Music of Oceania – The Abelam of Papua Niugini

01 Drum Calls For The Slit Drums (1:05)
02 Drum Signal (1:20)
03 Men’s Song (1:59)
04 Antiphony To The Ancestral Spirits (2:52)
05 Nocturnal Song I (4:00)
06 Nocturnal Song II (3:43)
07 Introductory Song To A Speech (:53)
08 Concluding Song I (2:03)
09 Concluding Song II (2:07)
10 Ocarinas And Bamboo Flutes (1:24)
11 Antiphony For Initiation (2:41)
12 Men’s Song For Initiation Rite (4:16)
13 Dance Song Preceding The Yam Festival (1:28)
14 Men’s Song for Yam Festival I (2:55)
15 Men’s Song for Yam Festival II (2:14)
16 Men’s Song For The Ancestral Spirit (1:57)
17 Men’s Song At A Death Ritual (1:59)
18 Songs At A Wake I (2:20)
19 Songs At A Wake II (2:00)

Total time 43:10
LP released by Musicaphon, Disco-Center, Kassel, West Germany, 1980

Nothing can prepare you to New Guinea’s ethnic music. The fact it is not much circulated doesn’t help either. Before I go any further, I shall notice these recordings are either initiation, ceremonial or sacred events, and shouldn’t be considered merely as music, or worse, entertainment. Nevertheless, I will discuss their sonic properties only. The Abelam are a tribe from North of the Sepik River and south of the Prince Alexander Mountains, in North-Eastern Papua New Guinea. The recordings were made by Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin in 1978-83, with a few tracks recorded by Professor Dr. Gerd Koch in 1966, both German ethnomusicologists working on Swiss funding. Here’s how the liner notes describe the record: ‘Side A [tr.#1-10] consists of drum signals, songs and instrumental music connected with the erection and inauguration of a ceremonial house. Side B has excerpts from songs (some with instrumental accompaniment) performed at yam festivals and rites of passage’ [liner notes, introduction to The Recordings chapter]. The Abelam’s music combine microtonal, minimal percussion on hourglass and slit drums, and choir chant, often in antiphony style, that is, alternating male and female voices. Typically, the drums will perform long accelerandos, leading the singers in parallel glissandos.

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Zulu Songs from South Africa

01 Delisa Sibiya ‘Uyongilobola ngani?’ (4:01)
02 Delisa Sibiya ‘Olwani ujakalwani?’ (2:16)
03 Delisa Sibiya ‘Amadoda kashelani’ (2:38)
04 Delisa Sibiya ‘Sengiyahamba’ (3:22)
05 Delisa Sibiya ‘Molo molo wenkhwenyana’ (3:05)
06 Nomashizolo Msimango ‘Madoda ngenzeni na?’ (4:50)
07 Trizinah Dlamini ‘Ubalwana lwami’ (7:11)
08 Delisa Sibiya, Dora Zulu, Muphokuhle Buthelezi, Clement Sithole ‘Inkomo iyakhuluma’ (3:02)
09 Delisa Sibiya, Dora Zulu, Muphokuhle Buthelezi ‘Uyababona abelungu’ (3:05)
10 Phumzile Mazulu Mpanza ‘Emathanjeni’ (5:22)

Total time 38:45
LP released by Lyrichord LLST 7401, USA, 1987

Intimate, micro-tonal blues songs recorded 1982 in Maphophoma and Ethebini, in the Nongoma area of Kwa-Zulu Natal province, South Africa. This fine Lyrichord LP offers plenty of striking, metallic sounds from bowed instruments recorded in the field among a small assembly (laughters, coughs and baby cries are sometimes heard). Close miking technique allows the listener to enjoy the richness of the instruments’ harmonics. Delisa Sibiya, a young woman from Maphophoma plays the umakhweyana, a bowed instrument with a gourd resonator (actually, a calabash) where a metallic wire is fixed to the resonator via a loop. The bow can play 2 fundamental notes only, while partials can be produced while putting the finger near the loop – Delisa Sibiya is a master of the trick. Other instruments featured on this LP are the ugubhu and the isicelekeshe, a kind of zither (pictured on the cover), mostly played by female singers. Harry Partch himself owned an ugubhu, a one stringed Zulu instrument (see here), ’struck with a stick, extending over a curved branch of eucalyptus attached to a gourd resonator’ (Partch in Genesis Of A Music, 1947. Quoted in Bob Gilmore’s Harry Partch biography, Yale, 1998, p. 320). Partch’s satge play ‘Delusion Of The Fury’ (1969) included parts for ugubhu that he called ‘ugumbo’.

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Brume/Sudden Infant ‘Sperm Plus Egg’

01 Tadpole In (2:09)
02 Sudden Infant Sperm Children (5:12)
03 Brume Love Me Tender (6:00)
04 Tadpole Out (3:26)

Total time 16:47
7” released by Anomalous, TAD-001, USA, 1992

Berlin-based performance artist Sudden Infant (Joke Lanz) was touring France and Germany last June, with a set of songs from a 2009 self-released cassette titled ‘Parental Guidance’ (and not, surprisingly, with songs from his 2008 CD ‘Psychotic Einzelkind’, including Thurston Moore and Z’EV remixes, no less). His Paris show was so emotionally challenging and sonically impressive, I rummaged through my collection for old Sudden Infant stuff to post and found this single. It came in a hand-made cover in an edition of 500. Apparently the first and only in a series of split singles on an Anomalous Records subdivision called Tadpole, presumably run by Danielle Sklar aka Tadpole. Sklar also contributed to some records on Germany’s Selektion label as well. ‘Sperm Plus Egg’ is centered on babyhood, explicitely so on the Tadpole tracks (including lots of cute cooings and ga-ings), more vaguely adressed in the Sudden Infant [+] and Brume tracks. Both deliver so-called industrial music with an electroacoustic and musique concrète touch.

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Gede Manik ‘Bali Barong’

01 Bereta Yuda (5:19)
02 Golang Kanjin (6:20)
03 Improvisation (4:46)
04 2e Improvisation (2:51)
05 Lambata Sari Anom (7:06)
06 Puapr Sari Yuda (6:04)
07 Taruna Jaya (10:10)

Total time 42:30
LP released on Disjuncta Records, France, 1975

Richard Pinhas created Disjuncta Records in 1974 to release his own project Heldon as well as other French musicians like Alain Renaud, Zao or Nyl. Disjuncta was arguably the first totally independent French label, benefiting from Pinhas’ home studio facility. They sell their records to independent stores and through mail-order only. This LP was recorded by Jean-François Bizot (1944-2007, founder of Actuel magazine and Radio Nova independent radio) during the shooting of his film ‘La Route’ (French for The Road) in 1972 in Bali. The technical team recorded Gede Manik (aka I Gede Manik), the world famous kebyar-style gamelan composer and choreographer in Jagaraga, the most important musical center of North Bali. The liner notes by Jean François Pinseau (aka Jean-François Bizot himself) quotes from Artaud Theater Of Cruelty. If you’re familiar with kebyar gamelan, you know what to expect: ultra fast gamelan percussion with occasional flute. This was recorded during an informal setting with Gede Manik conducting.

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Eva Perouk ‘Auto Da Fe – La Semaine D’une Somnambuliste’

01 Luna Squamosa (6:01)
02 Chronos And Pericles (10:30)
03 Passage Of Jupiter (8:32)
04 Lundi (4:20)
05 Mardi (1:12)
06 Mercredi (3:26)
07 Jeudi (3:31)
08 Vendredi (4:04)
09 Samedi (4:44)
10 Dimanche (3:56)

Total time 50mn
Cassette released on Unlikey Records, UK, 1985

When he wants his mother to be proud of him, Davy Walklett uses the Eva Perouk alias to release almost ear-friendly music. Nowadays, there’s even a Davy Walklett in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain [+], and if this is our man, he travelled a long way since the horrendous Smell & Quim releases of the 1990s. The A-side of this  cassette is based on the ‘Plastique Totale’ concept (see manifest at bottom of this post), where everything translates into everything else and a media can convey the emotions from another media. ‘Auto Da Fe’ is a suite for synth loops, treated electronic sounds and dead-pan vocals. This is Walklett/Srdenovic on electroacoustic mode producing intense, disturbing music.

‘Auto Da Fe’ uses the technique of ‘Plastique Totale’ to achieve an evocation (and/or exploration) of the darker recesses of human existence. ‘La Semaine D’une Somnambuliste’ is also evocational using more traditional, simpler means to achieve a nostalgic and gently melancholic mood. Eva Perouk: daughter of Fernando Perouk, ranching millionaire and noted flautist; studied at the Conservatory of Music of Bunos Aires (1970-75) receiving several commandations. [from info sheet above]

The B-side illustrates the 7 days of the week (titles in French). The names of the week being based on Roman Gods, it’s a continuation of sorts from the A side’s Latin titles. The title ‘La Semaine D’une Somnambuliste’ refers to Max Ernst’s book of collages ‘Une Semaine De Bonté’ (see here), itself based on the 7 days of the week. The music on this side is an acceptable Richard Clayderman impersonation on synth piano. Now wait: don’t listen to this alone if you are a Smell & Quim fan.

