Funeral Gongs Ceremonies in Ratanakiri, Cambodia

Nomadic sound herder Laurent Jeanneau aka Kink Gong immerses us in the funerary rites of ethnic minority groups in the mountains of Cambodia, known to last for days and little heard beyond their remote locale. Mesmerising rhytharmelodic patterns, chants, laments and vibes recorded 20 years ago, but feasibly from any time over millennia - does strange things with one’s swede.

“Those recordings of Gong Orchestras were made during Funeral Ceremonies in two Krung villages and one Jaraï village in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia by Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong) in 2003 and 2004, at a times when jungle had not been replaced by rubber plantations. Focusing on funeral ceremonies, those hypnotic pieces are intense and haunting harmonic sonic experiments.

"Adventure brought me to south-east Asia, not academic research. I was based on and off in Banlung, capital of Ratanakiri province between 2003 and 2006. Finding gongs orchestras became my obsession, I've witnessed different contexts in which gongs were being performed, but the most brainwashing ceremonies were the funerals, because they would never end, I remember leaving the 3 days funeral ceremony of a prominent Jaraï dead man in Tang ji village at the border with Vietnam and still hearing the gongs the entire next day going back home through the jungle". Laurent Jeanneau (Kink Gong)

"Many of the ethnic minority groups, the Jarai, Kac_, Tampuan, Kavet, Kreung, Brao, Bunong, Mnong, Edé, and others, are hill-rice farmers who live in the uplands of the Annamite mountain chain. Collectively these groups have been known by many names, including a number of disparaging terms in local dialects, such as moï, kha, phnong, and others. The term Montagnard was applied to them by the French during the colonial period, and was used by the US military and in popular discourse in English during the United States-Vietnam War. In scholarly and popular literature during the mid-twentieth century these upland farmers were also called hill tribes. I have opted for the word highlanders as a relatively neutral term that avoids the semantic burdens associated with these other namings." Jonathan Padwe, the book Disturbed Forests Fragmented Memories.” - Jonathan Padwe

Laurent Jeanneau, a French musician living between China and Berlin.

Kink Gong - Reconstructing Ethnic Minorities Music

Written by: Dragoș Rusu, March 6, 2018
https://theatticmag.com/

Introduction

In the immense world of music, Laurent Jeanneau is without a doubt a unique character. This is due, partly, to his multidisciplinary DIY approach towards music, and also to his adventurous spirit that has been keeping him - and the Kink Gong project - active for several decades so far.

His large collection of ethnic minority music is made of things that are probably completely foreign to most of us. He spent a considerable amount of time recording it, mostly in South East Asia, and releasing the results on his own CDr label, Kink Gong Recordings, as well as occasionally contributing to Sublime Frequencies compilations.

He also composes electronic music that manipulates, assembles and reconstructs those recordings, in order to create new soundscapes, which often seem ahead of their time. The results can be found in back catalogues from imprints such as Akuphone, ArteTetra, Discrepant or Atavistic.

We recently visited Mr Jeanneau in his cozy apartment in Berlin, for good coffee, and some rather controversial conversation topics.

“I maintained a relative freedom of thinking, because I was not transformed by the media, but by my own experience, and experience is not a moral standard.”

A French Man in Berlin

What are you working on these days?

I am releasing a new double LP this month [March 2018] on Discrepant of what I used to do between 2000 and 2002. I arrived in Shanghai, and I was just destroying CDs. I had a CD player that I would use and make it skip, by violently handling it and record all these improvised sounds of skipping pop Chinese songs. This is back in the past, before doing properly ethnic minorities stuff.

I’ve been working a lot with the santur [Persian instrument]. I composed lots of music with it. I’m still working on this idea of incorporating instruments on live shows. I realized that it makes much more sense to have someone using an instrument, but so far I’ve been using instruments only in privacy, just for myself, to record, because I’m not good enough. Whatever instrument I use, I tend to change the pitch and the tempo very much. This is something I do only on the computer, I’ve never done it live. I did some tracks with the santur where I could play only the santur, purely acoustic and then bring some electronics on top of it.

How did you settle in Berlin, as a French citizen?

It’s not very warm here, not only the climate, but also the social climate. I came here basically for financial reasons, and that’s the case for so many people. You meet young Israeli people here, they are not coming back to the land of the ancestors, they just want to live in Europe, and Berlin is one of the cheapest towns in Europe. I’m always critical towards the hype, the hipsters, whatever fashionable ephemeral movements. I’m always distant, I’m not really part of anything, maybe I’m too old to be part of that. I don’t go out that much, just want to see a few things that really interest me.

When I came here, I didn’t come from France, but from China, and globally the world that I’ve been in contact with was warmer, tropical. It was maybe more ignorant too, people have more knowledge or fake knowledge here, but they are also much more reserved.

Multiculturalism

When did you arrive in China for the first time?

I was in China as a tourist in 1992. As a tourist, I went through that phase myself, I know what it is to be a tourist. That means you misunderstand everything. It took me years living in those places to realize all the things I understood wrongly for the first time I came.

I just read an article on Cambodia, all the villages that I’ve known along the Sesan River, all those gong orchestras that I was recording, those entire villages are under water now. Every time I get news from China, where we used to live when my son was born, or the places where I recorded all these great gong orchestras in North East Cambodia, are only stories of destruction. It doesn’t exist anymore, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to go back there, I would not go back to this time. If I would go back there I will not find the same things, I would just be disappointed, it would be terrible. If I’d ever travel, I should travel to new destinations, not carrying all my heavy bag of stories to one country. I’ve known China from 1992 to 2014, so there are 22 years of development. It is a period in history, it’s finished.

What do you have in mind as new destinations?

One of the reasons to move here was that I wanted to be back in Europe, involving the education of my son, who’s going to a French-German school here, in this neighborhood. I have to solve the problem of his education, you know?

If we think about this concept of multiculturalism, it only makes sense for people like my son. He truly understands the two cultures, the two societies. He’s multicultural because he has one foot in China and one in Europe. Me, I can stay as long as I want in Asia, I will never become one of them. I don’t believe in that. The multiculturalism would be just a forced process, but for him is natural, he has these two parts in him. For me, multiculturalism means those people who have truly experienced at least two, or three, or four cultures, and who are part of those two, three or four cultures. Those are the multicultural people. But they are a minority, it cannot be everyone. At the moment where the world is, people want to have just one language and one culture. But it’s ok, we live in a time in history where multicultural people are accepted and not called bastards.

Since you’re speaking about multiculturalism, what are your thoughts on cultural appropriation?

Yes, it is a super tricky issue. I’ve been addressed this question more and more actually, and the question is directed to me. Am I in that situation of stealing their culture for my own purpose?

I had a recent show, in January, it was a lecture about Tibetan shamanism. And this issue came, and at some point a guy in the audience said “Can I say that you monetize their culture?” And I’m like, “If you want. But if an anthropology professor would be here, at this table, earning 5000 dollars from an American University, basing all his knowledge on their culture, would you ask him this question?”.

I have no taboo with the idea that I’m monetizing their culture, but in my case is so small. But would you ask an anthropology professor the same question? Would you ask whatever photographer would publish pictures of tribal people, how much money they give back to the community, since their book have been super famous all over the world? I have no problem, I pay the musicians the way I can. I always used to say that with recording your voices (like you record me right now), you’re not stealing anything from me. When you leave my home, I will still have my voice and I will still be able to talk. Now, when you buy certain objects of rituals, African statues or something like that, you take something away that might not be replaced. This is much more damageable to the culture, the object that has been taken out of their culture. I’m not taking an object, but a recording. And I’m giving away this recording. And then if a person says “Well, I can still sing, I don’t need the recording”, I’m like “I know, I’m really happy you can still sing, but your daughter or granddaughter, or the people in your family would like to hear you, and you’re not going to be there all the time (I don’t want to say that you’re going to die next year, but at some point).” And then he’s like “oh yes”, and he takes the CD and say “thank you”. I think of this idea as what’s positive for them.

