc of flight from ground to ground.

The world doesn't care how long you live,

But for you and me, this is the only one,

the first and the last mission

At that point a gripping ride kicks in, blending sci-fi progressive rock, hard rock and funk. One could draw parallels with contemporary works by Alan Parsons Project, Rush, Blue Öyster Cult, and even, more loosely, with Funkadelic, but these would all be fleeting impressions that wouldn't do justice to the complexity and personality of the material, which stands out as essentially unique of its kind.

Riff of distorted guitar, groove of piano, horn interjections breaking up the rhythm section's flow, plus several breakdowns where the pace slows and turns martial, before picking the pace back up, colored by solos from the various instruments.

The most complex part, however, is the vocal one: the lyrics are in fact sung in turn by Presser, Somló and Karácsony, in a series of compulsive call-and-response exchanges that serve both to underline the anti-war message and to highlight the distinctiveness of the three voices (Presser's deep and gravelly, Karácsony's high and clear, while Somló sits somewhere in between).

In the translation that follows, each line is preceded by the initial of the surname of whoever performs it, partly to make the narrative easier to follow, since each of them represents a different character. It should nonetheless be noted that the numerous poetic licenses and constant ambiguities in the language used by Sztevanovity make it difficult to fully render the meaning of his lyrics:

P: Tune in to me,

S:as I tune in to you,

three voices on our radio are on the same wavelength.

P: Tune in and transmit,

S: we hear each other and I wish they could hear us too.

K: I don't know you and I'd like to know who you are.

P: I'm a small dot in the distance, but big enough to be a target.

S: The royal emblem on my plane and my heart, still intact.

P: If I hit you, I'll reduce them both to ashes.

S: Not long ago, I took off like this.

P: I didn't know you existed somewhere.

K: Me and you, we took off like this.

P: We thought maybe you wouldn't grow old, but you could become a hero.

K: And tell me, why isn't the man who would give me a medal here?

P: They won't tell you, and I wouldn't even know how to tell you who [it is].

K: We'll open fire on each other once we're in range.

P: So sing or pray, it'll help you when you're afraid.

Listen to me and pass it on,

if you cease fire, I won't shoot you.

S: Pay attention [to what I say] and pass it on,

if I let you go I'll have to run, because justice is coming.

K: Truth is victory and in the fight one must win,

P: but we've already been urged to fight for justice.

Chorus: It's a trap,

S: a tide of tangled words.

P: Precisely because you don't understand, you're only good for fighting.

During one of the interludes a voice filtered through a megaphone appears (the timbre isn't easily recognizable, but judging from the song's video it could belong to Presser), delivering a ridiculous motivational speech attributed to an unspecified military commander:

It's a matter of glory to be the best and hit the target!

It's a matter of glory to fire without pause!

It's a matter of glory to win and, if necessary, to die a good death!

It's a matter of glory that the glorious... glory themselves,

for their glory, gloriously

The sung part then returns, before the whole thing fades into Solti's martial snare drums:

P: Tune in and listen to me.

K: It's just a coincidence that three voices are on the same wavelength.

S: Tune in and transmit.

P: We can hear each other, and it would be nice if they could hear us too.

K: The royal coat of arms is already burning on my plane and in my heart.

S: And the earth is far away.

K: And the sky is now far away.

P: The monologue, the dialogue, the trialogue are not enough.

S: The fifth commandment is too hard for us.

The atmosphere shifts radically with the melancholy slow number “Gondolj rám” (drumstick tapping the snare rim, a whistling wind in the background, gentle piano chords and rivulets of synthesizer, while Karácsony's filtered vocal alternates with Presser's natural one) and with the piano-driven Christmas ballad “Ha eljönnek az angyalok”.

“Boksz”, a sort of futuristic transfiguration of Bo Diddley beat, with hissing drums, effect-laden guitars, vocoder and a dynamism that suits well a lyric in which a boxing match is drawn parallel to the difficulty of finding one's place within society:

Open your eyes and shut your mouth,

because the punching bag hits you in the chin,

put gloves on your arguments,

they'll knock you down if you're wrong.

Here it's better to punch than to badmouth,

be tough like the Rolling Stones,

here a small head is better than a big head,

the head is just the target, the fist is the brain.

Because this is boxing!

And hide it, even when it hurts you too,

and above all, don't philosophize too much.

If the left hand never works,

it will never buy you a better team.

If you're standing, you have to bear the pain,

if you go to bed, you'll lose the dream.

It's only fine if you fall asleep

when the bell rings instead of the gong.

It's something they never told you and your son doesn't know,

what it means: "The one who brought you into the world with tears,"

welcomes you with kisses and already sends you into the ring."

It doesn't matter if the crowd is roaring,

the important man is the one who whispers.

And it's easy to win when you're appreciated

from the one sitting behind the desk.

It doesn't matter who you're in the ring with

if you give [your opponent] what you wanted to give others.

