Zombie Girlfriend – Music For Porn (self-released, 2011)

Published December, 2011
by Easterndaze

When Benedek Szabó, the mastermind behind the Hungarian project Zombie Girlfriend asked us to be the international platform through which the project’s second LP will be announced, we couldn’t say no. First of all we love Benedek’s musical humour, as manifested in the laid-back surfpop killer Jesus Stole My Zombie Girlfriend released as a part of the seminal Hungarian Lo-fi vol. 2 compilation, or in the way he approaches sound in Music for Porn. And then, we like his music too, and with it the whole scene from which Zombie Girlfriend arose – the plethora of bedroom producers from Hungary, tumblr-core peeps, and the diverse musical projects they create.

13 – Zombie Girlfriend – Jesus Stole My Zombie Girlfriend by parentsout

After Piresian Beach, Zombie Girlfriend is another “Hungarian lo-fi” project that is starting to be successful also beyond Hungary, and not only virtually. With their last shows in Serbian capital Belgrade and Czech Brno, Benedek’s originally one-man project grew into a full-scale live band. Music for Porn is the product, “a collective effort [that] opts for a heavier, more compact sound reflecting upon the fact that since May, Zombie Girlfriend started touring as a live band as well.”. The “songwriting and vocal duties”  have been shared between Benedek and his guitarist Gergely Nagy – as the album’s loose concept is focused on “two men sitting in a bachelor’s den at night getting drunk and recalling all their past affairs and failed attempts at decent relationships”.

Benedek and Gergely, while getting drunk during a male-bonding session.

From straight-out surfrock such as Surf’s Down (originally recorded with Piresian Beach) or She Never Smiles, Music for Porn also contains the motorik instrumental Velvet Underground Intermission with its reverbed-vocal intermission, the stoner-rock influenced Call Any Time with a barely discernible but epic guitar line in the background, or the track Levitate where the athmospheric backing-guitar epicness reaches its highest point on the album and sends shivers down your spine.

The “lo-fi” in Music for Porn can be understood as more of a filter, or aesthetics than as a way of producing. The album was recorded in a studio, with a full band, and the songwriting here is decent and sometime ventures into the domain of more poppy and accessible rock. And that’s where the “lo-fi as a filter” comes in – the fuzzed-out sound, the noisy tape, distorted guitars and vocals, keep the record from sounding too “normal” or too “poppy”. 

Music for Porn is a sign that the “Hungarian lo-fi” has the potential to spawn mature projects and bands. The record is available for streaming and download on the Zombie Girfriend’s bandcamp, or you might as well grab this link and download it straight away.

<a href=“http://zombiegirlfriend.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-porn” _mce_href=“http://zombiegirlfriend.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-porn”>Music For Porn by Zombie Girlfriend</a>