Honestly, I think it’s quite unique, in my case. Usually you have people like Muslimgauze, who has based all his musical approach around percussions of the Arab world, more or less. And apparently he became a Muslim, but I don’t know the details. But everybody knows he didn’t go there to do the recordings themselves. With me, I went there to do the recordings myself, I do remix them, but I also try to release the original recording, so I always tell to people that I would never pretend that my so-called remix, recomposed work, or my re-appropriated thing, is better than the original. I encourage you to compare. A lot of material is online, is not even a matter of money anymore. You can compare the original and the remix. That’s at least what I can do in terms of respect. Having two approaches of listening to this music, but the original is probably the best one. I’m summarizing. They are history, if history could be really objective, just based on the reality and not propaganda. And then there are guys like me who do history on one side, and a novel on another side. The latter is not reality anymore, it’s based on historical facts. If a guy only has a novel and distracts you from the original history, that sucks. But if he tells you “ok, this is what I’ve done, but this is the history, you can compare.” This is what matter in my case. You have the original and those people haven’t been recorded before, so it’s great that there’s a trace of them. This is what I do, it doesn’t matter which one you like.

Do you think is necessary to go in one certain place to record something, instead of just taking some parts of music, such as Muslimgauze did? Is it more truthful to go in that certain place, or is actually acceptable only to use parts of their music?

I’m the only one in the Western world who can visualize, when listening to a CD. I know how these people look like, I remember a lot of their kindness. I cannot see it only as a musicologist, for me it’s all part of a story, the time I spent with those people.

Recordings

Speaking of Muslimgauze, he was often accused of being anti-Semite.

Well yeah. In his aesthetic, the central story of Muslimgauze is the Palestinian cause. So he was taking the message of the Palestinians who would never have access to the music scene in England.

I don’t believe in good intentions, I believe in interest. In the background of the society is this idea that NGOs are there to do this. NGOs have funds. Some people think I’m a kind of fair trade promoter, like if you buy this, you encourage the coffee plantation to grow, or whatever. There is no such a good intention message with me, I’m not an NGO, I’m sorry. It is a completely misunderstanding nowadays. I’m only a guy who likes adventure, so I lived in places where adventure was still possible, because in Europe is less and less possible. And yes, in Asia, the way I lived, relationships were different, I could have access easily to all kinds of people, record their music, not being rejected, expand, grow, do something in my interest. There is nothing better in the world than when you feel that the world is pleasing you. There is nothing wrong about having this great feeling of a world where I feel good, where those people have some communicative energy. They’ve never met a white guy, and they find it amusing that you like their music.

Tell us about your music collection.

My collection of recordings has 199 CDs. 200 hours of music. I’ve been releasing original recordings to Sublime Frequencies, like 8 hours of recordings. The entire production of an LP is much more expensive, I don’t know anyone who would want to release my 200 CDs on his label, because it is a very small market. So I’m making them one by one, going to the printing shop in the corner, cutting the covers, burning the CDs in my computer. It’s all DIY. This is how I sell it to institutes or whatever; they put it in the computer of their library of the university, like the department of an English university on Chinese minorities who would want to buy only the recordings of minorities in China, according to their interest.

I am also doing some shows, like lectures. This is the time to go deep in the collection and organize them by the theme. The last theme was shamanism and the second theme is love songs, so I’m going to play all kinds of love songs recorded in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China and Thailand, with video, music and stories. I like those shows, because I get to talk about the other parts of their life. Like love songs, why do they have love songs? We have to go into understanding the animist society, the society outside of the big religion, who focus so much attention on being a virgin, for the women. But that doesn’t exist in the animist societies. So you have love songs, why? Because love songs lead to sex. This is the context. I call it pseudo-anthropology, because I’m not an anthropology researcher or whatever. I explain things my way; I’ve met those people, who they are. People see how they look like. I like these kind of shows.

Every CD from the collection has a different story, I cannot answer easily. You pick up one CD and I tell you its story.

This one is made with my ex-wife. I’ve given up, I moved to Berlin 4 years ago, in 2014, and I’m taking care of our son here. She continues to live in China, she got hired by a big company. So they hired her, with a good budget, and they gave her all the good equipment to do recordings, so she went where she wanted to. She spent 7 month in 2016 and 2017 just recordings the minorities in Xinjiang, the biggest province in North West of China, where you have all these proto-Turkish people - the Uyghurs are the number one group. We were there together in 2009 when we recorded in Xinjiang and we were doing it in a DIY way; that meant going to places, talking to people and finding musicians.

When people ask me how do I find musicians, I always use to say: when you’re obsessed with sex, you arrive in one country and you’re going to find whores. When you’re obsessed with drugs, you’re going to find drugs. When you’re obsessed with music, you’re going to find musicians.

Xinjiang is very problematic because it’s like Tibet, the last big ethnic conflict happening in China. In Southern China where we lived the problem was solved in the 19th century. There has been riots, rebellions, some small Muslim kingdom wanting to establish its own country, it’s been all kind of wars in 19th century and the Han won them. And this is happening now, still in the early 21th century in Xinjiang; didn’t happen in the 19 century, but it’s happening now. So it was very problematic for me to be there, not being Chinese. Xinjiang has a lot of great music, but the memory of being there is really tense. I was arrested many times by the police, asking me for long hours for work permit.

Yunnan

This is just above the Vietnamese border. In Yunnan you have the YI people, 8 million people, but they call themselves by different names. A sub group calls itself Nisu – 1 million people. A woman from TV that I have met in 2001, and I met her again in Kunming in 2006, invited me to visit a theatre, as she was organising a show for ethnic minorities. But, as you can expect, she organised a thing really orchestrated, with choreography, like “you don’t hold the instrument like this, or like this”.

So I went to one of the shows and then I thought to exchange phone numbers with the musicians. 6 months later I came to visit one of those guys, Wang Liliang, and the volume 1 it’s only solo, or duo, maximum trio. In the volume 2 it’s the orchestra version. You have all these instruments but played by 10 people. And they all appear, it’s a little bit like in Sun RA or a free jazz orchestra. They have all these instruments, but they don’t constantly play together; some appear, some disappear. It’s very weird, kind of a free-jazz feeling, but with totally typical Nisu Chinese minorities patterns. But the construction is kind of wild. At the beginning you don’t really know; are they trying something? They’re not together, so what’s going on? They haven’t really started? And then you realize every time is like that. It is perfectly normal, there build up, voices appear, and then disappear.

A Night Train to Mombasa

How do you see the idea of failure?

Failure is like being sick. It happens and then you get over it. There has been lots of failures. In the past I tried to bring a gong orchestra to festivals in Europe. I was contacting some festivals and I was telling them that using the word tribal, like ritual or shaman, “you just want fake ones, you don’t want the real ones, I would really love that you integrate the real ones. The ones that are still there, that still exist in the tribal world. This is the end! You have the money, they don’t cost more than a rock band”. But it has never worked out. My failure was that I’m not an organiser, I just concentrate on music. At least there I can limit the amount of failure because it’s mostly being involved in my story and how I can convince other people that this is interesting.

The only time I managed to move some musicians was not far away; from the Chinese border in North Vietnam and bring them to the Goethe Institute in Hanoi. It was a 500 euro concert. For the German Cultural Center this was nothing. Each performer got 100 euro, I got the same money like each musician, and for them going back home in their village with 100 euro is incredible. And it’s nothing! You change the life of people just by giving them a little credit like that. But I could not develop that.

Basically, I am seen as a fascist. I don’t follow the bullshit of being decent. I was ranting against the policy of Ausland in Berlin of 2017, where only women could perform. Creating divisions that don't exist. Ausland was never ran by pigs who said you cannot play here because you’re a woman. They were never part of the discrimination, so why do they feel so guilty that now, men have to be excluded? This is ridiculous. Sorry. You are fighting something that doesn’t exist and you were never part of the problem. Every political issue is biased with some wrong ideas.

