The Gayan Uttejak Society was founded by Lâszlô Hortobâgyi of Hungary in 1981. The society collectss and preserves traditional world music in the belief that they are in danger of extinction by “technologically ‘homogeneous’ societies”. The Gayan Uttejek Orchestra placed most of their albums on their web site and they are free to download in 128kbps MP3. While their music appears predominantly Indian influenced, the ensemble borrows and samples from almost every culture. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Lâszlô Hortobâgy is incredibly adept at mixing traditional music and modern electronics. He also appears to be quite talented on keyoards and synthesizers. This is adventurous new age music.

Out of many, I have chosen ten fairly representative albums. Tranreplica Meccano is their first recording and is arguably their most accessible. The Orchestra likes to present “imaginary journeys” of which Traditional Music of the Amygdala and Fomal-Hoot al-Ganoub are two. The Arcadian Collection appears to have more choral and chant-like compositions than the others. The later works like Mixologies and Fata-Organa are quite varied. The Brief history of GUO may be a good place to start as it appears to be a overview of their work. The other albums all have a similar intoxicating mixture of ancient and modern that makes GUO so interesting. This is music that should be experienced rather than described.

If you enjoy them, support the artists by buying the higher sound quality CDs.

Update: Unfortunately, the full albums are no longer available. The web site now has brief samples only. I kept the links intact so you can appreciate the samples.

Download
Transreplica Meccano
Traditional Music of The Amygdala
The Arcadian Collection
Ritual Music of the Fornal-Hoot al-Ganoub
Terra Dei
Mêmesis
Fata-Organa
The Brief History of GUO
el-Horto Ang
Mixology