Don’t even try to pretend like you’ve heard of her, you trendy North American bastard. While Jim Morrison was in the act of exploding and destructing all over the place, Sarolta Zalatnay was busy establishing herself as a veritable cultural movement in her native Hungary, complete with several appearances on screens both big and small and album sales numbering in the millions. However, despite her brief association with The Bee Gees, the A-list status she built up across Eastern Europe since she first started making waves in the mid '60s (at the impressionable age of 16) did not translate into much UK success and virtually no North American interest to speak of. Sarolta, known by her devoted fans as Cini, would go on to appear in the Hungarian versions of Big Brother(without the Holding Company) and Playboy (thanks to her porn director husband) in her fifties, if you can believe it. To be fair, she didn’t record many English tracks -- staying loyal by dedicating herself to her own scene -- so it’s not entirely our fault for the ignorance, or at least it wasn’t until this Finders Keepers compilation.
Standing as an immutable testament, Mancunian producer and world-renowned deejay Andy Votel wrote extensive liner notes and helped pick the tracks for what is basically Cini’s Greatest Hits 1970-1980. Andy’s introduction aptly describes the cultural and creative processes and happenstances behind all of her finest projects, giving you a better idea of her surroundings than her own personality. That, my friend, is what the music is there for. While I can’t understand word one, except for the CD-only bonus tracks, the fact of the matter is that Zalatnay is the Hungarian pop hybrid of Janis Joplin and Patti Smith, with a little more attention paid to style. And you could easily make the case that throwing “Hungarian” in front of the previous comparison at least sounds like it’s belittling her accomplishments. Believe me, she is among contemporaries there, not dreams.
The bands she fell in with and helped form understood the principles and aesthetics of '60s British garage, American R&B, funk, and psychedelia of the time far greater than your average contemporary band ever will. Zalatnay held her righteously soulful, slightly raspy voice like a jive cannon propelled by the changes of her backing band that coaxed her on, note-for-note, with equal passion for this new and exciting music oozing out of London and California and into the hearts of the Hungarian youth. Sure, it ain’t as tight, catchy, or well recorded as Janis’ brief output, but it’s far closer than you might guess. It’ll leave you Hungary for more... ugh. Why must bad puns be my strawberry asshole?
