Guinea music reviews

Listen and you will be hooked

Although Sittelle produces CDs that serve as guides (to help the listener learn to recognize animal sounds, such as the excellent "All the Bird Songs of Britain and Europe"), most of their CDs are "environmental soundscapes" designed for pleasure listening and acquainting the listener with the diversity, drama, and beauty of nature's sounds. This particular disc is one of those. It presents a series of brief vignettes of different national parks and game reserves in Africa, and is a very solid production. Elephants, hippos, and countless species of birds all appear on this disc. Especially exciting is the final segment, recorded at Lake Nakuru in Kenya, where the shrill yelps of fish eagles (one of the most distinctive African bird calls) combine with the haunting flutelike songs of Tropical Boubou shrikes. Most of Sittelle's discs are not meant for relaxation (many of the sounds are too loud and dramatic for that) but for vicarious journeys to exotic places, they really can't be beat. This one is a worthy addition to their catalogue; for other exciting African sound experiences, try Anthony Walker's "African Sounds at Dusk" or Eloisa Matheu's "Wild Africa."

Disc 1 is made up of the new style of music that is currently gaining strength in Papua New Guinea... acoustic guitar bands (recorded in the 1990's). The guitar-band music has a mixture of influences, ranging from some of the traditional vocal elements of the region, the chorus unison of Christian missionary musics, and also some of the rhythmic blockiness of Western popular musics. This isn't the radio-ready electronic beats of a group like Deep Forest though. The guitar music ends up sounding like a sort of American folk music, with the lyrical and vocal elements of Papua New Guinea. One of the lead vocalists, Rebeka, has a really great voice.

Disc 2 is more traditional. It is all sounds and work-songs, recorded during everyday life. These recordings are all from the 1970s and '80s. There are songs sung by men as they move logs out of the forest, songs by women as they scrape sago (a food), etc... The songs are mainly small-group vocals, with the accompanying percussion being work-related. Like the sound of whatever tool it is that they use when they pound the sago. There are also songs that mimic the sounds of jungle creatures familiar to the people. Also thoroughout this set you will hear the sounds of jungle creatures and background chatter. If it happened while the person was singing, you hear it.

Disc 3 is the oldest, most primitive music on here. It is largely music that is extinct now, as it was music that accompanied ceremonies and rituals which are gone now. To Western ears, much of the music on disks 2 and 3 may sound "sloppy". These 2 disks contain what may be the singlemost primitive musical form(s) in my collection, and being that I have a fair amount of field-recordings of Indigenous musics from all over the world, that is saying something. Much of this music does not adhere to what we think of as "highly technically developed" idea's of meter, vocal unison, etc... Depending on what you want or expect from this set, this could be a good or bad thing. If you're willing to mentally let yourself travel way back in time to humans in their natural, primitive state, this music is rather fascinating. What really strikes me about some of the music on disks 2 and 3 (especially disk 3 from about track 5 onward) is that there must be a large amount of echo where these people live. With their voices and rattles they do uncanny musical interpretations of echoes and the Doppler Effect.

I definitly want you to think about this set thoroughly. It is most certainly not for everyone, but will indeed speak deeply to some of you. More than being like "an album", it is an aural documentray of Papua New Guinea and the changes it has undergone. No matter how it is received by anyone's personal tastes, it is a great document of a group of peoples and their disappearing traditional ways of life, song, and thought. It also comes with a thorough 72-page booklet.

Their significance has always been lumped in with other early luminaries that defined 'Industrial Music', such as Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, although their small sonic output only amounts to a fraction of the latter two.

This is a nice collection showcasing different aspects of their music, from shuffling tribal drums to programmed hiphop rhythms, cut-ups as well as uncompromising experimentation as in "Healing/Fanfare" (from 'The Culling Is Coming'), ending intriguingly with the post-punk, new wavey 'Ethics' - a style which was seldom heard from 23 Skidoo.

Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, one of their best singles 'Language' did not make it to the final tracklist, and the three tracks from the 'Tearing Up The Plans' EP were clearly transferred from vinyl. It's a bit disappointing, but I do recognise the difficulty of putting together a compilation like this - sourcing old tapes that had been collecting dust in the attic for 20 years or something - and thus am still thankful for its final appearance. Minor quibbles apart, this is still a very worthwhile reissue.

Overall, this is my very favorite Brozman album to-date. Djeli and Bob are just magical together. If you're not familiar with the kora, it has always struck me as an ancient precursor to both the European piano and harp. Djeli is such a master. His playing on Ocean Blues is gorgeous and not to take anything away from Bob, but Djeli is the star of this cd. If I were forced to choose between Foday Musa Suso and Djeli as the only kora player I could ever listen to again, I'd pick Djeli.

There are just two tracks here that feature Bob's vocals so if you don't like his vocals don't worry, they don't dominate the cd. I can see why his singing may not appeal to some people but I think he sings great here (in a Vaudevilleian Comedy sort of way!). Djeli is just a killer vocalist all the way around.

The Takashi Hirayasu & Brozman cd's have had more commercial success than has this cd but to my ears this is the overall best album. My only hope is that Djeli and Bob follow this cd up with others (and tours), the way Takashi and Bob have done.

There really isn't anything like the music on this cd anywhere else out there. The "blues" in the title shouldn't scare anyone off if blues isn't their thing. It's not as if this music just sounds like some sort of tropical Charley Patton. There is alot of musical ground covered here, and it's thoroughly interesting from the start. I think most anyone with a love for (or even a new curiosity about) West African music will find alot to love about this cd.

It isn't recorded quite as richly as, say, Jin Jin or Tone Poems III, but the music shines through anyway. Seriously, this is one of the greatest acoustic albums of the last decade.