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PLASTIQUE TOTALE MANIFEST
ANUAL JISSOM 1988 [+]

Various ‘Annual Jissom’

01 Jody And The Creams ‘The Revolving Countess’ (2:46)
02 Webcore ‘Fly Wheel Fly’ (5:09)
03 Hugh Thomas ‘Anal Fistula’ (3:21)
04 Swing Jugend ‘Slowly Dipped and Wriggling’ (3:47)
05 Blind Boy Grunt ‘Dead Girls Don’t Cry’ (3:41)
06 John Boardman ‘The Orgasmic Circle Of 330,216,446′ (4:44)
07 Pseudonymous Bosch ‘Sandwich And Outside’ (14:25)
08 Hinchcliffe And Dick ‘Leave Now’ (2:47)
09 Abstract Skulls ‘Skarp Hedin’s Axe’ (3:25)
10 Abstract Skulls ‘Kicking The Can Blues’ (1:18)
11 Milovan Srdenovic And Jar ‘Virgins Anus Mantra Ray’ (0:34)
12 Smell And Quim ‘Albert Cometh’ (1:00)

Total time 46:09
Cassette+magazine released by GTOG, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, 1988

From the dark vaults of Smell & Quim’s headquarters in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, came ‘Annual Jissom’, a 1988 magazine+cassette release. This monstrosity is a compendium of insane acts from UK labels like Cordelia Records, Stinky Horse Fuck, Unlikely Records, Hajra and Swing Music (all but the first from Yorkshire, of all places). The zine itself offers short stories, comic strips, drawings, collages in a rather ambitious mix of artwork and literature by various local luminaries including Milovan Srdenovic or cartoonist Les Coleman, as well as unclassifiable mavericks like John Trubee (with a sexually explicit written manifesto, not included in the scans) or Diz Willis (an excerpt from his ‘Diaries Of Richard Burton’). While not as horrendous as regular Smell & Quim releases artwork, the zine still includes the typical blasphemies and sexually provocative content here and there. The cassette is a robust mix of depraved lyrics, Yorkshire post-industrial rock, sound poetry and spoken word. It starts with 2 bass-heavy, new-wave acts from the Cordelia stable (Jody And The Creams and Webcore) ; Srdenovic himself appears in various guises (Abstract Skulls, S&Q and very likely Blind Boy Grunt with its blunt pedophiliac/necrophiliac, inept lyrics) ; Hugh Thomas delivers a short, partially speaking-in-tongues, sound poetry track, obviously recorded at home on portable cassette ; Swing Jugend is P. Walsh, aka Smell & Quim member Paul Nonnen, for yet another West Yorkshire sinister offering with low rumbles a-plenty (see attached ‘Severe Lactations’ ad) ; also included is the longest phone prank I’ve ever heard: Sandwich And Outside, credited to Pseudonymous Bosch. Here’s what Diz Willis specialist Phil Smith wrote about the track:

I think THAT one is Diz, doing his cheesy French accent (he lived there for a bit). I thought that was pretty amusing, spinning the guy out without just being downright rude as in many prank calls . . . The slightly misspelt HinchCliffe and Dick must be George Hinchcliffe, now of the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain… they were all pals. (email, May 3rd, ‘09)

There’s enough insanity in this collection of tracks to offend any innocent listener, but the musical side (so to speak) is quite varied and surprising, hopping from the lugubrious to the hilarious while actually getting close to the ‘lowest form of art’ at times. The magazine and tape obviously contain immature material, but multifarious bad jokes are delivered with tongue firmly in cheek and a joyous, messy artistry throughout. Thanks to Phil for invaluable help writing this post. Diz Willis is fortunate indeed to have such a dedicated archivist. Contact him if you have any Willis-related material (philreadsbooks [at] hotmail [dot] com) or if, like me, you have any question regarding Diz Willis!