All these issues are really embarrassing and I realized they are totally taboo in Western Europe: It’s a shock for them to see that I am interested in the same cultural sphere, in the same arty small world, and at the same time I think different than them. They think that if you’re interested in this kind of music, you need to have a certain mindset, and I don’t. In South East Asia you don’t get brainwashed with these ideas, like here, so in a way I maintained a relative freedom of thinking, because I was not transformed by the media, but by my own experience, and experience is not a moral standard. I don’t carry all this leftist baggage of fake equality and fake evaluation of individual freedom and that I come from the privileged world that has to repair from its colonial guilt, I feel zero guilt! Do you hear me?

Most of the world doesn’t give a shit about individual freedom. Let me tell you a story just for the sake of telling you a story, please try to visualize: in December 1999, I’ve just travelled long hours in a plane from Vienna to Nairobi, a night train to Mombasa, 30 hours of cheap bus to Dar es Salaam, and the last ride is to reach town from this bus-station 10 km outside of town. I take a taxi, well, honestly, that car is a complete wreck; there’s no windows left, I am exhausted, sweating dirty, could not get anything to eat because of Ramadan. On the way the car nearly broke down, we reach town, hey, yes, a red-light! We stop, and at the exact same moment, an extraordinary brand new black Mercedes with driver stops at the same height, then about 15 children beggars surround my car, all asking at the same time for money. I am overwhelmed but can’t stop laughing, pointing to the children the car of someone who looks like a true rich man, no! No one dares to go and ask the black businessman in black suit and tie on the backseat of his car, it’s the duty of this dirty white guy to entertain himself with guilt!

Nowadays you are only allowed to unmask the shit of your own people (and believe me, I know a lot about French shit) and are automatically suspicious if you dare to show the shit in other countries, cultures or religions.

No Artist – Funeral Gongs Ceremonies In Ratanakiri Cambodia

Label: Sub Rosa – SRV545
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: Belgium
Released: Oct 2, 2023
Visit: https://kinkgong.bandcamp.com/
Style: Cambodian Classical, Hill Tribe Music, Field Recordings, Gongs, Traditional
Source: Digital

1. Krung - "Funeral Ceremony" (I) 5:32
2. Krung - "Funeral Ceremony" (II) 8:38
3. Jarai - "Funeral Ceremony" (I) 5:37
4. Krung - "Funeral Ceremony" (III) 9:04
5. Jarai - "Funeral Ceremony" (II) 9:50

Music for the Mother: Ancestral Music from the Sierra de Santa Marta in Colombia

This a first of it's kind album of ancestral music from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. Theirs is a sophisticated music that navigates the multidimensional realms in order to offer payment and thanks to Mother Earth while also creating health and harmony within the listener. We have much to learn from our 'older brothers'.

Featuring
Mamo Senchina (Kogi-Wiwa)
Mamo Rodrigo (Wiwa)
Mamo Cencio (Kogi)
Zaga Josefina (Wiwa)
Mamo Atilo (Arhuaco-Kanquamo)

The mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Colombia are the sacred ancestral lands of Indigenous Peoples: the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa, and Kankuamo. Together, they number over 30,000 people. The inhabitants share the belief that they are the guardians of the heart of the world. Their spiritual leaders are called Mamos. The Mamo is charged with maintaining the natural order of the world through songs, meditations and ritual offerings. Through deep meditation, ritual offerings, songs, and prayers, the Mamos follow the law of caring for the Sierra Nevada to maintain the equilibrium of life for the sacred mountains and the entire world. They are concerned that non-Indigenous people are plundering and dismembering the Earth.

Ancestral Teyuna Music From The Sierra Nevada De Santa Marta In Colombia
by Joseph Timmons

In celebration of Indigenous People’s Day, Underwater Panther Coalition, a record label seeking to improve people’s connection to Mother Earth through curated musical projects, releases “Music for the Mother,” a debut album of ancestral Teyuna songs from the Sierra de Santa Marta in Colombia as recorded by the Mamos and Zaga, who are the spiritual leaders of the Indigenous peoples of the mountain region. The album, which promotes healing and cultural integrity through song and ceremony, is available for download on Bandcamp.

First record ever produced and first time a female from the Teyuna has ever been recorded; 50 percent of profits to be shared with the Teyuna Foundation

“Let me tell you about our ancestral sounds. Whenever we play our ancestral music, when we sing our songs, we must bring our thoughts to a specific place, a specific mindset,” said Mamo Rodrigo (Kogi). “We bring our thoughts to a place where Nature can hear us, a place where she can know we are singing directly to her. That way she can feel that we are calling her. We are speaking with her, calling her name. We are calling to help nourish her and to converse with her.” 

The album also features Mamo Senchina (Kogi), Mamo Cencio (Kogi), Zaga Josefina (Wiwa), Mamo Atilo (Aruhuaco). The eighth track, “A Pagamento” refers to their job and responsibility to give spiritual payment and to help heal the Earth and the people on it. Other tracks including “AGUA (Song for the Water)” pays homage to the life-giving and sustaining properties of water, while “Cigarra & Cicada (Spirit of the Seed Consciousness of the Seeds)” is a song of thanks to the flowers and seeds.

About Underwater Panther Coalition

Started by Matthew O’Neill, Underwater Panther Coalition is a record label committed to supporting Indigenous rights and celebrating ancestral musical traditions by releasing projects based on time honored traditions of gratitude, appreciation, respect, and reverence for Mother Earth. The label shares 50 percent of profits with the indigenous groups affiliated with each project. 

Teyuna Mamos and Zaga of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta – Music for the Mother: Ancestral Music from the Sierra de Santa Marta in Colombia

Label: Underwater Panther Coalition – UP003
Format: CD, Vinyl, 12"
Country: US
Released: 10/12/2020
Genre: Non-Music, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Andean Music, Field Recording
Tags: Ancestral Voices, Mother Nature, Tribal, World, Ancestral, Colombia

Visit: https://mamosandzagaofthesierranevadadesantamarta.bandcamp.com/
Source: Digital

1. Ripples of Water 1:16
2. Ganulu (Great Black Messenger Bird) 6:52
3. Madre Lluvia 5:34
4. Cigarra & Cicade (Spirit of the Seed Consciousness) 6:28
5. Chiwa Zunuka (Song for Medicine Plants) 2:27
6. The Black and Brown Messenger Bird 3:00
7. Consciousness (The Song of Thoughts) 3:11
8. A Pagamento 1:34
9. Dugunavi and Zongla (The Seeker and the Darkness) 7:00
10. Matuna (The Father Spirit of Positive Energy) 2:18
11. Agua (Song for Water) 1:30
12. Aranas (Song of Spiders) 2:49
13. Abu Senulan (Mother Earth) 4:31
14. Cinduli y La Flor (Hummingbird, The Spiritual Father of the Flowers) 2:19

15. Zhamai Kumukuna (Music of the Beginning) 0:47

Haiti (1936-1937) Vol. 1: Treasures from the Lomax Archive

The recordings made by Alan Lomax in Haiti in 1936-37 (over 1,500 in total), although little known, constitute a priceless repository of Haitian expressive culture, recorded soon after the departure of the American Marines and while Haiti was in the throes of a nationalist and africentric movement.

In 1936, in the middle of scouring rural America for folk music that might have vanished forever if not for his efforts, ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax traipsed off to Haiti for four months with his 19-year-old fiancée and a 55-pound recording unit. The results are only now available for anyone to hear. "Haiti (1936-1937) Vol. 1 - Treasures from the Lomax Archive" brings together highlights from the 2011 GRAMMY nominated box set "Alan Lomax in Haiti" and traces how Mr. Lomax was out to document the music of everyday Haitians, in whatever form, and to hunt for the influence of African music, as he had in the U.S. From the most accessible sounds to the dance bands of Port-au-Prince, who had incorporated New Orleans jazz from records imported by occupying U.S. Marines, Lomax followed leads around the country, recording celebratory carnival songs, work songs, and eventually the music of officially forbidden Vodou (what is commonly known as voodoo) ceremonies.

