-  Last copies, almost sold out at source - Since its humble beginnings back in 2013, the UK-based imprint Purge, alongside its sub-imprint purge.xxx, has steadily mined murky territories of experimental sound practice, offering particular focus to the junctures of music, sound art, and film. Their latest, the first ever full-length release of recordings by the Hungarian project Trabant, who have been described as "cult band's cult band" and often used the context of underground film during the 1980s as a vehicle for their work under the oppressive conditions of authoritarian communism. Drawing from a wealth of never-before-released recordings, this astounding collection opens a remarkable door to the fertile context of countercultural creativity transpiring behind the Iron Curtain during that period. A glorious artifact at the junctures of post-punk, synth pop, art rock, experimentalism, countercultural activity, and underground cinema, this beautiful edition from Purge is issued on vinyl in a very limited edition of 200 copies, newly transferred and gently restored from the original tapes and housed in a stunning craft sleeve, accompanied by extensive photographic documentation of the band by János Vető, and new English translations of the song lyrics by the British poet and translator George Szirtes - renowned for his work with László Krasznahorkai. Once again, Purge has delivered an absolute revelation, drawn from a sinfully neglected moment in creative history, that overflows with intoxicating sounds.

Active between 1980 and 1987, Trabant was one of the remarkable Hungarian flowerings of countercultural creativity that occurred during that period from behind the iron curtain. Effectively a loose collective of young songwriters and amateur musicians who worked as a band, with a continuously evolving lineup of contributors, including, but far from limited to, Mihály Víg, János Vető, György Kozma, Károly Hunyady, Gábor Lukin, János Xantus and József Dénes "Dönci", the visual artist and actress Marietta Méhes, and numerous others. Belonging to Hungary's anti-authoritarian underground music scene, which was explicitly outlawed, the group's only release to date is a promotional 7" for a film in which the core members starred. Given the circumstances within which they worked, Trabant rarely performed publicly and never worked in studios, but were remarkably prolific, writing songs and producing a body of hundreds of individual DIY recordings, conceived for future release, and occasional appearances in films. It is this sprawling body of largely (if not exclusively) never-before-released archival recordings from which Purge's first-ever collection dedicated to the band has been drawn.

While their lyrical content - described as "enigmatic, intertextual, grotesque and absurd" - will only be accessible to those who speak Hungarian, the radical, bristling spirit with which Trabant's music was made crosses the decades and is easily discerned across the nine tracks that comprise Purge's collection. Resting at the junctures of post-punk, synth pop, art rock, and experimentalism, the LP unfurls as a joyous journey into the realms of slightly off-kilter left-field pop, threading territories of expression familiar to fans of roughly contemporaneous bands Young Marble Giants, The Pastels, The Vaselines and The Raincoats - drum machines, synths, jangling guitars, and achingly direct vocals - with more orchestral and nostalgia-laden passages, leading any fan of 80s post-punk and indie pop to feel like they've discovered a lost, golden holy grail.

Absolutely intoxicating on musical terms - one of those records that you can't get enough of once the needle drops - Purge's first-ever collection dedicated to Trabant doubles as a hugely significant historical artifact, unlocking a remarkable history of countercultural creativity that transpired during the 1980s in Hungary, spanning music and film. Issued on vinyl in a very limited edition of 200 copies, newly transferred and gently restored from the original tapes and housed in a stunning craft sleeve, accompanied by extensive photographic documentation of the band by János Vető, and new English translations of the song lyrics by George Szirtes, we're absolutely loving every minute of this one and just can't get enough.