THAI NEW YEAR IN LA… AND THE FILMS OF APICHATPONG WEERASETTHAKUL, (in which cause + effect = NOT)

New Year in Thailand is something of a joke, i.e. ‘which one’? Never one to sit out a party, Thailand celebrates them all, the international farang (western) one on Jan. 1, the Chinese lunar-calendar moveable feast in February, and an ancient one, Khmer-derived I think, in November (which many people don’t seem to even know about). But the main one, hands down, occurs on April 13-15 (it seems like forever up north), and is better known amongst foreigners as the Water Festival. Wear protection. Buddhist-oriented and tied to the Indian astrological calendar, ‘Thai’ New Year thus spreads across borders and into neighboring country’s ‘Tai’ and other communities, including Laos, where it’s known as ‘Lao New Year’ and Kampuchea, where it is known as ‘Khmer New Year’ (but NOT ‘the water festival’, since they already have another). Well, as fate would have it, it even spreads across the ocean to Hollywood Blvd., between Western and Normandie. We can do without the water over here, thank you, but otherwise it’s much the same- time to reunite with family and renew your vows with the holy men from the local temple, ask them to bless your existence and consecrate your life. The fact that it is days earlier than the ‘real’ one back home doesn’t seem to bother anyone, since the meaning’s the same. This IS America, after all… and this is my LA.

I think I met Apichatpong Weerasetthakul at the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival back in Dec. 1999. I’m not sure because we were never really introduced and the meeting wasn’t all that memorable, not because he wasn’t the hottest thing in foreign indie films at the time- which he WASN’T- but because the guy is so quiet and low-key. In fact, when I first became aware of Apichatpong’s work in 1994 with the release of Sut Pralat (which does NOT translate to ‘Tropical Malady’ btw) and read that he was one of the honchos of BEFF, I assumed he was the gregarious and outspoken character that I remembered most distinctly, until I googled his picture a couple weeks ago and had a little aha moment, i.e. aha! That’s the other guy! If I remember correctly, Apichatpong was maybe more interested in me, in fact, than I in him, simply because I was the only- ONLY- farang (westerner) who showed up at the temple of experimental film every day, living and breathing it, just like religion. He seemed quite taken by that fact. I’d like to think that I shot up a little flag that influenced his career right then and there, that instead of busting his hump to make lame-ass ghost films that might appeal to a few million Thais, he could make some really good artsy ghost films that might appeal to a few million farangs- like me- around the world. If you were an artist, which would YOU rather do, make good films or bad ones?

With all due respect to J. Hoberman and his characterization of Apichatpong as “the acme of no-budget, Buddhist-animist, faux-naïve, avant-pop, magic neorealism” (whew!), I’d like to propose maybe a minor correction or two. Apichatpong IS an artist, a consummate one, but he’s NOT naïve, not at all, and he’s definitely not faux. He’s Thai. Though he was educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago - and so knows exactly what is good art and what is not- he is still quintessentially Thai. He is quintessentially Thai in the same way that Fellini is quintessentially Italian or Eastwood is quintessentially American (and yes, Clint Eastwood is a great director, one of America’s greatest). He defines the nationality by his characters, and in turn defines his characters by their nationality. He could even be seen as the anti-Fellini or the anti-Clint, where, instead of all these people with all these dreams doing this or that with Clint, or all hell breaking loose- picturesquely- with Federico, almost nothing happens overtly in Apichatpong’s films, at least not in any particular direction, yet at the same time one is swept up into it, subtly engrossed by it, and ultimately liberated by it.

This is the dark side, and that’s not bad. The dark side is beautiful, alluring, irrational, and superstitious- especially superstitious- but not bad. On the dark side everything is the opposite of the ‘real’ world. Our Christian democratic proactive cost-effective positive-thinking fashion-forward work-ethic equation (cause 1+ cause 2= effect) falls flat on its face in this dimension, not for any special reason, but for the absolute lack of it. That’s the equation, get it? Hang that ‘=’ anywhere you like and it’s all the same, i.e. sh*ts happen. Whether this is due to the ultimate passivity of Buddhism or not is not important. In this dimension the fact that anybody accomplishes anything, is not only NOT a miracle, it’s a lie. Things are accomplished, present passive reflective, but the who what why are frequently murky. Save those w’s for your URL. The only truth is in your belief, not the chronology of occurrences. And it ain’t faux. It’s real.