[If], in the end, your head isn't smashed in,

you can still become a referee

"Sziszifuszi blues" ("Sisyphus' Blues") is one of the album's most hushed moments (brushed drums, harmonica, electric piano and layers of synthesizers), in stark contrast with the following track, "Embertelen dal" ("Inhuman Song"), a whirling six-and-a-half-minute synth-funk number marked - besides an intense alto sax solo from Somló - by a constant call-and-response between Presser and the choir, on lyrics that address rebellion against social conventions and the customs that instead push people to enforce them. It remains, to this day, the most fondly remembered track of the bunch:

There was a house wall to wall, (Oh, what an inhuman situation)

and there was the fever of being twenty, (Oh, what an inhuman situation)

and we snuck into the empty house

to love each other every afternoon, (Oh, what an inhuman situation)

and we changed lover, shirt, faith

after nights of lawlessness, (Oh, what an inhuman situation)

but a car came the color of a straitjacket, (Oh, it's incredibly beautiful)

and many spinning wheels arrived, (Oh, it's incredibly beautiful)

I walked among them grinding my teeth

and I swore that I wouldn't, wouldn't break, (Oh, it's incredibly beautiful)

and they smoothed me down, and I became sharp

and smooth, I haven't stirred in a long while. (Oh, it's incredibly beautiful)

Some things are so senseless,

that they're only good in their nakedness.

And the workshop foreman arrived, (Oh, it's incredibly good)

and many puncture repairmen arrived, (Oh, it's incredibly good)

they trapped the rebel

or [maybe] he escaped just in time, (Oh, it's incredibly beautiful)

he said plainly, without hesitation,

[that] little is enough for him in everything. (Oh, it's incredibly beautiful)

Incredibly beautiful, incredibly good,

Incredibly good, and fit for men.

There's nothing wrong with this song (It's an inhuman song)

and there are no knives, no bars, no walls, (It's an inhuman song)

and doesn't want to hurt anyone,

because it's simple, it doesn't bother anyone in any way, (It's an inhuman song)

a single flower blooms in the joyful field

and hides every sin in the world. (It's an inhuman song)

While the rest of the album is dominated by Presser, the first half of the second vinyl belongs to Somló and Karácsony. The former signs the glam rock of "Primadonna", the sketch jazz fusion "Játszunk" and the piano ballad "Nagyon kell, hogy szeress", the latter contributes the virtuoso guitar instrumental "Cabolo" (which incidentally, both for strumming and staccato phrasing, and for melodic taste, recalls the jazz-rock of Italy's own Cramps Recordsand the arena rock of "A dal a miénk" ("The Song Is Ours"): sung as a duet with Somló, with vocal harmonies worthy of Kansas e Foreigner (or of Hungary's own Fonográf, to stay local), it's among the liveliest tracks on the album, thanks also to the sudden groove of acoustic guitar and the relentless electric guitar solo.

The lyrics are a hymn to the freedom represented by music, which today might come across as naive, but must be seen in the context of Hungary's communist regime in 1980 (however permissive it may have been compared with other countries behind the Iron Curtain, it certainly bore no comparison to the stifling situations in Romania and East Germany):

The credit may belong to someone else,

the money may belong to someone else,

the hand that weaves the garland may be another's,

the glory too may belong to someone else, and to whoever pours the light,

but if it resonates within us,

the song is ours.

My sin can belong to someone else, and so can the past,

the star can belong to someone else, when its light goes out,

the sky can belong to someone else, and where we lie can be the meadow

but if it resonates within us,

the song is ours.

If I wanted to say it, but didn't quite know how,

then the melody of old songs from days gone by would speak for me.

The struggle, too, can belong to someone else, and so can order,

the melody can belong to someone else, and so can silence,

even the thought can belong to someone else,

the beginning and the end to someone else,

but if it resonates within us,

the song is ours

The final part of the album returns under Presser's aegis, with the wild pianistic rock of “Szentimentális “rakenroll”” and the atmospheric slow number “Mozi”, joined by the two versions of the fragment “Áldd meg a dalt” (“Bless the Song”), written by Karácsony for what are the album's most minimal lyrics:

Bless the song, bless the word,

bless the woman who is still waiting for you.

Bless the girl, bless her kiss,

bless at last the one who finds you.

Be everything there is, be what isn't there.

Silence is nothing but a promise.

Be the one who can be defeated, be only human,

but bless at last that which is life

The arrangements by Presser and Karácsony's performance are what really elevate the songs: the first version, at 2'17", unfolds over a carpet of synthesizers, melancholy piano chords, a ringing voice and jazz trumpet phrases that seem to echo into the void, lending it an almost liturgical intensity; the second, perhaps even more striking, lasts 1'41" and consists of nothing but an echoing voice and a few synth notes dissolving into watercolors of ambient music, a moment suspended outside of time that could easily serve as the intro to a track Dubstep from thirty years later, or as a sample to be manipulated vaporwave.

"Loksi" became the band's most successful record at home (though the figures on copies sold are scarce and contradictory, ranging anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 copies) [note 2 and it is still considered one of the great local classics today: the magazine Wan2 in 2004, the radio station Petőfi in 2014, the newspaper Hvg in 2014, and finally the cultural news site 061 in 2017 have all four included it in their respective lists of the greatest Hungarian records of all time.

LGT's career carried on, through periods of hiatus and reunion, until 19 July 2016, the day Somló died. A couple of months later the other three announced they could not carry on the historic name without him.

[note 1]The song became famous throughout Eastern Europe and later a cult favorite among musicians worldwide, to the point of being covered by the Scorpions and sampled by Wiz Khalifa, Kanye West e Madlib.

[note 2] It should also be noted that "Cabolo" and "A dal a miénk" were released together as a single for the Soviet market in 1981, reaching half a million copies. Curiously, despite such a result, "Loksi" would never be released there. Still on the subject of foreign markets, the band's best-selling LP overall was the live album "In Warsaw", released in 1976 exclusively in Poland and capable of reaching 145,000 copies.

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21/07/2024

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Federico Romagnoli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition