TOPIC WORLD SERIES

Read about this artist and other fine performers www.topicrecords.co.uk web site & online CD shop

The Music In the World Of Islam series, TSCD901-903, is drawn from field-recordings by the ethnomusicologists Jean Jenkins and Poul Rovsing Olsen. They illustrate Islamic musical traditions across a vast landscape: 'Bedouins and nomads, farmers on the banks of the Nile, or in the Hindukush Mountains of Afghanistan or the High Atlas of Morocco or the fertile valleys of Pakistan and India, Turkish fishermen on the Black Sea coast and Malay and Javanese along the East China Sea or pearl divers on the gulf which divides Arabia from Iran, as well as the inhabitants of the great and ancient cities of Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Fez and Istanbul'.

HUMAN VOICE / LUTE VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD901
Recordings by Jean Jenkins & Paul Rovsing Olsen
The religious and secular songs include recitations from the Qu'ran, ceremonial and devotional pieces of the Sufi and other sects, wedding songs and ghazals. Material from this collection has frequently been sampled by Western musicians such as David Byrne and Brian Eno. Tunes are played on the 'ud, tar, tambur and other lutes.

STRINGS, FLUTES & TRUMPETS VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD902
Recordings by Jean Jenkins & Paul Rovsing Olsen
The stringed instruments include the Pakistani saroz, Iraqi qanun, Jordanian rabab and Turkish kemence. The flutes and trumpets embrace the widely found nay and duduk and other instruments, heard solo, in duets and groups and accompanying singers.

REEDS & BAGPIPES, DRUMS & RHYTHMS VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD903
Recordings by Jean Jenkins & Paul Rovsing Olsen
A kaleidoscopic anthology of gourd-pipes, double clarinets, shawms, bagpipes and a variety of drums, played in contexts ranging from the private and spontaneous to the public and formal, from religious ceremonies to weddings, feasts and dances.

FOLK MUSIC OF ALBANIA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD904
Collected and edited by A.L. Lloyd
Albania's turbulent past, with its patchwork history of occupation, has produced a traditional rural music of remarkable variety as well as great beauty. Unaccompanied heroic ballads, funeral laments and political and lyrical songs are interspersed with dance-tunes on various lutes, flutes and reed instruments and by small bands. Recorded in the field in 1965 by A.L.Lloyd.

FOLK MUSIC OF BULGARIA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD905
Collected and edited by A.L. Lloyd
Lying between Europe and Asia, Bulgaria displays in its traditional music both the formal solidity of the West and the exotic colouring of the East. These recordings, mostly collected by A.L. Lloyd on trips in 1954 and 1963, are very diverse, including instrumental solos on the stringed tambura, dyudyuk (flute) and gadulka (fiddle), band music and songs for various functions. Especially captivating is the women's singing, whether solo or in group polyphony.

FOLK MUSIC OF YUGOSLAVIA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD906
Collected and edited by Wolf Dietrich
Visiting the Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia and Macedonia, the collector Wolf Dietrich recorded these fascinating vocal solos and duets and tunes played on bagpipes, fiddles, flutes and clarinets. The raw part-singing of amateur village performers is of particular beauty.

FOLK MUSIC OF GREECE VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD907
Collected and edited by Wolf Dietrich
Half-hidden behind the generic bouzouki music of the tourist-spot lies a vast range of Greek dance music and song. Flute, clarinet, violin, bagpipes and the three-stringed Cretan lyra evoke the landscape and life of Greece in a wide-ranging collection of atmospheric recordings from the mainland and islands.

FOLK MUSIC OF TURKEY VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD908
Collected and edited by Wolf Dietrich
The village music of Turkey, collected by Wolf Dietrich in the '60s and '70s, includes pastoral airs on flutes, festival music on davul (drum) and zurna (oboe) and songs intricately accompanied on the saz and cumbus lutes. There are also examples of dance music on the bagpipe and kemence fiddle.

VOCAL & INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF MONGOLIA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD909
Recorded by Jean Jenkins
The peoples of Mongolia prize singing and sung poetry, and this album, collected by Jean Jenkins, includes remarkable examples of highly ornamented lyrical song. The accompaniments and instrumental music are chiefly on the morinxuur (two-stringed fiddle) or limbe (flute), but there are also recordings of the yatga (zither), yenchin (hammered dulcimer) and jew's harp.