When two hundred aerobicists dance to pop music in the park in Syndromes and a Century (or whatever they called it), that is not magico-realistic staging, that’s Thailand. When a dozen different characters say the same thing over and over and over, that’s not existential reiteration. That’s Thailand… and the list goes on. But it doesn’t matter if no one really understands Apichatpong, as long as they accept his reality as accurate… and beautiful, within its own terms. For within it all is vindicated- Thailand, Buddhism, Asia, the power of the empty hand, me- for having spent ten years of my life there, never sure of who I was fooling- and ultimately, all of us, living our pathetic little lives in what should be a state of at least heightened expectation, if not exalted bliss. I only regret that I missed my chance to suck up to Apichatpong when I had it… but that’s not the Buddhist way… or is it? He obviously didn’t need the encouragement, but I did.

Apichatpong’s new movie is called ‘Uncle Boonmee Remembers His Past Lives’. It won Palm d’Or at Cannes last year. No, I haven’t seen it yet, since I refuse to spend half the day going to Santa Monica and back. I’m too busy trying to finish the final draft to Pancho and Lefty. I’ll wait for Netflix to send it to me. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t, though. Who knows? Something good might happen. That IS the essence of Buddhism, after all, at least Thai-style. Do good things and good things will happen to you, sooner or later, somehow some way, hopefully in this lifetime, pure if not simple. Save your money on the summer retreat. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether the critics ‘get’ Apichatpong or not… as long as they give him the thumb up. Thailand has found its Jarmusch, if not its Del Toro. Let’s call it ‘imagino-realism’. That sounds more realistic.

Native American Music Lives!!! (North of the 49th parallel, too)…

When you think of Native American music, you probably think of it most often as a genre, typically exemplified by the prominent roles of flute and drum, lilting windswept melodies over pulsing drum beats, words frequently limited to chanting and vocal percussion, a sound that has not only earned it a niche in New Age music circles, but spawned a host of imitators, also. South American folkloric groups long accustomed to playing similar instruments have even taken to copying their North American cousins outright in major European capitals, wearing buckskin and Lakota war bonnets while invoking the Mohicans and others by name in their effort to sell albums while busking. Hey, work’s work, I guess. Just don’t let Russell Means catch you.

But Native American music is more than a genre of course. Native American music is music made by Native Americans. In Arizona alone that can run the gamut from the classic flute style of Carlos Nakai to the politico-punk of Blackfire and a plethora of styles in between. I’m still not sure what genre Keith Secola and his Wild Band of Indians fit into. And that doesn’t even count such icons of pop/rock as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson and Daniel Lanois, all from Canada.

Yes, Canada’s got a whole lotta’ music, too, not the least of which are such stars as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, so embedded are they into the American music scene that that fact is often forgotten. And yes, they have Native Americans, in a proportion at least several times greater than that of the US (and that doesn’t include Inuits). And yes, they have their own version of the Grammy Awards, called the Juno Awards, held usually in March or April of every year since 1970. They even have a category for ‘Aboriginal Recording of the Year’, an honor accorded no other minority in Canada (except Francophones), not bad for an ethnicity that didn’t even get the right to vote until 1960.

This year they’ve done even better. This year there will be an exclusively First Nations showcase. Since the Juno Awards are an all-week affair, it can become more of a SXSW-style event (not to be confused with the NXNE in June), complete with showcases. The Native American showcase is sponsored by Manitoba Music and will feature five of Canada’s most up-and-coming native artists. Christa Couture is perhaps the most ‘Canadian-sounding’ of the lot- despite her Arapaho father- pure modern acoustic folk, slick and sweet, self-conscious and world-wise, complete with piano and strings. “All the while she was starting and stopping, box-car hopping, to no avail,” she sings on ‘Sad Story Over’, whether autobiographical or not, I couldn’t say. Leela Gilday works in the same folk genre, even though she comes from the far north in Yellowknife NWT, a Dene cousin of our own Southwest US Navajos (Dene:Dine, get it?). Her style is more world-weary then world-wise, though, as in the song ‘End of the Day’- “She gets up from the table, the coffee’s growing old, she thinks of how the years go by, it seems she’s growing old.” Canada has got some of the best folk music in the world, and if they’re reluctant to give that up, then I see no reason to. Their First Nations fit right in.

Canada is not known for its urban music; I wonder why? Maybe they’re just too happy and healthy up in the north country to get bogged down in the anger and hatred that defines much of urban music… and much of America. Maybe that’s what national health care will do for you. If that makes Canada old-fashioned, then so be it. There is some, though, funk and electronica, too, so Natives will have their own versions, and Cris Derksen is a good example of that. A half-Cree classically trained cellist, she gets down down and funky with some hard-edged electronica on ‘What Did You Do, Boy?’ Digging Roots is a bluesy group headed by the collaborative duo of ShoShona Kish and Raven Kanatakta, killer voice meets killer guitar chops sharing a bouquet of flowery lyrics to create a sound that reminds variously of Joplin or Stevie Ray, even got some native rap, too. Coming from Ojibway roots and composition styles, it sounded good enough to win them the Juno award for Aboriginal Album of the year last year for their collection entitled ‘We Are’. Listen with a friend.

