On the album "Hungarian Pictures" (2019) music producer Leslie Mandoki realized the original ideas of the two ex-Soulmates Jon Lord (Deep Purple) and Greg Lake (ELP) to create an ambitious fusion of Prog and Jazz after the classical example of the Hungarian Béla Bartók (instead of the Russian Modest Mussorgski - we remember ELP's "Pictures At An Exhibition" from 1971). To this end, he has now made "Utopia For Realists", a so-called "visual album" that fuses the Soulmates' concert film for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with animated paintings as well as landscape shots to create a new kind of experience. Together with animator Gábor Csupó, Mandoki once fled through the Iron Curtain from Hungary to Germany in 1975
eclipsed: How was the feedback from the prog scene on "Hungarian Pictures"?
Leslie Mandoki is touring Germany with his Soulmates this autumn. These will include Supertramps John Helliwell, ex-Earth band singer Chris Thompson, ex-Toto singer Bobby Kimball, trumpeterass Till Brönner and many other big names. They will then present the new Soulmates double album that producer Leslie Mandoki is currently mixing. Until then fans can tune in to the just released double Blu-ray "Wings Of Freedom".
