Edgy Ethno-Funk, invigorating Csángó-Boogie and in-your-face rock'n'roll made Kerekes Band one of the biggest names in Hungarian world music. Their concerts throb with the intensity of a packed AC/DC gig infused with hungarian folk music and occurences of magical healings and psychedelic visions have also been reported.
His set of flutes loaded to the brim with a suitcase full of effects, Zsombor Fehér puts the crown on the experience as he plays like a csángó gone berserk in a Bronx funkparty who grew up on Jimi Hendrix' fiercest beats on the mountaintops of Gyimes. The true saviour of the Ethno Funk Brotherhood, Csaba Námor's mastery of the koboz promptly delivers a swift roundhouse kick to the face with every riff while viola virtuoso Ákos Csarnó adds the energy and soul of an otherworldly happiness which moves the bodies of the audience through time and space.The backbone of the group is the two hardest working men in folk-business, the Department of Cadence: Csaba Kónya with the bass guitar and Viktor Fehér behind the drums providing the reliable and never failing beat for this energetic and often enigmatic mixture of musical styles, eras and personalities.

From an ensemble playing authentic folk music from Gyimes and Moldva, through long and persistent learning and countless jam sessions for sheer love of the music, Kerekes Band has been ’polished’ by now to become a band that mingles tunes of Hungarian folk music with a large variety of popular musical genres. We could call their innovation ground-breaking: they couple authentic Hungarian folk music with funk, jazz, rock, psychedelic and elektronic musical genres to form an utterly unusual style, something that they like to call ’Ethno Funk’. The smashing power and naturalness of their music stems exactly from the fact that they do not choose the commonplace ’evergreen’ Hungarian folk songs as the basis for their music in order to create something ’very Hungarian’. On the contrary, the uniqueness of their sound is in its compactness: genres otherwise not even on greeting terms will weave into each other inseparably only to emerge in the form of quality world music.

The founding members of the band, the flute player Zsombor Fehér, and his brother, the drummer Viktor Fehér laid down the musical foundations of the ensemble (formed in 1995) on their folk song collecting trips to Transylvania and the Palóc-area, and under the tuition of their masters from Gyimes, János Tímár and Viktor Tímár. As a result of all this progress, they released their first record titled Hungarian Folk Music from Gyimes and Moldva (Periferic Records, 2001) and their second album titled Fütyül a masina…[the engine is whistling…] (Periferic Records, 2003), the latter of which they made together with their masters. In their hometown, Eger (Hungary) during the countless dance-houses (i.e. táncház) they have held regularly for more than a decade, they have proven beyond doubt that their music is perfectly suitable for dance, and that popular musical genres hand in hand with Hungarian folk music can neatly function as self-contained, high-quality world music. From the ’ensemble’ (their original name) – officially marking the definite shift from only-traditional to openness to other genres – they became a ’Band’ in 2003, and the members no longer said ’no’ to their desire to take steps diverting from the well-walked path of folk music, in search of new musical ways. So, even in practice, green light was given to Zsombor’s Jimi Hendrix fanatism, or to a good bunch of musical influences from the legendary James Brown through Bob Marley and Jamiroquai to Dreadzone. To the viola player Ákos Csarnó and the koboz (lute) player Csaba Námor (playing with the ease of a guitarist), joined the bass guitarist Csaba Kónya, with whom the personnel was now complete for a true world music band. Authentic acoustic instruments and electronics could now join forces to contribute to the crystallised and unmistakable sound that one can experience at a Kerekes Band concert. The international and countrywide success did not keep them waiting for too long; one of the most acknowledged world music magazines, the British Songlines voted their album titled Pimasz to be one of the year’s best world music albums (’Top of the World’) in October, 2006. One year later the readers of Songlines voted Pimasz to be ’Album of the Year’, along with records by the Gotan Project, Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté. The disc reached golden status in Hungary in 2007. In 2008 the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture selected Kerekes Band to be the Hungarian Ambassador for the "European Year of The Intercultural Dialogue" program of the European Union.
In November, 2008 Kerekes Band released their second album titled "Fel a Kalappal!" which although is new and improved, follows the track which "Pimasz" has set making this new album the proper sequel of the previous release.
Their new album called What The Folk?! are coming out 15 April, 2011.
Kerekes Band drips some fresh nectar to the often sentimental, sit-down attitude of the Hungarian world music era, a kind of nectar that turns quality music to be a vehicle for get-down (i.e. dance) entertainment.

© Hungarian version by Éva Kelemen
© English translation by Péter Antonyi

Concerts:

- Suklegos Modern Folk Festival, Lithuania (2004)
- Pori Folk Festival, Finland (2005)
- Rootin' Aboot fesztivál – Aberdeen - Scotland (2007)
- Pulse (Festival of Central and Eastern European Music) - London (2007)
- Ost Club, Wien, Ausztira (2007, 2010)
- World EXPO, Zaragoza, Spain (2008)
- Interceltico Festival, Sendim, Portugal (2008)
- Ocho Rios Jazz Festival, Jamaica (2008)
- 29th International Jazz Festival, Saalfelden, Austria (2008)
- Dun Laoghaire - Festival of World Cultures, Dublin, Ireland (2010)
- Folkwark Festival, Poland (2010)
- Klaipeda Jazz Festival, Lithuania (2011)
- In Hungary: Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (2001), Palace of Arts (Budapest) (2007), Sziget Festival (2007-2009), A38 Ship (2006-2011)

Members:

Fehér Zsombor – flute, vocal
Námor Csaba – koboz
Csarnó Ákos – viola
Kónya Csaba – bass
Fehér Viktor - drums

Albums:

- Kerekes Band – Pimasz (2006)
Top of The World Album – Songlines magazin (UK)
Gold album in Hungary

- Kerekes Band – Fel a kalappal (2008)
Gold album in Hungary

- Kerekes Band - What The Folk?! (2011)
 

www.kerekesband.hu/main.php