TSCD920 THE YEMEN TIHAMA: TRANCE AND DANCE MUSIC FROM THE RED SEA COAST OF ARABIA

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

<<Please click here for a full size back cover picture and track listing .

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 For the most part the recordings are drawn from holdings of unpublished, unique field recordings, but they may also include reissues of 78rpm discs and LPs.

From the World & Traditional Music Section of the British Library Sound Archive>>

Click here to go back to the Topic World Series catalogue list.