Haiti (1936-1937) Vol. 1: Treasures from the Lomax Archive

Label: Lomax Archive

Cat. No: LMX004

Tags: Alan Lomax, The Haiti Recordings, Folk, Field Recordings, Traditional Music, Vernacular Music

Visit: https://lomaxarchive.bandcamp.com/
Source: Digital

1. Surprise Jazz - Instrumental Merengue 2:48
2. Sosyete Djouba - Elèn Kap Kriye, Bèt-La Anraje (Helene Is Crying, The Bug Is Angry) 3:04
3. Anonymous - Nan Semitye Pou M Antere Fanmi Mwen (In The Cemetery, I’ll Bury My Family) 1:13
4. Loumé Fréice - En Avant Simple 0:27
5. Ago's Bal Band - Mèsi, Papa Vensan (Thank You, Papa Vincent) 4:37
6.  Orchestre Granville Desronvil - Déus Blues 3:39
7. La Movinillère - Valse À Elle (A Waltz For Her) 2:37
8. Zora Neale Hurston - Bama, Bama 0:36
9. The Saul Polinice, Louis & Ciceron Marseille Group - Danabala Wèdo Tokan Koulèv (Danbala Wèdo, Sign of the Snake) 1:20
10. Francillia - Nou Tout Se Moún 1:53
11. Students of L’École Normal, Port-Au-Prince - M-Pral Fè Lago Ti Zongle (Ti Zongle, I’m Going To Play Hide And Seek) 1:43
12. Secondary Students of L’École Daumier, Port-Au-Prince - Ti Zwazo (Little Bird) 0:38
13. Ago's Bal Band - Kamèn Sa Wa Fè (Carmen, What Have You Done?) 3:04

14. Surprise Jazz - Mèsi, Papa Vensan (Thank You Papa Vincent) 1:42

Your Kisses Are Like Roses: Fado Recordings, 1914-1936

Death Is Not The End's old world fascinations lead to some of the earliest Portuguese fado recordings, whose ghostly, soulfully expressive qualities are surely comparable with Greek rebetika and US blues of the time.

The definition of the word 'fado' is technically 'fate', though the Portuguese meaning bound up with this term is more complex. The music itself can be fairly closely compared with that of Greek rebetika - also the American blues or the original working-class tango music of Argentina and Uruguay - and similarly takes it's common subject matter from the various cruel realities of the world. Though perhaps what distinguishes fado in character is it's often poised acceptance of the pains of life rather than protestation or resistance - as writer Paul Vernon says "It speaks with a quiet dignity born of the realisation that any mortal desire or plan is at risk of destruction by powers beyond individual control"

Death Is Not The End compile here a spine-tingling collection of fado recordings, taken from records issued in the mid 1910s through to the 1930s. The fado's Lisbon and Coimbra variants are presented here by some of the music's earliest recorded stars - prior to the rise of the music's all-conquering figurehead, Amália Rodrigues - and all of them "fadistas" imbued with a keen dose of saudade.

Fado
what's in a name?
https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/fado.htm

Your Kisses Are Like Roses: Fado Recordings, 1914-1936
 
Label: Death Is Not The End
Cat No: DEATH076
Year: 2024
Tags: Folk / Fado / Portuguese
Visit: https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/
Source: Digital

1. Maria do Carmo - Beijos são como as rosas 2:56
2. Paradela de Oliveira - Fado de se velha 3:33
3. Edmundo de Bettencourt - Crucificado 2:45
4. Madalena de Melo - Cantares 3:00
5. Luiza Baharem - Fado Mondego 2:53
6. Alberto Xavier Pinto - Fado do Paraizo 3:05
7. Maria Victória - Fado Maria Victória nº 1 2:46
8. Maria Silva - Fado Alice 3:29
9. Adelina Fernandes - Misérias 2:24
10. Estêvão Amarante - Fado do cauteleiro 3:37
11. Alfredo Marceneiro - Olhos fatais 3:14
12. Ermelinda Vitória - Fado da minha aldeia 3:06
13. Dr. Lucas Junot - Triste (fado) 2:54
14. Maria Alice - Quando o meu filho adormece 3:15
15. Laura Santos - A magia do fado 2:49
16. João Rocha Jor - Fado Rocha 3:05

Prends le temps d'ecouter: Tape music, sound experiments and Free Folk Songs by Children from Freinet Classes 1962-1982

France, early sixties: the Mouvement de l’École moderne is in full bloom. Relying on the experiments and writings of its founder, the educationist Célestin Freinet, this consortium of teachers is about to give empirical evidence proving that another approach to music in school can be fruitful, distancing itself from government directives.

With its pragmatic, anti-authoritarian tack, the method that Freinet was already developing in the 1920s held children in respect, giving them confidence and autonomy. In a Europe that was just beginning to recover from WWI, Freinet was working concomitantly with the historical burgeoning of active learning promoted by other great educationists such as Montessori in Italy, Decroly in Belgium or Ferrière in Switzerland, notably within the Ligue international pour l’Éducation nouvelle. Freinet very soon started to put his principles into practice, experimenting in person a series of innovating techniques that would become emblematic: removing the rostrum, reorganizing the classroom, encouraging cooperation, developing activities such as school printing or inter-school correspondence… And all this went with the publishing of documentation, files and specific teaching material by the Coopérative de l’Enseignement Laïc (the CEL, a cooperative for secular education).

A team of inspired associates quickly formed around Célestin and his wife, Élise. Intent on circulating ideas and perfecting methods, they also contributed to structuring a Mouvement that drew increasing attention. When the couple founded its emblematic alternative school in the small town of Vence, in 1934, the CEL was already counting more than three hundred members from sixty different territorial departments. At the dawn of the sixties, the Mouvement gathered a considerable number of teachers working in state schools, and even if they were far from constituting any kind of majority, they could be found throughout the national territory.

As the wish to encourage free expression was central in the Freinet philosophy, arts and crafts were given more importance at school; in this regard, singing and music had a part to play, just as much as writing or drawing. While classrooms filled with a joyful jumble of sound-making objects (springs, bottles and basins, dismantled piano frames, drums, bamboos and the first DIY electronics), singular forms of music started ringing out: wild improvising, delicate a-cappella singing, clanks and dissonant string hammerings, basic experiments with magnetic tapes, evanescent folk songs…

This approach might seem surprisingly ahead of its time, but what is even more astonishing is that physical traces of these experiments can still be accessed today. Between 1962 and 1982, recordings collected from schools everywhere around France were compiled on dozens of vinyl records. Mostly destined to teachers and friends supporting or gravitating around the Mouvement, these short-format records documented the evolution of practices and approaches: catchy headings such as “Musique libre” (free music), “Recherches sur la voix” (vocal experiments), “Musiques concrètes” (concrete music), “Musiques électroniques” (electronic music) or “Musiques d’ailleurs” (music from elsewhere) are particularly telling. And the music that could be heard on these groundbreaking records was the work of pupils from small towns in Lot-et-Garonne, Oise and Alpes Maritime – not exactly the archetypal privileged children benefitting from an upper-class economic and cultural background… Rather, children from rural schools with a single classroom, and sometimes, atypical or struggling children oriented towards the so-called “classes de perfectionnement.”

 

Free music

Within the Mouvement de l’École moderne, the importance attached to music, its recording and the record itself formed three interrelated topics, the history of which is that of a captivating collective adventure.

When Célestin Freinet sternly declared, during an educational lecture he was giving in 1965, that “the traditional teaching of music had gone bankrupt,” he was actually pointing out that groundwork for an alternative was already in progress. Since the 1930s, the Mouvement’s quest for a “natural method for music initiation” had been adapting the principles of Freinet’s “natural method” for reading skills acquisition. A whole pedagogy grounded in interdisciplinary key notions was imagined, and as always with Freinet, the starting point was practice rather than rule. Dynamic and pragmatic, it encouraged the child’s natural empirical approach, hoping to liberate them from the fear of failure, stimulate their desire for learning and deeply enroot theoretic knowledge in concrete intimate experience. Far from contentedly praising spontaneity, laxness and first drafts, the notion of “enquiry-based learning” claimed equal respect for the various paths that pupils took and considered them able to adopt their own structured approach.

