Non-Westernized Ethnographic Field Recordings?

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Does anybody in dis bitch like (uncapitalized) world music? Like stuff released on the Folkways, Ocara, Lyrichord, Nonesuch Explorer labels, etc.? No pop responses, please.

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 00:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I like some of this sort of thing, but I don't really own much.

What exactly do you mean by a field recording? Does it have to be made outside a studio setting? Does it have to sneak up on musicians in other countries, or from other cultures, and catch them while they are in the act?

I understand you at least mean something relatively true to the tradition from which it came, but I'm not sure how high a standard of purtiy you are requiring.

― Rockist Scientist, Friday, 13 December 2002 01:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I like Ali Farka Toure - don't know if he counts.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 13 December 2002 01:31 (twenty-two years ago)

i only like western bastardizations, please

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 13 December 2002 01:44 (twenty-two years ago)

that's about the only kind of 'world music' i like. there's this indian music comp (i think on folkways, might be wrong) that is nothing but folk music from all around the country, it's great. some killer shehnai.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Friday, 13 December 2002 02:04 (twenty-two years ago)

heyll yeah!

i'm still learning though.
m.

― msp, Friday, 13 December 2002 02:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I like lots of world music, but it's pretty much all pop in it's own country :-(

― phil jones (interstar), Friday, 13 December 2002 02:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Rounder records has been sending me the new editions of the Lomax field recordings, including some great stuff from the Caribbean. I'm just starting to get into this stuff, but it's an amazing introduction to this early folk music.

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Friday, 13 December 2002 02:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i love pygmy music -- i could live off the eeps forever.

― jack cole (jackcole), Friday, 13 December 2002 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I really like that "Ho! Roady Music from Vietnam" comp released on Trikont a while ago. Most of it is field recordings of roadside musicians in Vietnam, though there are a couple "studio" tracks that I heard they just got locals to recommend to them when they were down there recording.
I've never thought of that album as "westernized" at all.
Also in the same vein is Jeff Mangum's field recordings of Bulgarian folk music.

― paul ziemba, Friday, 13 December 2002 05:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Ba-Benzele Pygmies ('tis on Rounder, I think)& Pygmees Bibayak were my faves for quite some time

also, a pal of mine from Russia regularly asks to make him copies of (dis)similar non-pop stuff - Afghanistan, and Iran/Persian Classics, lately - which means I go to my hometown's university library and do just that, and get to listen to some of this 'bit more often than I otherwise would

― t\'\'t (t''t), Friday, 13 December 2002 05:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean a field recording. Not made in a studio. It usually involves not being sneaky, but being around people, seeing how they live, gaining their trust, etc. Some examples of what I'm talking about from my collection:

Amazonia: Cult Music of Northern Brazil (Lyrichord, LLST 7300) LP
Golden Rain: Balinese Gamelan Music/Monkey Chant (Nonesuch Explorer, H-72028) LP
Kiowa: Forty-Nine and Round Dance Songs (Canyon, 6087) LP
Master Drummers of Dagbon (Rounder, 5016) LP
Music from the Morning of the World (Nonesuch Explorer, H-72015) LP
Musik Im Andenhochland/Bolivien (Museum Collection Berlin (West), MC 14) 2LP
Musiques de L'Asie Traditionnelle vol. 4: Tibet (Playa Sound, PS 33504) LP
Nigeria: Music of the Yoruba People (Lyrichord, LLST 7389) LP
Sufi Ceremony/Rifa’ Ceremony (Folkways Records, FR 8942) LP
Tibetan Buddhism; Tantras of Gyuto: Mahakala (Nonesuch Explorer, H-72055) LP
Traditional Music of Vietnam (Lyrichord, LLST 7396) LP
The Sounds of Yoga-Vedanta: A Documentary of Life in an Indian Ashram (Folkways, FR 8970) LP

I also have a kick-ass Music from Afghanistan on Folkways.

JD: I don't hate all westernizations, sometimes it's fascinating, like those Ethiopiques comps. Your mention of them is why I thought of this thread.

