Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Music I Liked And Didn't - 10/24/07 - 10/31/07



Adds -

V/A: Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics (Dust To Digital) - The sonic ethnographers at the fine Dust To Digital imprint return with this collection of recordings of folk music from around the globe. It contains 24 tracks, all transferred and mastered from 78 rpm discs of recordings originally issued between 1918 and 1955. Among my personal favorites were the double reed mayhem of India’s Thiruvazhimilalai Subramanian Brothers and Needamangalam Meenakshisundaram Pillai (yeah, easy for you to say - maybe!) “Manasa Sri Ramachandra”, Irishman Patrick J. Touhey’s amazing solo performance on the Uillean pipes "Drowsy Maggie", the evocative, haunting "Smyrneiko Minore" from Greek folk singer Marika Papagika (pictured above), the hypnotic “Nakhone Prayer” by Laotian Buddhist monk Sathoukhru Lukkhamkeow, and the incredible mix of tortured vocal stylings and percussion of "Songs in Grief" by Japan’s Sinkou Son and Kouran Kin. There’s even a Burmese Pwe (I assume that all but the most hard core musicologists among us just received our primer on this form of ceremonial folk music via Sublime Frequencies recent collection “Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar, Vol. 3”), the disc’s final track, "Yein Pwe". Stylistically diverse and consistently interesting, “Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics” is a solid collection of archival recordings of international folk music and a welcome addition to any music collection.


Did Not Add -

None


Running Count For The Year

Adds 105/85%

Did Not Add 18/15%

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