This had many implications for the teaching of arts. The very notion of repertoire gave way to freedom of personal expression as a major value. Instead of trying to have pupils clumsily copy a model, teachers encouraged an intimate experience of production, following Goethe’s maxim according to which children cannot be sensitive to art works unless they have created something themselves. Whether modest or grandiose, the creation was attributed to the child, now considered as an author able to define the intention, the form and the modalities of their work.

In the pre-war issues of L’Éducateur prolétarien, several institutors – sometimes working in close collaboration with Freinet, as Roger Lallemand did – regularly shared their thoughts on the teaching of music at school. Their articles could equally deal with singing as a free practice, the place of pipes or percussion instruments, composition, or the formation and staging of small children orchestras. Clearly aware of the progress that was being made abroad, these contributors also referred to pioneering books and works by the American educationist Satis Coleman or the French one Lina Roth.

When the Institut Coopératif de l’École Moderne (ICEM) was founded in 1947, other teachers and key figures of the Mouvement progressively took the helm. In the second half of the 1950s, Maurice Beaugrand or Paul Delbasty suggested new directions in “free music,” which was then practiced in school as “free writing” or “free drawing” were. In 1957 a special issue of La Bibliothèque de travail directed by Delbasty suggested to begin at the beginning by radically questioning lute-making and the instrumentarium as determining factors in the practice of music and the very form it can take. Taking into account a budgeting that made it difficult for an entire class to be equipped, this issue detailed a whole series of practical solutions to facilitate the building of instruments through recycling: cookware lids, tins of paint, bottles making a xylophone or anything that could be somehow used as a pipe. Cheap and demystified, the instrument was adapted to the height and skills of children: it became both affordable and accessible. A small zither made with a tin of sardines and a bigger one built with a wooden box also heralded the conception of the Ariel, a plucked string instrument that could be easily built and intuitively tuned, and which would become emblematic of the music produced in Freinet classes.

In another BT issue published in 1959, G. Jaegly and C. Pons presented a series of small sound experiments: building other rudimentary instruments, amplifying a vinyl groove with a paper cone, visualising Chladni figures (geometrical patterns that can be observed on a vibrating plate covered with sand). In 1965, in a more theoretical spirit, Freinet and Delbasty drew up a very positive report surveying the work in progress and published it in L’Éducateur, n° 10. Beyond print, these ideas and techniques were promoted through training courses, symposiums and congresses regularly scheduled by the Mouvement.

At the end of the 1960s, research on musical practice began to be carried out, notably, by the “Commission musique,” a group of teachers particularly concerned with these issues. The names of Jean-Pierre Lignon, Paul Le Bohec or Jean-Jacques Charbonnier frequently appeared, along with that of Jean-Louis Maudrin, who coordinated the commission’s work and was one of its major members until 1978:
JLM: We didn’t want everything to be based on music, it was not the goal of the operation. I was interested in offering something to pupils. We wanted children to find out, invent, be included in the teaching process. With productions that were theirs, or others’, never mind. If you want schooling to work, children must be involved, and what can we do to involve them? Music, sculpture, photography… We all intervened in turns, but the goal of the operation was to generate enthusiasm in everyone. And to be honest, it is far from being a piece of cake, because you have to do with what you get. If you want to make instruments, is there enough room for construction anywhere in the class? It was a recurrent problem, especially in big city schools.

Respecting the autonomy, creativity and rhythm of each child, activities were also systematically envisaged as something to be shared with the whole class and penfriends in distant schools, to whom recordings were sent.

JLM: Sometimes the class was totally split up, sometimes we all gathered. You’re not going to work on your own… Whatever you’re building, there must be a collective discussion: you prefer this, you prefer that… And when we had a cooperative meeting to make a decision together, obviously we all assembled.

In 1974, a milestone “special music issue” of L’Éducateur provided a good overview. It compiled key papers from former publications with contributions and feedback from members of the commission. As a written addendum to the records the ICEM was releasing back then, this issue confirms that the idea behind the recording of “free,” “concrete” or “electronic” music was not to make children mimic or learn by force the gestures and codes of avant-garde music, but to encourage their own personal forms of exploration and welcome the unpredictable.

As the creativity of pupils could give unexpected and sometimes puzzling results, the curiosity and open-mindedness of teachers were valuable allies, for they helped them question the limits of their own listening practices or aesthetic criteria:
JLM: I listened to music that was different from what we usually used in school. I loved jazz, and when free jazz and all that stuff came round in the sixties… I was into that. So, when the kids were making music, sometimes it just “clicked” in my head: “Hey, we’ve got something interesting here!”. Things like Stockhausen’s Stimmung, that was my stuff, but I also loved listening to Ella Fitzgerald (…). And if things took a more contemporary turn down there, in Vence, it was also because of the people gravitating around the school. Prévert had visited it, Michel-Edouard Bertrand was a friend of Freinet’s son in law, Jacques Bens, a co-founder of the OuLiPo… A certain amount of people from outside school took part in activities, and they were happy to sing with the kids or make them sing, imagine stories…

 

The tape-recorder in school

More technically speaking, as early as the 1960s, the progressive increase in classes equipped with portative tape-recorders became essential for the Mouvement.

Their wish to encourage the practice of amateur recording by giving access to suitable equipment can be seen as the equivalent, in the field of sound, of an older process initiated in the mid-1920s to develop printing in school. Indeed, for Freinet, classroom journals had always been ideal synthetic materials, for they involved a complete set of skills and crafts: reporting, editing, illustration, photography, typography, printing. In this context, enthusiast children could have a go at writing and publishing articles, chronicles, reports and drawings, which sometimes went with lyrics or scores. Not only were they in charge of contents, but they also controlled manufacturing and distribution.

JLM: For me, it was Raymond Dufour who got tape-recorders into schools, with wire recording. This was how he discovered child speech in its spontaneous form, whereas before that, speech was nearly entirely based on writing: things were written and read out loud, and the recordings were not so interesting, they were far more didactic. Firstly, because reading aloud is not that easy. And secondly, because it didn’t have much to do with the personal or family lives these children had […]. And then, Pierre Guérin happened to meet Gilbert Paris, who manufactured recorders, and from then on, much work was done in a more documentary perspective.

Indeed, intent on promoting and developing the use of the tape-recorder in school, Pierre Guérin supervised, in the early 1960s, the launch of the massive “BT Sonores” collection, a broad selection of audio sources, thematic conferences and classroom recordings with children from all countries and all social backgrounds speaking about their everyday lives, interests, ambitions, living conditions and existential questionings. The voices of great scientists such as Henri Laborit were compiled with group discussions between pupils dealing with topics as serious and diverse as death, unemployment, teenage anxieties, solar system exploration or daily life in Bora-Bora. While the function of music remained secondary, the collection showed the wish to revive a personal practice of documentary recording in tune with the philosophy embraced by another of Pierre Guérin’s collaborators, Jean Thévenot, a broadcaster reputed for his work at the RTF, especially with Chasseurs de sons, a radio programme meant to promote amateur recording.

In his 1965 conference, Célestin Freinet remarked that when he was making his debuts as an educationist, “no one believed that a small kid in nursery or elementary school could express, in written or oral form, a meaningful thought that was worth noting.” The Mouvement de l’École moderne relayed and championed the voices of childhood, and one of its most remarkable intuitions may have consisted in firmly believing that all these “songs showcased in wax” deserved publicity.

Phonographic pedagogy

Since 1928, the Mouvement had in the CEL (Coopérative de l’Enseignement Laïque) an independent structure that could conceive, direct, manufacture and distribute their many printed publications and the pedagogic material destined to Freinet classrooms.

As the notion of “phonographic pedagogy” (defending the record as a tool for musical education) began to emerge in France in the early 1930s, Freinet mentioned, in his correspondence with the world music lover and collector Charles Wolff, the idea of a traveling music library that could tour around schools, as did the bookmobile funded by the Musée de l’éducation.