But my personal favorite of the five groups showcased is a group called ‘Eagle & Hawk’. Likewise of Ojibway roots and Winnipeg-based, these guys maintain a healthy schizophrenia consisting of gold ol’ R&R and what I could only describe as maybe… Indian rock? This can run the gamut from the chants, strings, and ambient sounds of the ethereal ‘Water Sounds’ to the border-town honky-tonkin’ ‘Wild West Show’. Their self-reflection and mock-deprecation can even be so incisive as to be anthemic, as in “I See Red’- “I’m not embarrassed when I look into the mirror; is it fear and anxiety or just the cost of sobriety?” This is good stuff.

I haven’t been to the Juno Awards before, but I know Canada has THE best folk music festivals in the world out West, and some of the best pow-wows, too, I hear. And if there’s less urban and electronic music than down south here, that’s easily compensated with good solid songsmanship. Check ‘em out if you get the chance.

‘CRUSH’ by TELEPATH (MICHAEL CHRISTIE)- Producer as Auteur... and Star?

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the nuclear musical group is quickly going the way of the nuclear family- whoever shows up for Sunday dinner is fine… let’s eat! If that offends those for whom a cigarette in the final fret inserted- incensed and wafting- is the de rigeur pose for rocanrolero true believers, then so be it. Some people will never embrace change, no matter what the form… and that’s fine, too. No change is better than mindless change. I hear they still have Grateful Dead nights at one of my old watering holes, though I had never wished it so, past perfect subjunctive. Most of these manifestations and methods of delivery- all for the sake of entertainment- are cyclical, constantly changing and returning. If you miss a certain type of music enough, just make a wish and bide your time- it’ll be back.

It’s always been this way to some extent. The 50’s garage bands were a response to Crosby/Sinatra slick orchestra pop, and early 60’s teen-idol Tin Pan Alley songs were a slick-rock response to that, in some sort of pop-music dialectic that plays out like an apocalyptic struggle between the kids and the companies to see who will win control of the local armory. Did Bobby Rydell have a band? Fabian? Bobby Vee? Who knows, or even cares? With the possible exceptions of Bobby Darin, Neil Sedaka, and the Four Seasons, not even the singing ‘star’ was important in the early 60’s, mere plug-in pin-ups to music formulated and manufactured to its lowest-common-denominator specs, sales measured by the lusty look in a teenybopper’s eyes. Then came the Beatles and Bob, of course, and all Hell broke loose for a decade or so, record companies crisscrossing the map trying to keep up with the Next Big Thing. They regained control eventually, though, so had to be taught another lesson in the late 70’s, just like the one they’re being taught right now.

The problem with electronic music IMHO has always been its self-conscious obsession with its own bells and whistles. Like a 60’s cinematographer playing with the zoom lens, there have always just been too many electronic arpeggios to suit my taste, mindless doodling, too mechanical and cold, not enough heart and soul. Things got much more interesting when electronic musicians and producers started working with ‘world’ musicians, of course, taking some of those hard-to-market abstract qualities and re-combining them with more modern and more Western ones for mutual benefit, both acoustical and financial. I’m not sure I could listen to straight Tuvan throat-singing now that they’ve been re-imagined (in my mind at least) as themes to imaginary Chinese westerns, thanks to Huun Huur-tu and Carmen Rizzo (and you can keep your “In-a-gadda-da-vida” and other Tuvan curiosities).

Still the one thing conspicuously lacking in most electronic music is the simple human voice, in all its beauty and all its language(s). This is where Telepath (Michael Christie) makes a real and genuine contribution to the genre on his new album ‘Crush’. With the addition of that one simple element you can go anywhere… though it hardly has to be limited to one, and certainly doesn’t have to be simplistic. After a jazzy brassy ‘Intro’ with much instrumental fussing and percussing, the album follows with ‘Justify’ (featuring Elliot Martin and Monsoon), a song with a post-modern reggae feel and strong influences from afrobeat and hiphop. From there we go into ‘In This Time’ (featuring Becky Ribeiro), classic jazz/pop with strong female vocals. It also features sitar and tabla percussion, setting us up for the batting order’s sweet spot, ‘Dust’, Crush’, and ‘Rohi’, featuring Pervez Khan, Stephanie Morgan, and Sarabjit Kaur Babbu, respectively, sub-continental-style electronic pop with influences that range from Mumbai to the Punjab, devotional qawwalis to Bollywood follies.

