Subtones

The Subtones' genre-crossing, song-centric compositions have made them a favourite concert band on the domestic jazz-pop scene in just a few years. In order to connect even more directly with the Hungarian audience, their album 'Lángolj', nominated for this year's Fonogram Award, features only Hungarian-language songs, with lyrics written by Mátyás Szepesi and Péter Závada, in addition to the band members.

Subtones, founded in 2019 by trumpeter Gábor Subicz, is one of Hungary's most exciting supergroups. The arrival of vocalists Vera Jónás and Flóra Kiss have pushed the band towards more vocal forms, to the point where they finished second in the final of the 2022 A Dal programme. "Right from the beginning, when this line-up was born, it became clear to me that I wasn't driven by a desire to communicate. I want to make music with Subtones that I enjoy listening to. People often ask whether jazz is the music of the Subtones. For me, jazz is a mindset: you have to leave as many possibilities open as possible, you have to leave no room for playing music out of habit. I love it when I don't know what other people are going to play, and those are my favourite moments when we kick the chair out from under us. There are so many different elements to our music, we play on quite a variety of stages, from TV studios to jazz clubs to thumping festivals. I feel that our music is relevant everywhere. With Hungarian lyrics we want to get closer to the audience. I feel that in a local context, English lyrics are a bit of a hiding, a mask. In our mother tongue the effect is much more instinctive, the song flies directly into the listener's ears", says Gábor Subicz, the band leader and mastermind behind the Subtones.