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I always like looking through the World section at yourchoiceofcrappyretailoutlets and finding no Orchestre Baobab, no Tau Moe Family, but lots and lots of Enrique and Shakira. Shouldn't that be filed with the pop/top 40 stuff? Or worse (here in Can) that's where you find Quebecois and Aboriginal music. In the World section, not in the local, right here in your backyard section, but in the not-at-all-accepted-as-US (as in USvsTHEM) section.

― Horace Mann, Friday, 13 December 2002 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd love to hear more Canadian Inuit music, personally. A friend of mine has some Inuit throat-singing LP that is totally amazing.

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 15:43 (twenty-two years ago)

The Balinese Monkey Chant was developed for tourists. It's based on previously existing traditions, but they were refined or put together in a new way, for tourists.

I'm just annoyed that you have all these CDs I don't own.

― Rockist Scientist, Friday, 13 December 2002 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I know that, but it doesn't mean it doesn't sound cool. Bali isn't exactly like the Andean highlands in terms of inaccessibility, neither.

And those are LPs, bub. ; )

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The famous (East) Indian soup Mulligatano (most likely incorrect spelling) was created to cater to the British taste, but became very popular among Indians themselves (and me, in Canada). It's an example of culture created to serve colonial interests that became indiginous. So just b/c the Balinese Monkey Chant comes from suspect beginnings dot-dot-dot

― Horace Mann, Friday, 13 December 2002 15:59 (twenty-two years ago)

LPs. I have some of those in my closet.

― Rockist Scientist, Friday, 13 December 2002 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm wondering what non-Westernized means in this context. If it means completely free of any possible Western influence, then I wonder if any music of that sort could really exist, since there has been cultural flux between the West and the East for centuries, indeed for millennia.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 13 December 2002 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I mostly mean non-Western pop, if that clarifies anything. Although, there are some examples of extremely isolated cultures whose musics have no discernable Western influence at all. Some of the stuff I've heard from the Andean highlands, for example.

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

One example that I thought of when I saw this thread, which is also one of my favorite world music recordings, is Sandaya: The Spellbinding Piano of Burma, but it's hard for me to call it non-Westernized - after all, it's a piano for Pete's sake! But the way it's played in Burmese music has everything to do with traditional Burmese music and little to nothing to do with Western musical styles. Since the piano was introduced into Burma a couple of hundred years ago, it has been fully appropriated into their cultural tradition. Also, Burma remains more culturally isolated that most countries, largely due to their unfortunate history of repressive, insular governments.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 13 December 2002 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, Burma remains more culturally isolated that most countries, largely due to their unfortunate history of repressive, insular governments.

Unfortunately, true. I'd love to go to Myanmar, but I don't wanna while the current regieme is in power.

I'm guessing things were more open during the British colonial days, although obv. that wasn't a good governmental system for the Burmese either.

I'm not a doctrinaire kinda guy around these things: I first got into more "world" or ethnographic music through the Sun City Girls (who def. fuck with notions of cultural crossing and whatnot) and those 20th Century composers and improvisors who were interested in gamelan and other world musics (Colin McPhee, John Cage, Richard Teitelbaum, etc.).

Speaking of which, I was walking through the Union Square subway station the other day and there was a Chinese man playing a familiar tune on some sort of dulcimer (I don't know the exact name for it, but it was very similar in construction and timbre to the dulcimer). I realized later that it was a tune that the Sun City Girls play on Torch of the Mystics.

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and everyone's suggestions have been great, I'm interested in checkin' 'em out. Thanks!

― hstencil, Friday, 13 December 2002 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been trying to get into REAL Hawaiian music (not Don Ho or Mavericks-esque hipsters), but have had a very hard time tracking the stuff down. So far all's I got is one track by the Tau Moe Family on last year's Rounder Roots box.
Anybody know more about it?
I also really dig on the end titles music of Spongebob Squarepants, and am wondering if anybody knows who does that? It's not on the OST and while the titles are running the YTV squeezes the credits into a corner to promo Samurai Jack or whatev.

― Horace Mann, Friday, 13 December 2002 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha - that's funny. I've definitely heard some weird stuff on the subway.

Here's an interesting article that I just found about how the Burmese style of piano developed in the years before WWII.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 13 December 2002 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

The Sounds of Yoga-Vedanta: A Documentary of Life in an Indian Ashram (Folkways, FR 8970) LP

how is this? is it strictly music? i've had a copy on hold at my shop for like a year now...