MUSIC FROM THE SHRINES OF AJMER & MUNDRA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD911
Recordings made in North India by John Levy
These important recordings of North Indian music, made by the well-known collector and broadcaster John Levy, document classical naubat, traditionally played by musicians in courtyards or over gateways in palaces and temples to mark the hours of the day, using shahna'i (oboe) and naqqara (kettledrums). Also included are examples of popular naubat, Kacchi Kafi devotional song and a rare mashak bagpipe solo.

MUSIC OF THE TATAR PEOPLE VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD912
Recorded by Laszio Vikar
The music of the Tatar people of the Central Volga region of Russia is an important link, according to the collector Laszlo Vikar, in the vast east-west chain that connects the musics of China and Hungary. In these unique field recordings, made by Vikar as assistant to the composer and musicologist Zoltan Kodaly, Tatars sing and play flute, jew's harp and fiddle.

FLUTE & GAMELAN MUSIC OF WEST JAVA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD913
Directed by Suyabrat
Gamelan, the indigenous art music of Indonesia, is played by orchestras of gongs, chimes and drums to evoke particular moods or folktales and to accompany dancing. Here a group of expert musicians weaves the unique tapestry of gamelan. Two of them also duet on flute and zither in equally evocative melodies.

GYPSY MUSIC OF MACEDONIA & NEIGHBOUR COUNTRIES VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD914
Collected in the field by Wolf Dietrich
'If davul and zurna are not present,' runs the Turkish proverb, 'I cannot be a bride.' The coupling of drum (davul) and double-reed pipe (zurna), heard in many regions of the world, is particularly widespread among the gipsies of the Balkans. Collector Wolf Dietrich has followed the trail of its 'vital and impulsive irresistibility' from Greece to Kosovo, Rumania and Turkey, his selection climaxing in an astounding 17 minute suite of tunes from Macedonia played by two Albanian pipers.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FROM GREECE VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD915
Collected in the field by Wolf Dietrich
Musicians in Crete, Zakynthos, Lesbos, Naxos and Epirus play traditional tunes and a few songs with violin, clarinet, lute and lyra for dances, wedding processions and other community events, while from Macedonia comes a village brass band. These atmospheric field-recordings were taped in cafes and musicians' homes and 'live' during wedding parties.

MUSIC OF MAKRAN: TRADITIONAL FUSION FROM COASTAL BALOCHISTAN
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD916
Recordings, text and photographs by Anderson Bakewell
The remote coastal area of Balochistan called Makran is the setting for a fusion of musical cultures from the Middle East, Indo-Pakistan and Africa, which have developed over centuries into a tradition of great intensity and beauty. Containing vocal and instrumental genres which demonstrate a high level of musicianship and improvisational artistry, much of this selection is drawn from the repertoire performed during healing ceremonies, music specifically devised to create suitable conditions for a state of trance. As such it makes demands upon a listener, whose full appreciation of its subtlety depends upon adopting another "way of listening", but whose efforts will be highly rewarded.

This release in the Topic World Series has been produced in conjunction with the International Music Collection of the British Library National Sound Archive. Started in 1955, The British Library National Sound Archive is one of the largest in the world and now holds over a million discs, 175,000 tapes and many other sound and video recordings.

The International Music Collection of the NSA holds recordings of traditional, folk and world music. Its aim is to collect, preserve and make accessible a comprehensive collection of music from all over the world. It covers thousands of styles and genres, both traditional and modern, from hundreds of countries.

International music has been a core collecting area for the NSA since its establishment and today the section is one of the largest and most wide-ranging in the world. One of the aims of the NSA is the wide dissemination of the music and information in its collections and the series of CDs produced in collaboration with Topic Records is a significant undertaking. For the most part the recordings are drawn from holdings of unpublished, unique field recordings, but they may also include reissues of 78rpm discs and LPs.

