| Ultrasound Festival

The Ultrasound Foundation aims to draw the Hungarian music scene nearer to those musical centers where the most exciting changes happen. Having presented a series of events called Ultrasound Nights in 2001 and 2002, we organized a four day long festival in 2003 featuring more than 30 artists. After that we immediately started working with our collaborators, Skug (Wien) and Atrak Art (Bratislava) to set up the Soundbridges project which aims to connect the cities of Wien, Bratislava and Budapest by the means of three individual festivals going on in the three cities simultaneously.

The phrase "musical centre" can be interpreted in different ways. On one hand it can refer to geographical places like Iceland, Sweden, Canada or Austria etc., all of which recently appeared on the musical map of the world. On the other hand the phrase can refer not to cities or countries but rather to intellectual centers, record labels, festivals or birthplaces of certain sounds which are at the same time recognizable and leave enough room to creativity. Unfortunately it is so painfully obvious that Budapest cannot be called a musical centre in any sense. No matter how fresh and exciting music is made here, Hungarian artists are doomed to suffer from the feeling of being overdue and in most cases they can only dream of making their music heard abroad. Even if they are lucky and determined enough and have the ability to manage themselves so that they gain success, it still remains strictly on a personal level. Though changing the status quo cannot be made possible only by concert organizers and the audience, we at the Ultrasound Foundation try to do our best. We operate our webpage, run our radio programme, release CD-R's and organize musical events in order to inspire communication between and above genres.

Besides staging musicians from abroad we also intend to introduce Hungarian artists to the audience. Therefore in cooperation with Pararadio we announced a competition (workshop.pararadio.hu) for young musicians working in the field of experimental music. 49 musicians took part in the competition, many of them presenting mature and highly original works. The winners will be playing on the festival too.

We might experience at some performances of the UH Fest that ideas previously considered to be revolutionary or unconventional will turn right in front of our eyes to something widely accepted albeit – presumably - in a less radical form. It is always a mystery by whom and when such changes occur, but names like Radian, Fennesz, Bohren, Pluramon, Tim Hecker, Keith Fullerton Whitman are definitely emblematic figures of the scene. Then there are artists whose work might never reach a greater audience, but still: Pita, Jérôme Noetinger, ErikM, Kaffe Matthews, Radbound Mens, Flying Luttenbachers and Noxagt are all highly exciting acts. Others like Staalplaat Soundsystem, Institut Für Feinmotorik, Violet, Ekkehard Ehlers and Leafcutter John push boundaries of existing techniques and explore brand new territories, while Antony, Julee Cruise, Thilges3, Folie or Andreas Tilliander are simply so talented that it is impressive in itself. Louie Austen, Khan and Sophie Rimeden are natural born entertainers, whereas Jesu, Dälek, Jan Jelinek, Mikael Stavöstrand are all masters of their respective genres. Finally there are some great integrators like Thighpaulsandra or Kevin Blechdom.
And all of them together with those who have not been mentioned here walk hand in hand on the occasion of the UH Fest.

Have fun!