― your null fame (yournullfame), Saturday, 14 December 2002 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)

The JVC World Sounds and King World Music Library are both pretty great. I like the gamelan/jegog type stuff and they do a lot of it, as well as related sounds from the area (such as the Genggong, which appears on King's Music of Lombok, which is mouth harp).

That whole Folkways Indonesian collection is pretty great, too, albeit a bit overwhelming. I've only bought the sampler, Discover Indonesia, because whenever I try to decide which of the 14 (or however many there are these days) I wind up paralyzed.

― doug (doug), Saturday, 14 December 2002 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I was walking through the Union Square subway station the other day and there was a Chinese man playing a familiar tune on some sort of dulcimer

I saw him! It was when I was visiting NYC, somewhere between 4-6 weeks ago, and I remember noticing that people really seemed to dig his playing -- he was getting a lot of attention.

I second the JVC recommendation. Their discs mostly date from the '80s and early '90s, and seem to be completely out of print, but I haven't run into a bad one yet. My favorite so far is Liu Hongjun's Pipes of the Minority Peoples, which has a flute on it ("Hebian Xi Xinu" is the track) that sounds remarkably like a synth clarinet.

― Phil (phil), Saturday, 14 December 2002 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

P.S. Asianclassicalmp3.org has some great goodies. Check out the Amjad Ali Khan performance if you like virtuosic Indian classical music.

― Phil (phil), Saturday, 14 December 2002 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

The Smithsonian do a gd collection of frog sounds.

I also like some of the Smithsonian/Folkways 'Music of Indonesia' series, esp. (of the ones I've heard) the 'Talempong' stuff on Vol. 12: 'Gongs and Vocal Music from Sumatra'.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Saturday, 14 December 2002 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

excellent thread! def some stuff to check out.

the only 'world' stuff i have is studio recordings I'm afraid.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 16 December 2002 06:24 (twenty-two years ago)

five months pass...

I bought a record from the nonesuch explorer series today. so I'm listening to gamelan tight now and it sounds good.

they are a bunch of recent reissues from that explorer series. anyone pick 'em up (I got it 2nd hand and there are a few more at that shop so I'm thinking of picking more up tomorrow)?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 June 2003 21:16 (twenty-two years ago)

ten months pass...

obviously people have been picking up the sublime frequencies releases no?

― brock (brock), Monday, 12 April 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't got any yet, I've been broke. Hopefully I'll get to see 'em play films tonight at Anthology.

― hstencil, Monday, 12 April 2004 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

yea, anyone own the dvds?

― brock (brock), Monday, 12 April 2004 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

not yet but I am tempted. have 4 sublime frequencies so far, and here is the thread on these:

More Sublime Frequencies

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 12 April 2004 23:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a few SF releases and they are all great. I dig the way SF places themselves in the same lineage as Ocora, Folkways, Lyrichord, etc., even though times have obviously changed. In many ways pop music from Bali is their new native music. Bishop traveling to Indonesia and recording snippets of local radio is the modern equivalent of Lomax and company traveling the backwoods of Appalachia or the African steppe. And it is about time somebody challenges the prevailing definitions of world music as created by that liberal fascist, Gabriel and his One World label.

I have been on an Ocora hunt as of late. It was a great French label that made wicked sweet glossy sleeves and fine, fine vinyl. I just snapped up Zaire and Dagbon. The latter is amazing; These old villagers play this odd-looking stringed instrument and when they sing along it sounds like fractured, primitive blues, really. I wish I could give more detail but the liner notes are always in French.

― Justin Farrar (Justin Farrar), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 16:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Ocora is still around.

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 13 April 2004 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

Here's what I think about capitalism: I think it's good coz u earn a lot of money man' what r u guys earning by sitting on ya asses complaining about it?

― Robert Cold (oh) well, Wednesday, 3 May 2006 22:57 (nineteen years ago)

word

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Wednesday, 3 May 2006 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

i think you're gud coz u earn a lot of laughs

― lf (lfam), Thursday, 4 May 2006 02:33 (nineteen years ago)

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