To succour teachers, who often had difficulty having the classroom equipped, the CEL conceived its own robust and powerful phonograph, had it manufactured and put it for sale at a reasonable price. While the Mouvement de l’École moderne was going on its quest for “a new record-based technique for musical expression,” the CEL added record publishing to its activities, and its very first 78 rpm records for a “natural method for music initiation” appeared in the 1940s, with poetry and music by pupils from the Vence Freinet school as well as lines borrowed from Prévert and sung “in the vocal register of children,” to which were added, of course, the piano accompaniment facilitating practice, while the B side, entitled “la part du maître” (the master’s part), offered oral advice.

However, it was only in the early 1960s, when the Mouvement and the CEL apparently reached their cruising publishing speed, that a new series of more surprising records could come out. Available on subscription, recordings by the Club de la Bibliothèque sonore were the first ones to show a clear move in the practice of “Free music,” with the first truly completely improvised vocal and instrumental pieces, the first works exploiting the potential of the tape-recorder (pitch and reverse switch), and the first experiments with the Ariel.

At the start of the 1970s, a new step was taken in record publishing as the ICEM commission for music intensified its activities. Jean-Louis Maudrin wanted a sonic equivalent of La Gerbe, the “coorevue” (a neologism that could be translated as “coomag,” with coo for cooperative) which Freinet had launched in 1927, with children compiling their own texts and drawings in leaflets “composed and elaborated in school.”
JLM: We wanted quality, because there was sharing. When you share something, it cannot be anything! The various pieces were chosen by the pupils as the tape circulated from one class to another, in a predetermined “order.” Then we had to adapt the selection to the format: we had something like eight minutes. Not ten, not two! So, we had to make everything fit before sending the whole thing to Gilbert Paris, who built the recorders.

These new records were soon sent to subscribers as a supplement to Art Enfantin et Créations, a journal founded in 1959 by Élise Freinet, who globally devoted herself to promoting the artistic expression of children on both practical and theorical levels, following an intellectual path that is not unlike Jean Dubuffet’s with Art brut. Joint publication made it possible to detail in print, for each record, the context of production and a step-by-step approach.

JLM: Sometimes I added a discography, not only for masters to share it with pupils, but also to show that kids were not the only tinkerers. It was a way to normalise tinkering, and to incite people to educate their ears for once! Pierre Henry or Pierre Schaeffer could be heard on the radio.

Take the time to listen

This compilation therefore presents a selection of recordings from the thirty or so records released by the CEL between 1962 and 1982, partly deviating these sound archives from their original function to offer them to a new audience.

Recorded in Paul Delbasty’s classroom in Buzet-sur-Baise, the oldest pieces have been taken from a BT Sonore and several Club de la Bibliothèque Sonore records, which feature some of the first experiments with the Ariel. Different versions of the melody entitled “Une petite fleur” punctuate our track list like so many “variations on a theme.” Actually, ICEM records often adhered to this principle, as they insisted on presenting various research steps rather than the “final” outcome, or showing the way pupils declined another pupil’s work or idea. As far as we know, “Saturne” (also recorded in Buzet) was one of the first tape-recorder pieces to be based on the use of pitch and reversed reading in an educational context.

The other tracks have all been selected from the record series that the ICEM released in the 1970s. On the title track, the young Frédéric Chanu starts singing a bewildering ode to joy on a melancholy tone verging on detachment, making heavy clanks all the while. As for “The Ocean,” “C’était l’histoire” and other excerpts from L’Enfant de la liberté, they belong in the register of intimate folk, with songs recorded in secondary school (with twelve-to-eighteen-year-old kids), originally written as an exercise in French rather than in music.

Other pieces more directly resulted from experiments in “concrete” or “electronic” music, ranging from the rudimentary manipulations in “Voix, percussions ou cithare à l’envers” to the fragile balance reached in “Voix, larsen et percussions,” a set of sounds so minimal that one can still wonder at the existence of adults wise enough to consider them as musical expressions worth publishing. As Jean-Louis Maudrin remarked back then, in this elementary process “a single recorded noise can spark off hours of eternally renewed creation. It challenges aesthetic criteria, you cannot tell if what you hear is beautiful or not, if you like it or not. Children are faced with the unheard… a new world where nothing can make you fail.”

In a similar spirit, “Hiroshima” is actually the work of a junior high school pupil who, having received an amp as a Christmas present, plugged his electric guitar onto it and started playing something very different from any rock n’ roll standard: “I began with sound tests: Larsen effect, making noise with marbles and pinches, and then I had the idea to make something OK with all this. So, I recorded all my experiments and assembled them in a row. I didn’t add any sound after editing the tape. I was happy. It was an experiment with sounds. We listened to it in class and sent it to our penfriends in Vizille. They answered us and as I’d asked them for a title, they suggested “Hiroshima.” I listened to it once more and found the title relevant. I didn’t make any change.” In the end, it featured on so many ICEM records that it became one of its most often compiled tracks.

A small selection of a-capella tracks was also essential to remind the major part played by “free singing”, with voice as the “original instrument.” Offering an excerpt from “Recherches sur la voix” and the beautiful proto-punk babble-like glossolalia of “Français,” we invite the curious to complete this selection with a listening of the original records.

A few instrumental, percussive or modal tracks – some of which were originally destined to accompany theatrical dances (“Les Monstres”) – complete this overview, the poetry of which sometimes has a touch of the “nouvelle vague” (“Se glisser dans ton ombre”). It should be noted, to conclude, that another version of these pieces was actually the work of adults having adhered to a group of student teachers who had “no musical training whatsoever” and wanted to experiment as well.

Considered as a whole, this corpus remains in many ways strikingly singular. Firstly, because of the quantity published: if other schools occasionally released records that were stylistically close, the ICEM worked with a consistency that made their project truly extraordinary. Secondly, because this work was done ahead of its time: it was only in the mid-1970s that similar practices became more common in the state educational system. These unique archives document what music by and for children can or could be when the record is used as an object completely freed from the qualitative filters inherently structuring music industry.

Unfortunately, as Célestin Freinet died in 1966, he did not have the opportunity to appreciate all the musical developments that sprang from the joyful upheaval he caused. Such innovating practices are still defended in today’s ICEM by the work group Pratiques sonores et musicales, whose members engage in the task undertaken by their pioneering predecessors. Giving a detailed overview of the work done by the ICEM commission for music, an article recently published in Nouvel Éducateur emphasised how “exceptional all this was: nowhere else in the world was anything similar accomplished and carried on for three decades.” May this record testify to this work and contribute to the sharing of such treasures with a new generation of listeners.

Various – Prends Le Temps D'écouter - Musique D'expression Libre Dans Les Classes Freinet / Tape Music, Sound Experiments And Free Folk Songs From Freinet Classes - 1962​/​1982

Label: Lance-Pierre – BB161, Born Bad Records – BB161
Visit: https://lancepierre.bandcamp.com/
Format: CD, Album, Compilation
Country: France
Released: 2023
Genre: Electronic, Kids music, Free Folk
Style: Experimental, Educational
Source: Digital

 