ZANZIBAR: MUSIC OF CELEBRATION VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD917
Recordings, text and photographs by Janet Topp Fargion
Taarab is the most common style of music performed at weddings on the island of Zanzibar - a unique blend of musical elements from the Middle East, India and the West, combined with, to varying degrees, local African musical practices. It is an essential ingredient of most celebrations. And when Zanzibaris are not playing taarab, they are playing maulidi. Although this is primarily a sober religious performance style (celebrating the birth of the Prophet Mohammed) it is also becoming common at wedding celebrations, albeit in a more extrovert guise. Here, recited chapters of the Koran are interspersed with kasida (hymns) accompanied on several tuned frame drums. These recordings, made at actual celebrations and in rehearsal for big events, give us a glimpse of the ethnic, religious, and gender composition of this Indian Ocean island culture.

HEALING FEASTING & MAGICAL RITUAL: PAPUA NEW GUINEA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD918
Recordings, text & photographs by John Thornley
Songs and dances of hunting, war, work, totemistic ritual, cannibalism, myth, initiation, courtship, rain-making, funerals, magical healing, shark catching and marathon feasting, recorded in remote coastal and inland villages in five far-flung regions of Papua New Guinea, to the north of Australia. One of the world's most mysterious countries, whose long, wide rivers are home to hundreds of different Melanesian cultures and languages.
These full-throated songs with their vibrant and often complex accompanimental drumming patterns show the richness and variety of the cultural traditions and beliefs of the communities of Papua New Guinea.
"… intense microtonal harmonies that are really arresting" Sing Out

THE MOKEN: SEA GYPSIES OF THE ANDAMAN SEA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD919
Recordings and text by Tom Vater
The Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Sea have been sailing up and down the west coast of the Malay Peninsula for hundreds of years. Traditionally living on their Kabang (self contained houseboats) and trading sea slugs, pearls, shells and bird's nests for life's necessities, many sea gypsies have now begun to settle permanently, and abandon their nomadic culture. Some like the Moken, continue to move between the islands, their ocean territory becoming ever more threatened by expanding tourism in Thailand and political repression in Myanmar. The Moken's music collected on this CD, recorded on a deserted beach between surf and jungle, is wild and unpredicatable, full of warmth and drama and yet as detached from our world as their hard, uncertain sea-faring lifestyle.

THE YEMEN TIHAMA: TRANCE & DANCE MUSIC FROM THE RED SEA COAST OF ARABIA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD920
Recordings and text by Anderson Bakewell
The ferocious heat on Tihama, the Red sea coastal plain of Yemen, is matched in its intensity by the tibbal music, an Afro-Arabian amalgam that features lyres, reeds and, particularly, virtuoso drumming. Its practitioners are largely drawn from the akhdam, an outcast group with a reputation for sorcery, who bring passion, skill and stamina to performances which accompany acrobatic dancing and ceremonial trance.
"..uncompromising and raw music with a rhythmic intensity that will have you either transfixed or running from the room." Songlines

BEFORE THE REVOLUTION: A 1909 RECORDING EXPEDITION IN THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA BY THE GRAMOPHONE COMPANY VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD921
Compilation and text by Will Prentice
In 1909, the Gramophone Company of London sent one of their recording engineers on an epic 5,000 mile journey across the southern regions of the Tsarist Russian Empire. From the Caucasus mountains to the deserts of Central Asia, Franz Hampe recorded the various cultures and ethnic groups he encountered.
What resulted was an incredibly intimate view of pre-Soviet life, in the form of almost 1,200 music recordings. Now, for the first time in over 90 years, a representative sample from the expedition can be heard. The 23 tracks include Caucasian male choirs, classical maqam singers from Bukhara and the Ferghana Valley, and a nomadic singer from the Kazakh Steppes, among others.
From Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and other culture groups in the northern Caucasus, as well as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Xinjiang in Central Asia, they were recorded at a point when few of these names appeared on any map. Digitally remastered and with extensive liner notes, this CD offers a rare link to a virtually unknown time, before the Soviet era changed the lives and music practices of the region for ever.
Remastered from rare 78 rpm discs to give outstanding sound - from nearly a century ago.

