With their outside-of-genres, song-centric compositions, Subtones has become a favourite concert band on the Hungarian jazz-pop scene in just a few years. In order to connect even more directly with the Hungarian audience, their award-winning album Lángolj features only Hungarian-language songs with lyrics written by Mátyás Szepesi and Péter Závada.

Subtones, founded in 2019 by trumpeter Gábor Subicz, is one of Hungary's most exciting supergroups. The arrival of vocalists Vera Jónás and Flóra Kiss has pushed the band towards vocal forms. "Right from the beginning, when this line-up was born, it became clear to me that I wasn't driven by a desire to communicate. With Subtones, I want to make music that I enjoy listening to. People often ask whether Subtones plays jazz or something else. For me, jazz is a mindset: you have to leave as many possibilities open as possible, while excluding playing music just out of habit. I love it when I don't know what other people are going to play, and those are my favourite moments when we kick the chair out from under us. There are so many different elements to our music, we play on quite a variety of stages, from TV studios to jazz clubs to festivals, and I feel that our music is relevant everywhere. With Hungarian lyrics we want to get closer to the audience. I feel that in a local context, English lyrics are a bit of a hiding, a mask. In our own mother tongue, the effect is much more instinctive, the song flies directly into the listener's ears", says Gábor Subicz, band leader and mastermind behind Subtones.