1. Frederic Chanu - Prends le temps d'écouter 1:53
2. Paul et Jean-Paul avec tambour - Une petite fleur 0:24
3. Classe de perfectionnement - Voix + Tube à musique 0:38
4. C.E.G de Douvres la Delivrande - Se glisser dans ton ombre 1:16
5. Nadine Perron - The ocean 1:16
6. Enfants de 9 à 10 ans - Mettallophone, basse, xylophone, batterie 2:02
7. Olivier - Français 1:08
8. Dédé avec Gaby à l'Ariel - L'oiseau rare 0:49
9. Sandrine Lanoux et Pascal Panizut - Larsen et percussion 2:21
10. FP1 à l'école normale de St Germain en Laye -Voix, guitare, petites percussions 1:09
11. Anne Krkorian et Andréa Debret - Laissez-moi rêver 2:25
12. Lionel Tasquier - Hiroshima 5:20
13. Geneviève Marty - L'enfant de la liberté 0:54
14. Gérard, Marc et Roger 9 ans - Avec quelques instruments simples 1:46
15. Isabelle et Christian - Ariel et guitare 3:09
16. Dominique Colas - C'était l'histoire 1:37
17. Bernard - Une petite fleur joué très doux 0:28
18. Une équipe de jeunes enfants - Saturne 2:45
19. Jean, Patrice, Hervé - Discutent 0:47
20. Jean-Paul - Une petite fleur (joué à l'aigu) 0:24
21. Monique - Le vent (Inventé par Bernard 8 ans) 0:59
22. Club de Danse de l'école - Les monstres 5:09
23. Enfant inconnu - C'est triste de quitter ses amis 1:16 

Credits
Compiled By – Charlotte Sampling, Dispokino, Radio Minus, Raffael Dorig, Tom Gagnaire, Yassine De Vos
Layout, Liner Notes – Félicité Landrivon
Restoration, Mastered By – Norscq

Translated By – Fanny Quément

Ali Landaeta – Rapsodia Para Un Cuatro (Venezuelan Instrumental Masterpieces ca. 1973)

Ali Landaeta was born Feb. 14, 1943, and was raised in the Barrio Neuva of Santa Eulalia, Venezuela (20 miles south of Caracas). He began to play the cuatro (a four-stringed instrument that is much smaller than a Spanish guitar and larger than a baritone ukulele) at the age of 9. He taught himself to play several instruments but was discouraged from being a musician by his father. He was, however, encouraged by members of the Oropeza family of musicians, one of whom produced this recording.

Landaeta studied music theory. His approach to the curatro was extraordinary, making what is generally a strummed, folk instrument into a highly developed virtuoso instrument equivalent to both the Spanish guitar and the harp. He taught stringed instruments for 30 years at the Academia de Música Monjosé in Los Teques.

Of the four scarce LPs he made, one playing harp and three playing cuatro, this one, comprised entirely of original compositions, was produced by the songwriter Oswaldo Oropeza (b. Aug. 5, 1937; d. Dec. 3, 1998). It was apparently his first, recorded around 1973 when Landaetra was about 30 years old.

None of his recordings have previously been reissued or circulated online to the best of our knowledge. Around 1990, he received a vision and became a faithful Christian, and dedicated himself to devotional work. In 2016, he characterized himself as a researcher and told a local news organization:

"We are experiencing difficult times in our country. The message for children and young people is that they should know the culture, learn from the instruments. God gives each human being a faculty. We need to create, investigate. The cuatro is an extraordinary instrument, just like the harp. Anyone who wants to learn, I can teach him" -Canary Records

Ali Landaeta / Foto: Alejandra Ávila

Por: Periodistas de Avance
https://diarioavance.com/

Personaje de la ciudad que ha dado aportes musicales a más de 3 generaciones

Nació el 14 de febrero de 1943 y su amor por la música la conoció a los 9 años de edad cuando se encontraba con un grupo de amigos en el que uno de ellos enseñaba a los demás a tocar el cuatro, “a mi nadie me lo quería prestar, yo lo tome por las malas y lo toque, así conocí mi sentido del oído y mi atracción por los sonidos que emitía este genial instrumento”, desde entonces, con el pasar de los años se ha convertido en el mentor de grandes figuras musicales.

“Desde ese momento comencé a buscar instrumentos, un cuatro, una guitarra, el gran Eusebio Oropeza, padre de Oswaldo Oropeza, compositor del tema “faltan 5 pa´ las 12, me regaló un arpa y yo dije que no quería tocarla porque no tenia la tonalidad completa, este comentario lo hice sin saber de música, aprendí por mis propios medios, no había nadie que me enseñara”.

Se crío en el Barrio Nuevo de Santa Eulalia y los alrededores del Cabotaje. A pesar de que sus padres no estaban de acuerdo con su vocación, continuó luchando por cumplir su meta, todo por su iniciativa propia ya que le era difícil asistir a una escuela de música, por su corta edad y la larga distancia que le quedaba la capital, para un niño esto era un desafío “mi papa me dijo que la música era para gente mala, yo igual seguí mi investigación y la práctica, para cada día aprender más”, cabe destacar que estudió en el Liceo San José, lo que eran las escrituras musicales (teoría y solfeo).

Precursor del arpa doble

Alí, con una carrera que lleva más de 55 años ha definido su trayectoria con la palabra “investigación”, pues cada instrumento que llegaba a sus manos lo estudiaba detalladamente para conocer a fondo como era fabricado, de allí nace su interés por crear e inventar.

“Entre parrandas y serenatas en Los Teques y otros estados del país fui creciendo como artista, pero para mi no era suficiente, yo necesitaba crear, inventar, construir, y como estudiaba los instrumentos decidí buscar madera, cuerdas, un taladro y fabrique mi arpa”

Su primer invento que aun conserva, fue en el año 1973 cuando construyó lo que ahora es el arpa doble diatónica, luego fue el arpa doble cromática, después la politónica, politonal y aun se encuentra en la fabricación del arpa doble electrónica.

De maestro a fiel creyente de Dios

Luego de pasar 30 años dando clases de arpa, guitarra, mandolina, bajo, cuatro, y teclado en la academia de música Monjosé, grabar 4 discos en Long Play, entre ellos 1 en arpa y tres discos en los que el cuatro era el instrumento protagonista, bajo la producción de Disco Moda, participó en la autoría y producción del tema faltan 5 pa´ las 12, junto con los hermanos Oropeza, creo un grupo llamado “El grupo de nosotros” con el cual duró diez años tocando el arpa criolla y así realizó varias giras por el país, ha recibido decenas de condecoraciones de todo tipo que le fue difícil recordar los nombres.

Comenzó a trabajar en la casa padre torres, con la comunidad María Auxiliadora, madre de Dios, “me convertí en un fiel creyente de Dios luego de la aparición en una imagen, cristo me ha curado de infinidades de enfermedades, hace 25 años estoy en esta comunidad dirigida por el Dr. Alejandro Gómez”.

Dirige la comunidad a nivel musical, con la coral, estudiantina y grupos musicales que participan en las misas, se encarga de la composición de los ofertorios.

Un mensaje para las nuevas generaciones

Landaeta lleno de nostalgia al revelar los pasos que ha dado en su larga carrera musical, manifestó que le gustaría crear una fundación para que los niños y las personas de todas las edades aprendan a fabricar arpas dobles, y de esa manera evitar que se pierda la tradición del folclor venezolano.

En honor a su trayectoria, y su aporte a la cultura y la música criolla, la alcaldía Guaicaipuro decide crear una casa de la cultura que lleva por nombre “Alí Landaeta”, en honor a este hombre que llena de orgullo a todo el municipio, por su decena de creaciones.

“Estamos viviendo momentos difíciles en nuestro país, el mensaje es para los niños y jóvenes para que conozcan la cultura, aprendan de los instrumentos, Dios le da una facultad a cada ser humano, necesitamos crear, investigar, el cuatro es un instrumento extraordinario al igual que el arpa, todo el que desee aprender yo le puedo enseñar”

Es importante señalar que el profesor Landaeta ha sido el instructor de figuras de la ciudad como lo es Henry leal, concertista, la profesora Lourdes Sánchez que tiene varios grupos musicales, también ha sido el maestro de grandes bajistas, cuatristas, esto como muestra de que todo el conocimiento que ha impartido Alí Landaeta ha dado frutos a su amada comunidad. KB

translated with DeepL

City personality who has given musical contributions to more than 3 generations.

He was born on February 14, 1943 and his love for music came when he was 9 years old when he was with a group of friends in which one of them taught the others to play the cuatro, “nobody wanted to lend it to me, I took it the hard way and played it, that's how I learned my sense of hearing and my attraction for the sounds emitted by this great instrument”, since then, over the years he has become the mentor of great musical figures.