• "They burst out of the limitations of pre-electric recording - fantastic - feature(s) excellent notes and photographs and sound very good for their age. Recordings nearly a century old don't come much better" Songlines
• "My favourites are the trio from the Ferghana Valley: modern falsettists ca't compare with this crazy
stuff...an incredibly intimate view of pre-Soviet life..." Amazon.com
• "Some of the most extraordinary vintage ethnic recordings ever to have survived - a breathtaking tapestry of music from an era that, a mere decade later, had all but disappeared and would never again be recorded in such depth. Every performance is a revelation. The remastering is splendid - vintage re-issue of the year." fROOTS
• "As a document of a time and a region it’s invaluable. The re-mastering .. is nothing less than superb. This is a must-have for libraries, colleges, music libraries and collectors. Amazing." Worldmusicstore.com
• "Obviously this release was taken as seriously as the original field trip, and the effort really shows. Strongly recommended" Dirty Linen
• "The recording of Armenian musicians in Tiflis is extraordinarily beautiful and of incredible quality" Songlines

DRUMMING & CHANTING IN GOD'S OWN COUNTRY: THE TEMPLE MUSIC OF KERALA IN SOUTH AFRICA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD922
Recordings, photographs and text by Rolf Killius
Cut off from the rest of the Indian mainland by the expansive Western Ghats mountain range, and open to the influences of the Arabian Sea via its 1000km coastline, the culture of the tiny Indian state of Kerala in the very south west of the country, is quite different from that of the rest of the Indian subcontinent.
In addition to the friendly people and the endless green of the countryside dotted with coconut trees, Kerala impresses through its man-made soundscape, largely centred around the ubiquitous Hindu temples. Derived from ancient forms and supplemented with performance and visual arts, brightened with elephant processions, special pujas (worshipping forms) and fancy shops, these events form the main leisure time attraction of the Hindu population.
The recordings on this CD, made in and around these between 1995 and 1997, demonstrate the vast range of performance genres. The huge percussion orchestra performances, the ancient styles of devotional singing, and the small music ensembles featuring rare traditional instruments like the huge C-shaped horn, the kombu, are some of these electrifying styles.

GUMBOOT GUITAR: ZULU STREET GUITAR MUSIC FROM SOUTH AFRICA VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD923
Remarkable rootsy guitar from the streets of Durban. Recordings by Janet Topp Fargion & Albert Nene. Text by Janet Topp Fargion.
The guitar probably arrived in South Sfrica with Portuguese or Arab sailors back in the 16th century, but it only started to enter vernacular African traditions in the late 19th century. The discovery of gold and diamonds in South Africa at that time brought large numbers of African workers from all parts of the country - all looking for new forms of expression and relaxation. Music previously played on Zulu musical bows was transferred in the new urban environment to the guitar and often concertina and violin too. the music was called maskanda.

Musicians played for their own enjoyment, but they also joined miners' gumboot dance teams to accompany this exhilarating genre. Often lacking in formal performance areas, most of this music-making traditionally takes place on the streets of single-sex hostel compounds. These recordings from 1988 and 1996 feature musicians and gumboot players who live in one such hostel outside Durban.
• "Exciting, rough and ready grooves " BBC Radio 2 World Music Reviews
• "This is the real deal, street music played by people who work hard all day and play at night or on the weekend. The real roots of South Africa umbaquanga music are right here. There’s a variety of sound on Gumboot Guitar as far as instruments are concerned: on gumboot-dominated tunes, the guitar plays rhythmic chords with a very percussive attack. A pounding beat is also belted out by an accordion or concertina on most tunes…powerful.” Worlddiscoveries.net

EWE DRUMMING FROM GHANA: the soup which is sweet draws the chairs in closer
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD924
Recordings and text by James Burns

The Ewe people of Ghana and Togoare reknowned for their polyrhythmic drumming and beautiful call and response singing. Travelling through this region, one is struck by the way in which they have preserved their traditional music alongside the new cultural ideas brought by globalisation.
The Dzigbordi group is a community dance drumming group that people from all age groups can join. On this CD they perform several classic dances from the Ewe repertoire before moving on to their own 'proprietary' dance - The Dzigbordi (Patience) Dance. Usually these dances are performed live at funerals and religious ceremonies, but for this recording, the group chose a secluded courtyard outside the town, resulting in a crystal clear sound that showcases both the drums and the songs.

