Centrafrique : Trompes Banda Linda
(Buda Musique) Used CD $20.00
Farmers from the savannah region of Central African Republic use readymade tree roots (hollowed out by termites) for horns, similar in sound to a didjeridoo. Each one emits a single note and twenty are grouped together forming four pentatonic scales. For higher notes, antelope horns with lateral mouthpieces are used. Each player has his own tempo so the themes slide and evolve as if propelled by a polyphony of hiccups, recalling at times the cyclical, machine-like tape loops of Steve Reich. For variety the group also plays slit log drums, xylophones, and zithers. The repertoire here includes music for rituals (harvest cycles, weddings, circumcisions, the arrival of foreign visitors). From 2005
Nganasan Chants Chamaniques Et Narratifs De L’artique Sibrien
(Buda Musique) Used CD $20.00
The narrative chants here, performed for a variety of situations, including Shamanistic séances, by autochthonic / indigenous minority populaces living in Siberia, represent some of the last vestiges of their dying culture, proof that they existed and maintained a structured belief system. The chants reverberate with rich images of universal abstract ideas — joy, sadness, prosperity — and recall a primordial culture that hunts wild reindeer and geese and partridges, and fishes in Arctic waters. A few of the tracks are intensely dramatic, as if the chanter was channeling all his / her energy into healing someone.