Ahol az Ökör is Bort Iszik!

Magos are a fine Hungarian folk band playing authentic village music, mostly from Romanian Transylvania. They and their violinist Csaba Soós adopted as their village master the fiddler Csiszár Aladár, based in the village of Péterlaka near Târgu Mureş, and regularly performed with him in a music camp in Transylvania and Budapest. He passed away in 2022 and this album is a tribute to him and Péterlaka's musicians in Hungarian, Romanian and Gypsy repertoire.

The village is famous for its vineyards where it was said that even the oxen drink wine – hence the title which means ‘Where the Oxen Also Drink Wine’ – and Aladár has confirmed that the animals would drink the remains from the pail after wine-making. Although recorded in a studio, this record has all the spirit of the regional music, played by musicians who know the beautiful tradition of the Upper Mureş valley very well. The changes in pace in the fast ‘Cigányoké’, in ‘Maros Menti Románoké’ and in other dance sequences are excellently done. It shows that the adoption of rural music by urban-based bands, which characterised the Hungarian dance house movement, is in excellent hands. These Hungarian string bands were just added to the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list in December.