THE KING'S MUSICIANS: ROYALIST MUSIC OF BUGANDA - UGANDA
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD925
Recordings and text by Peter Cooke & Klaus Wachsmann

Possibly no other African rulers maintained such a rich variety of musical ensembles at their courts as the Kabakas (kings) of Buganda. For several centuries their kingdom was the largest and most powerful state in central Africa and their palaces resounded throughout each day with music. Here is a unique sample of this musical richness, featuring the two different xylophone ensembles, the royal flute band, the songs of the king's harpist and lyre players, as well as praise drumming and dancing.
In 1966 the kingdom was suppressed by Prime Minister Obote and King Mutesa died in exile. Though some of the old musicians gave an ecstatic musical welcome to his son, Mutebi on his return in 1987 (also recorded here), some of this music may soon become little more than dim memory.
• "Astonishing recordings from the 1960s and 80s – great recordings of a vanished tradition. A best album of 2003.” The Wire

VOCAL DUELS FROM THE STREETS OF LIMA
JARANA'S FOUR ACES TSCD926
Recordings produced by José Durand Flórez
Text by Guillermo Durand Allison and David Mortara

This recording from Peru, produced in 1958 by the late Latin American literary historian, Professor José Durand Flórez (Peru, 1925-1990) is unique in that it features Manuael Quintana Olivares and Augusto Ascuez Villanueva, two of the most important practitioners of jarana who have ever lived, singing canto de jarana with Elías Ascuez Villanueva and Luciano Huambachano Temoche (both also playing guitars), known locally as the "four aces".
This CD tells a fascinating story of the emergence of the genre jarana, with the development of perhaps Latin America's most intriguing capital city and the people who lived there and created this exceptional music.

OUT OF CUBA: Latin American Music Takes Africa By Storm
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD927
Compilation and text by Janet Topp Fargion

This HMV GV series is a catalogue of roughly 250 double sided 78rpm discs issued between 1933 and about 1958, comprising almost entirely Latin music, mainly from Cuba but also from Puerto Rico and Brazil. It drew on recordings originated by Gramaphone and Victor (hence the GV prefix). The series was aimed initially at the West African market, but subsequently reached and became very popular across the entire African continent, particularly in the Congos.
This CD provides a snapshot of what African musicians heard as they listened to the GV recordings on record, on the radio and live in local bars.

BLOWERS FROM THE BALKANS: Classic Historic Recordings Featuring: clarinet, tárogató, nai, bagpipes, kaval etc
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD928
Compilation and text by Risto Pekka Pennanen

Blowers from the Balkans presents a remarkable collection of historic recordings from virtuoso players of wind instruments from the countries that make up the Balkans – Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and the newly independent parts of the former Yugoslavia. The recordings were made over a period spanning from the 1906 through to the mid 1940s. All have been re-mastered to the highest standards to produce outstanding sound quality.

The featured instruments include clarinets (and related reed instruments), panpipes, bagpipe and flutes with a variety of backings and the package is completed with detailed notes from the compiler Risto Pekka Pennanen as well as historic photographs.

SONGS FROM THE STEPPES: Kazakh Music Today
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD929
Recordings by Michael Church

Invited to judge a classical piano competition in the Kazakh capital, Astana, music critic Michael Church stumbled on a parallel competition for players on the flute and horse-hair fiddle, and for ballad singers self-accompanied on the lute. Realising that the cultural heritage of this vast – and politically crucial – land was unknown in the West, Church went back to record Kazakh nomad music in both Astana and in the old capital, Almaty, near the border with Kyrgystan. The result is this remarkable and riveting CD.

Until Stalin penned them up in their collective farms and factories, the Kazakhs were a nomadic people. Village shamans cast their spells with music, and travelling bards would deliver ballads and epics, which would function like newspapers. Church’s recordings reflect the vigour of Kazakhstan’s present-day bardic tradition, and the virtuosity of the horse-hard fiddlers. It also reveals a new magic which young musicians are creating with ancient instruments; like the jew’s harp and zither which combine with the richness of Kazakhstan’s vocal music. Each singer has his or her own distinct style and sound, and they all project as though they are calling out to us from across this remote and hitherto under explored region.

Songs of the Steppes, recorded in the winter snows, offers a fascinating and unique musical journey.

BAGPIPES OF GREECE
VARIOUS ARTISTS TSCD930
Recordings and notes by Wolf Dietrich

An exciting collection of authentic Greek bagpipes recorded across the entire country over the last thirty years or more. Many of the musicians are shepherds and peasants and have been recorded in their homes or local environments.

Currently, Greece appears to have no bagpipe revival (perhaps due to the lack of bagpipe makers) so these recordings chronicle a rare traditional culture.