Andras Wahorn was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1953 and is one of the country's most recognized, irreverent and multi-talented artists. His newest recording, Whole, was released in 1995 by Tone Casualties.
"I never received any formal artistic schooling, but when I was 14, I decided that I would be the greatest artist in the world," he said. Always drawing or painting, he added music to his repertoire after hearing some experimental jazz. He stole a flute from school, "because Jethro Tull was big in Hungary at the time." However, thinking the saxophone was his true calling, he sold the flute and bought a sax. After playing it for just one week, he did some improvisational playing with the musicians at a local jazz club. He was less than a hit. "After hearing my playing, they told me never to come back," he recalls.
Soon after, while still in his mid-twenties, Wahorn put together his first group, called BIZOTTSÅG, or Committee. His early influences were Devo and Frank Zappa and Committee was an intellectual mix of jazz and punk. "At the time," Wahorn explained, "if you did anything strange or different, the communist government would come after you." Despite the danger, he persevered, drawing inspiration from the punk and new wave music coming out of the West in the early 1980s. "The communists didn't really understand this new music," he remembers, "but you could get away with performing it if you put it under the disguise of art.." 
Until their breakup in 1986, Committee established a sizable, necessarily underground following and Wahorn self-produced and released two records of the group's music. The music was released on the state-run record label, making Committee the only pop group to ever do two records for the state label. Following the group's demise, Wahorn went solo and released two CDs on his Bad Quality record label. Wahorn also began to work with the well-known Budapest (B.P.) Service and produced three of their records.
While music remains Wahorn's first love, he admits an affinity for the visual arts. A prolific painter, his style is reminiscent of Matisse and the Chicago School's Robert Gordy, but with a potent sexual, and often comical, adult flair. An anthology of Wahorn's art, "Andras Wahorn: Pictures of Desire and Passion," was published in 1992.
With the dissolution of Hungary's communist government in 1991, Wahorn relocated to the United States, noting, "there was nothing else to rebel against." He continued to make music and also directed films and painted. His music gained exposure in "European Animals," a Wahorn-directed film that won an award at the 1989 Australian World Video Festival and "Luisa," both of which were produced for Hungarian television. 
Wahorn's music has evolved considerably since his early days. "The accessibility of home studios and technological advances influence my work greatly. I am now very much into sampling and experimental music - Test Dept., Psychic T.V. and so on."
While the majority of the material on Whole is new, some of the tracks, including "Dogs, Flyers, Pigs" "Kinkorama (My Baby Left Me)" and "Cryptic," appear in Wahorn's earlier films. Whole aptly captures Wahorn's irreverent musical influences and cinematic breadth, punctuated by a tapestry of samples and mutated melodic fragments. "I was always breaking the rules," he admits. "But that's only because I never knew them to begin with."
If you want to see the master recent works, go www.wahorn.com
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