János Bródy (guitars), Levente Szörényi (guitars, vocals), and Szabolcs Szörényi (bass), all former members of psychedelic rock band Illés, decided to form a new group at the beginning of 1974.
Fonográf debuted that same year, and despite being a sextet, their line-up would have stayed the same throughout their ten years history. The three other members were Mihály Móricz (guitars), Oszkár Németh (drums, percussion), and László Tolcsvay (keyboards, guitars, vocals).
They released seven studio albums (eight if we count the soundtrack of "István, a király", about which I will write in the near future), with "Útközben" and "Jelenkor" being by far my favourites.
It's hard to decide which one is better, since they are both terrific records. It probably depends on which kind of music you prefer, considering they are radically different from each other.
"Útközben", their fifth album, is a soft rock masterpiece influenced by country music, West Coast harmonies, and funky rhythms. It also makes a heavy use of synthesizers, which is quite unusual for this kind of stuff.
"Jelenkor", their last album, is way darker. You can place somewhere between AOR and neo-prog, with sci-fi atmospheres influenced by both space rock and new wave.
