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Sfinx | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Bucharest,Romania |
| Genres | Beat (early)Progressive rock (70s)New wave (later) |
| Years active | 1962–1994 |
| Labels | Electrecord |
Sfinx was one of the most appreciatedRomanian rockacts in the 1970s, along withPhoenix.
The band was formed in 1963, inBucharest. It was singer and guitarist Octav Zemlicka who had the idea to start the band. ("Sfinx" isRomanian forsphinx) The initial line up included bassist Corneliu Ionescu, nicknamed "Bibi", who would be the only member to stay with the band until they disbanded. In 1966, Sfinx were aired for the first time on radio, withÎmi place muzica ("I love music") and theireponymous song,Sfinx. 1968 brought drummer Marian Toroimac into the band, and together with him, the young and shyDan Andrei Aldea (both had been members of a band called Memphis). The latter left the band in 1969 for several months and returned, and he would assume control of the band and make it one of the finest rock acts inRomania.
The band played as atrio (Aldea, Ionescu, Toroimac) for several years. They used to playcovers of songs byThe Beatles,Jimi Hendrix,Ten Years After,The Doors,The Kinks etc. As of 1972, they recorded their firstsingle disc,Şir de cocori/Languir me fais (First title translated: "Flock of Cranes". The latter was an arrangement of alied byGeorge Enescu).
1973 found Sfinx without a drummer, after Toroimac left. Aldea and "Bibi" Ionescu, together with flautist Doru Donciu, set out on a number of musical experiments, of which very few wererecorded. Towards the end of 1973, two drummers were proposed to join the band, of which the former was replaced by the skillfulMihai (Mişu) Cernea (the ex-drummer of pop bandMondial, who was also a gifted composer, with whom some of the best records of Romanian rock were taped around 1970).Hornist Petre Iordache, a former member of the band, briefly joined when the band's firstEP was recorded in 1974,Coborîse primăvara/Ziua ta/Fiii soarelui/Peste vîrfuri ("Spring descended/Birthday/Sons of sun/Over crests").
In 1974 guitarist and composer Dan Bădulescu joins Sfinx, and from that point on (until the 1980s), the band had only a few changes of personnel. Their firstLP,Lume albă ("White world") was released in 1975 and enjoyed a great success with the audience andcritics. At this point, the rival band Phoenix had released their own successful LP,Cantofabule, which however was not their first. Now that Sfinx had their own LP, the tension between the two bands' fans grew higher, so the Sfinx LPcover arthumorously features some of the very passionate articles found in newspapers of the time.
When Bădulescu joined, the band started collaborating with theRomanian Agency for Artistic Promotion, so the first coordinates were established, regarding future concert tours throughout the country and abroad. For instance, the band would be allowed to concert periodically inBelgium for a number of years.
Only a few months afterLume albă, another project was mostly finalized: the ambitiousconcept albumZalmoxe, featuring lyrics by Romanian poet Alexandru Basarab. Bădulescu had left the band and Aldea invited instead a highschool friend,[1] talented keyboard playerNicolae (Nicu) Enache. The album's release was however delayed for three years forpolitical censorship reasons, so it came out only in 1978 on a single LP instead of adouble album, as the band initially had planned. Meanwhile,Jon Anderson's backing band releasedOlias of Sunhillow in 1976 and when Aldea listened to it, he thought of trying to make a "timid" response out of their own album.[2] After the release of the album, a major concert tour was held throughout the country, where the band enjoyed huge success with the audience.
In 1980, the band found themselves without Enache, so Idu Barbu, the first keyboard player with the band (also, one of thefounding members) was invited and joined in for recording a new single disc,Focuri vii/'49-'50 ("Live Flames/'49-'50"). The disc was still a great success with the audience, yet had only moderate success with the critics.
An EP was released the same year –Din nou acasă/Zmeul/Fetele albine ("Home again/The Kite/Little bee girls"). Partly resembling theLume albă style, although more mature, it was thought of as a much better record than the single previously released the same year. When theZalmoxe album was re-released on CD in 1993, it also included the EPs three songs asbonus tracks. Idu Barbu played the keyboards only onFetele albine, a piece in7/8 timing, combiningethnic influences with synthesizer effects. The other two songs feature Aldea himself on keyboards.[1]
The band got again a contract to play in a nightclub in Belgium in 1981 andDan Andrei Aldea decided to defect, and consequently requestedpolitical asylum. He never returned to Romania, even after therevolution in 1989, claiming disappointment with some of the political events in the early 1990s. He built his own recording studio in Munich, Germany and started working there as aproducer, arranger andsession musician.
Meanwhile, in 1982, a new singer and guitarist was brought into the band,Sorin Chifiriuc, who had just quit his own musical act, called Domino. Together with three keyboard players (of which, Sandu Grosu had been with them since 1974 as the band'ssound engineer), Sfinx released their last album, which was untitled (except for the band's name, which was featured on the cover). This led some to take it as an eponymous album, while others called it for its blue cover,Albumul albastru ("The Blue Album", 1984). The style was very different from the previous records and ventured into somenew wave, including an (uncredited) cover of Stranglers'Golden Brown asÎntr-un Cer Violet. As keyboardist Doru Apreotesei admitted in an interview, the producer forced the band to release the album right after the compositions were done, so they didn't have much time for rehearsals. The band later discovered that live renditions sounded much better than the studio version, as the members had not been accustomed to the songs well enough half a year before.[3]
The band's activity declined in the late 1980s, when new members (which now changed very often) started playing commercial-oriented music, as a consequence of the invitations the band received fromdiscothèques abroad. Sfinx split into two different acts after 1989: "Bibi" Ionescu kept the original act's name, while Mişu Cernea formedSfinx Experience. While Sfinx never performed again, the latter is still working today with a new line up (of which, Crina Mardare and Zoia Alecu previously played and sang in the 1985 Sfinx), except for the drummer, Mişu Cernea.
Around 1975, Sfinx had a short collaboration with Romanian singerDida Drăgan. She had not yet had her disc debut, so her then-husband,Petre Magdin, offered her two compositions of his own. At that time, the Sfinx lineup was still that ofLume albă. Aldea wrote new arrangements for the two songs by Petre Magdin. Eventually, in 1975, a single disc calledGlas de păduri|Trepte de lumină was released with vocals by Drăgan and Sfinx as thebacking band.
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Of the many songs by Sfinx considered lost (i.e., played mostly in concerts, and never recorded properly in a studio or, in some cases, never recorded at all), some survived on some unofficial recordings. However, those were not included on official discs or CDs. A quasi-chronologically ordered list of the most notable recordings would include:
