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March-April 2008
A Black Mirror Resonates With Songs Far and Ancient
By David Bragger
Once again, Dust-To-Digital (www.dust-digital.com) has
delivered a kaleidoscopic ride into the other side of time: Black Mirror-- Reflections in Global Musics.
Pat Conte's Secret Museum of Mankind series left me dumbfounded and wanting
more old-time world music. Fortunately, we have Ian Nagoski, Baltimore record store owner/experimental
musician. Nagoski is the curator behind this compilation of world music 78
recordings.
The sides were cut from 1918 to 1955 and represent many lands
including India, Burma, Thailand,
Java, Greece
and Japan.
Eighteen of the tracks appear for the first time as reissues in the United States.
When initially asked to do the project, Nagoski meticulously created charts and
graphs to outline "the human experience" while considering the appropriate cuts
for the CD. He later adjusted the approach and chose his very favorite tracks
culled from his extensive library of 78 records. It is a journey into the aural
valley of shellac with its exotic pipes, Martian metallophones and holy
fiddles. It's sort of like hanging out with Ian Nagoski while he's playing you
his favorite 78s, but without Nagoski actually being there. Sounds like a wild
time to me!!
In a sound interview on the Dust-To-Digital site he tells
the story of "finding" the opening track: Kamanagah
by Syrian Christian violinist Naim Karakand. This incredibly rare record was
given to him by a 78 record collector. He pointed out the cracked record's
curious repair to Nagoski. Its grooves were realigned by microscope, stapled
back together and coated so as not to harm the needle. The collector told
Nagoski that if he didn't like it, he "had to give it back." He loved it. Soon
after it tragically broke during a cold winter. He confessed to the collector
friend who miraculously found another copy on eBay. Nagoski purchased it and
soon after his shelf came crashing down destroying the second copy. A year
later, this friend found a third copy of this rare gem and it thankfully
survived for our listening astonishment. The violin dramatically imitates the
zamr hornpipe, a conical single reed instrument common throughout the Middle East.
A noteworthy track features a 1928 gamelan performance,
which is the firs t Balinese gamelan recording made for commercial release. Kebyar Ding, I performed by Gong
Belaloewana Bali was recorded under the supervision of German-national painter
and intellectual Walter Spies. His story is as interesting as the music. In
fact this gamelan track with its fevered and dynamic manipulation of metallic
bells and gongs would make a great soundtrack for the retelling of Spies' fate.
Walter Spies moved to Bali, advocated Balinese arts, invited stars like Charlie
Chaplin and Noel Coward to Bali, co-authored a book about Balinese performance,
was imprisoned during a Dutch witch hunt for homosexuals, interned in Sumatra,
shipped to Ceylon, bombed in transit, and left to drown despite orders to save
him. Nagoski's notes prove that 78 recordings often tell great tales beyond
their recorded soundwaves.
Black Mirror also gives us
teasers of early Burmese "sway" dance music, something I had the fortune of
witnessing in Burma (Myanmar)
a few years ago. The 1919 Uilleann pipe performance of Drowsy Maggie by Vaudevillian comic and musician Patsy Touhey is
highly ornamented and charged with an ecstatic locomotion of trills. Film
singer diva Lata Mangeshkar commandeers a sonic journey with Aayega Aanewaala, a supernatural theme
song from the 1949 magical epic Mahal.
But why go on? Buy this CD and let the sounds of far away places and ancient
times seduce you this evening.
David Bragger is a Los Angeles-based
instructor and player of old time fiddle and banjo music. He also photographs,
films, and collects the lore of traditional artists, from puppeteers in Myanmar
to fiddlers of Appalachia http://www.myspace.com/davidbragger
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