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More Yorkshire hysteria on Continuo:
Diz Willis >
Milovan Srdenovic > & >
Davy Walklett >

‘Watervalwater – Ecrits Bruts Oratorium’

01 Hymne (0:56)
02 Qaqi (1:08)
03 Les Mots (3:22)
04 Je Suis Boeuf (2:12)
05 Huiskamer (0:44)
06 Rembrant (4:43)
07 Feest – Deel 1 (1:27)
08 Aproppo (2:43)
09 Teleologie (1:17)
10 Rawanda (2:53)
11 Feest – Deel 2 (1:42)
12 Blitzen Uber Die Bleef (1:32)
13 Gloria (2:44)
14 Liturgie Van Het Doopsel (5:51)
15 Liturgie Van Het Huwelijk (3:22)
16 Uitvaartliturgie (14:06)
17 Johnny In A (10:38)
18 Liefdeslied (1:20)

Total time 60:00
CD released by Ferri Records, Belgium, 2001

The Watervalwater project is the brainchild of Belgian stage director Wim De Wulf and composer Johan De Smet. It was performed at the Psychiatric Center Caritas in Melle, Belgium by a cast of volunteer patients as musicians and actors, supported by professional singers and musicians including the Flemish Radio Choir (see De Smet interview in Flemish). The texts are based on inpatients’ writings like Michel Dave, Jim Vanden Bossche, Frans Kruye, plus a pair of famous untaught writers, namely Adolf Wölfli and Vaclav Nijinski, mostly sung in Flemish with the occasional French and German. Johan De Smet is a neo-classical composer who was involved in a few weird projects along the years, especially setting to music the Marc Sleen’s Nero comic strip in 1984 and the silly Kamagurka comic strips with Peter Van Heirseele (see here). Also a member of The Simpletones, De Smet is best known for his stage music for Flanders theater companies. The music he composed for Watervalwater is contemporary classical music for small orchestra, singers and choir with echoes of Darius Milhaud’s Boeuf Sur Le Toit, Hans Werner Henze’s L’Upupa and Policcino, or Adolf Wölfli’s Gelesen Und Vertont 1978 LP (download here). I guess you’ll have to trust my word on this one, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the references above, but this is actually an amazing project. The weirdness of the whereabouts only enhances the special quality of this unique event.

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Riga Raga ‘Musica Nòstra’

01 Lo Fringaire (1:20)
02 Regret De Maidon (2:10)
03 A Minjat Mon Blat (2:15)
04 Regret Cabreta + Goanhadas (5:48)
05 O, Es Aici Lo Mes De Mai (1:30)
06 Canta, Canta Caramel (0:30)
07 Tè L’ can Tè (0:30)
08 Lo Pastor (5:10)
09 Rigaudon (0:30)
10 Papa Luna (0:20)
11 Granda (2:40)
12 Charivaris I (3:10)
13 Charivaris II (2:25)
14 Improvisacion Rebuta (2:25)
15 Sava, Sava (0:15)

Total time 32:00
LP released by Edicions Revolum [+], Toulouse, France, 1979

The Riga Raga project was launched by writer, poet and musician Claude Sicre and ethnomusicologist Luc Charles-Dominique in Toulouse in 1977. Their music blends 13th century Troubadours’s songwriting style named Tenson (a poetic duet with Question and Answer parts), with Occitan language and folk instruments. Claude Sicre’s originality was to add Brazilian percussion style from the Nordeste area and radical use of traditional instruments from the South of France. A strategy perfectly exemplified in his duo with Ange B. (aka Jean-Marc Enjalbert) called The Fabulous Trobadors (first CD: Èra pas de faire, in 1992). The Riga Raga other members were ethno-musicologists, revivalists and local musicians from the Toulouse area. There is a political message in their refusal of traditional folk music, as they consider the latter a downgraded version of grass root traditions. The music on this LP is quite radical in its use of the folk music idiom, in the variety of instrumentation (jew’s harp solos, weird percussion instruments, small bagpipes, whistles, etc). Sounds at times like pygmy chanting, later like a Biota unplugged improvisation session. Vocal acrobatics include: singing with one’s nose pinched, singing while playing the jew’s harp, dialogue with a barking dog, to name but a few. ‘Riga Raga’ is the Occitan word for wooden rattle. Other instruments include: 2 flutes played simultaneously ; brau (or pignato), a percussion instrument ; cabrette (small bagpipes) ; rebuta, a jew’s harp ; stones used as percussion instruments ; ferrat, a water bucket played with a bow ; wooden whistle, etc. Expect weird sounds, hardly sounding like folk music at all.

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