“From that moment I began to look for instruments, a cuatro, a guitar, the great Eusebio Oropeza, father of Oswaldo Oropeza, composer of the song ”faltan 5 pa' las 12, gave me a harp and I said I did not want to play it because I did not have the complete tonality, this comment I made without knowing music, I learned by my own means, there was no one to teach me".

He grew up in the Barrio Nuevo de Santa Eulalia and the surroundings of Cabotaje. Although his parents did not agree with his vocation, he continued to struggle to achieve his goal, all on his own initiative since it was difficult for him to attend a music school, because of his young age and the long distance to the capital, for a child this was a challenge “my dad told me that music was for bad people, I still followed my research and practice, to learn more every day”, it is noteworthy that he studied at the Liceo San José, what were the musical writings (theory and solfeggio).

Precursor of the double harp

Alí, with a career spanning more than 55 years, has defined his trajectory with the word “research”, because each instrument that came into his hands he studied it in detail to know in depth how it was made, from there was born his interest in creating and inventing.

“Between parrandas and serenades in Los Teques and other states of the country I was growing as an artist, but for me it was not enough, I needed to create, invent, build, and as I studied the instruments I decided to look for wood, strings, a drill and I made my harp”.

His first invention, which he still has, was in 1973 when he built what is now the double diatonic harp, then it was the double chromatic harp, then the polytonic, polytonic and polytonal and he is still making the electronic double harp.

From teacher to faithful believer of God

After spending 30 years teaching harp, guitar, mandolin, bass, cuatro, and keyboard at the Monjosé music academy, he recorded 4 albums on Long Play, including 1 on harp and three albums in which the cuatro was the main instrument, under the production of Disco Moda, He participated in the authorship and production of the song “Faltan 5 pa' las 12”, together with the Oropeza brothers, he created a group called “El grupo de nosotros” with which he lasted ten years playing the Creole harp and made several tours around the country, he has received dozens of awards of all kinds that it was difficult for him to remember the names.

He began working in the Father Torres house, with the Maria Auxiliadora community, mother of God, “I became a faithful believer of God after the apparition in an image, Christ has cured me of countless diseases, 25 years ago I am in this community led by Dr. Alejandro Gomez”.

He directs the community at the musical level, with the choir, student choir and musical groups that participate in the masses, he is in charge of the composition of the offertories.

A message for the new generations

Landaeta, full of nostalgia when revealing the steps he has taken in his long musical career, said he would like to create a foundation for children and people of all ages to learn to make double harps, and thus prevent the loss of the tradition of Venezuelan folklore.

In honor of his trajectory, and his contribution to culture and Creole music, the Guaicaipuro mayor's office decided to create a house of culture named “Alí Landaeta”, in honor of this man who fills the entire municipality with pride, for his ten creations.

“We are living difficult times in our country, the message is for children and young people to know the culture, learn about the instruments, God gives a faculty to every human being, we need to create, investigate, the cuatro is an extraordinary instrument like the harp, anyone who wants to learn I can teach him”.

It is important to note that Professor Landaeta has been the instructor of figures of the city such as Henry Leal, concert performer, Professor Lourdes Sanchez who has several musical groups, he has also been the teacher of great bassists, cuatristas, this as a sign that all the knowledge that Ali Landaeta has imparted has borne fruit to his beloved community. KB

Ali Landaeta – Rapsodia Para Un Cuatro (Venezuelan Instrumental Masterpieces ca. 1973)

Label: Canary Records – none
Visit: https://canary-records.bandcamp.com/
Format: 12 x File, FLAC, Album, Reissue
Country: US
Released: Aug 29, 2023
Genre: Latin American Classical Music / Fantasia, Étude, Waltz

Source: Digital

1. Rapsodia Para Un Cuatro 5:57
2. Golpe No. 1 1:27
3. Golpe No. 2 2:24
4. Golpe No. 3 2:06
5. Fantasia Cromatica 3:34
6. El Vals De La Illusion 2:07
7. Flor Rebelde 2:39
8. Estudio No. 1 3:29
9. Estudio No. 2 3:26
10. De Cachimbo Y Troja 2:24
11. Petalos Para El Rocio 2:13
12. Armonias 2:48

Credits
Cuatro, Composed By, Performer – Ali Landaeta
Producer [Original Recordings Produced By] – Oswaldo Oropeza

Transferred By, Restoration, Liner Notes – Ian Nagoski

Tsapiky! Modern Music From South-West Madagascar

Amped Up and Unruly: Tsapiky! Modern Music from Southwest Madagascar

Highlights:

1. Wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat!

2. Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted

3. Ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike

4. Recorded on location in SW Madagascar by Maxime Bobo

This compilation introduces a raw and electrifying portrait of tsapiky, the high-energy music of Southwest Madagascar. It captures the frenetic pulse of a genre shaped by ritual, competition, and sheer sound force. Tsapiky thrives in ceremonies, funerals, weddings, and coming-of-age rites, where musicians perform for days on end, fueling ecstatic dances and communal revelry.

Review by Andrew Cronshaw

https://www.rootsworld.com/

Madagascar has nearly three times the land area of Great Britain, and is the world’s fourth largest island, and the second-largest island country. It has eighteen tribal peoples and areas, and travel is still generally difficult and slow, so it’s not surprising that this huge, very musical country has a variety of distinctive local musics.

The form associated with the area of the south-west around the town of Toliara is a fast, spiky dance music known as tsapiky (pronounced “tsa-peek”). Played at celebrations and ceremonies such as weddings, funerals and circumcisions, it’s typically amplified through Tannoy-type grey-painted horns hung in the trees. This album, apart from one track, is recorded in that sort of situation, the sound taken from those tinny-sounding overdriven horns. (One such system, but playing records, kept me awake one long night, in a dead-bug-spattered bed, in a village somewhere en route in Madagascar. My room had a light switch whose purpose I couldn’t figure out, until I looked in the street and found it operated a red light outside my door!)

Once one’s accustomed to the sound, it’s exciting music. Fast, intricately skittering, distorted electric guitars with female vocalists akin, in energy and irresistible dance-impulsion, to rock’n’roll with the speed control turned up. The eight tracks of the album, four per vinyl side, feature seven popular bands, plus a rather sweet unaccompanied duet from Meny and Ando, the two singers from the band Rebona, a respite recorded not via the horns but at Meny’s home.

Sublime Frequencies

Recorded live on location by Maxime Bobo, this vinyl LP includes a 4-page full-color insert with detailed liner notes plus photos of the musicians and surroundings. Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike.

In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations – which last between three and seven days – cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification.

This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings.

This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of astonishing intensity and creativity, played by artists carving out their own path, indifferent to the standards of any other music industry: Malagasy, African or global.

Tsapiky! Modern Music From Southwest Madagascar

Label: Sublime Frequencies – SF126

Visit: https://sublime-frequencies.bandcamp.com/
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Limited Edition
Country: US
Released: Mar 7, 2025
Style: African, Folk
Source: Digital

1. Mamehy - Je Mitsiko Ro Mokotse (“Those Who Talk Dirty Behind Your Back Tire Themselves Out for Nothing”) 5:27
2. Drick - Sinjake Panambola (“Dance of the Rich”) 6:24
3. Songada - Tany Be Maneky (Name of the Bass Drum) 5:57
4. Behaja - Marolinta (Name of a Village on the South-Western Tip of Madagascar) 5:54
5. Meny & Ando - Ka Tseriky Iha (“Don't Be Surprised”) 0:45
6. Rebona - Zana-Konko (Name Given to Someone Possessed by the Evil Spirit Konko) 6:39
7. Renitsa - Arodarodao (“Go and Dance!”) 5:00
8. Befila - Eka Ndao (“Let's Go”) 4:57
9. Mahafaly Mihisa - Fanoigna (Heated Debate) 5:03
10. Gorop Milalaza - Tsapiky Milalaza 6:19
11. Mirasoa & Mahapoteke - Bleu bleu (“Blue Blue“) 7:46