‘Mama’ and ‘The Ancient Ones’ (both featuring Kevin Meyame) have a Brazilly kind of Afrobeat feel, featuring Afropop guitar and Youssou-like vocals. ‘Down the Block’ has strong percussion and surf-rock guitar. There is a little bit of electronic doodling on ‘Critical Mass’ and ‘Connection X’- for those who like that- but it’s not overdone. ‘Carry the One’ and ‘Mirrors’ (which closes the album) both feature Maitrayee Patel and her non-verbal voice as instrument, bringing the experiment full circle- adding voice to contribute concrete human qualities to an essentially abstract genre, and then using that same voice to return to the ethereal qualities from which electronic music comes. Only a handful of musical stars have ever been non-vocalists, and they have all been crack instrumentalists, mostly in the jazz field. Modern producers and DJ’s are turning such simplistic notions on their pointy little heads, and improving our listening experiences in the process. Even more experimental here is the essential modus operandi- the majority of the vocals on this album were e-mailed in. Did somebody say something about re-defining something? If that sounds like too-easy jury-rigging, then I’d vote… not guilty. But don’t take my word for it, you be the judge. It’s called ‘Crush,’ by Telepath. Check it out. (I still prefer four woolly dudes and optional chick singer live, though. I guess I’m old-fashioned).

‘HANDMADE’ by Hindi Zahra- Expect the Unexpected

Were you expecting Chipmunk-like vocals from some Hindi-language Bollywood-based diva, maybe? Or perhaps you were thinking of tablas and sitar serving in devotion to a few hundred gods? Guess again. Hindi Zahra is Moroccan with Berber roots, French branches, and… English flowers. The name of her first album is ‘Handmade. Now I don’t usually like non-native English singer-songwriters, not so much for the accented singing itself, but for the typically lame compositions from such ‘cross-over’ artists, the subtle nuances of language usually lost in translation. But you’ll have to admit that the quality is getting better, proving not only that the music typically predominates over the lyrics, but that foreigners are increasingly mastering our medium. For a Moroccan Berber- or a Belgian or a Chinese Malaysian or almost any African, for that matter- you’re growing up with three languages already… so what’s a fourth?

The lyrics may be English, but the musical style is unmistakeably French, old school. We’re not talking Manu Chao here; we’re talking Django. And though she counts jazz as her main influence- the album is being released on Blue Note after all (visualize hand swishing a lapel)- be careful: we’re talking Billie Holiday, not Cassandra Wilson. The first song- ‘Beautiful Tango’- a surprise hit in France, illustrates this old-timey quality best, down to the earthy vocals, slow and moody- “beautiful stranger, take me by the hand… sweet music, sweet sweet music”. You can cut the smoky air with a knife.

The next two songs, ‘Oursoul’ and ‘Fascination’, continue in the same vein- yes, THAT vein- doing what Hindi does best (and what the French audience apparently wants), getting sweet and lowdown, albeit in the Berber language on ‘Oursoul’. With ‘Set Me Free’ she explores some new ground, more of a Spanish-Gypsy feel, with percussion and clapping and guitar, with increasingly bluesy vocals- “I know you’ll never be the man I used to know… please set me free, look what you do to me.” ‘Kiss & Thrills’ continues the lament with “in your heart, in the dark…who’s gonna’ love you like I do?” ‘At The Same Time’ tells us why. She’s a hopeless romantic- “I should die in your arms right now, and give it all to you… love is so beautiful and cruel at the same time.” Sooo French. At least that gives it a break from the standard verse- verse- chorus- verse format.

The album’s third third gets more experimental musically… to good effect, in my opinion. ‘Stand Up’ is faster, more lively, and even adds banjo; now that’s very old-school jazz! Ditto the lyrics- “stand up on your two feet baby… you want me to be your mother, but you know I’m too young, and you want me to be your sister, but you know I’m too old”. Then she shows us a side as yet hidden with ‘Don’t Forget’ (“don’t forget about me when you say good-bye”) and the album closer ‘Old Friends’, slower but not moody, instead trippy and dreamy, a side I like a lot- “Old friends and young ones, all the angels and preachers became one… for this heaven we live, reality may come in”…

The one thing this album does NOT include are any Arab standards, or hardly even any influence, surprising given Hindi’s Moroccan origins. The influences are jazz, gypsy music, and French chansons, in no certain order. Given the romantic sensual nature of much of it, it might even be considered a rebellious album, almost anti-Islamic, harking back to an era when Islam was not concerned with fundamentalism. Expect a call from the Brotherhood any day. In fact the album reminds me of no one so much as K. D. Lang, pure torch and twang, and… constant craving. But I won’t go there. YOU go there… and check it out (a brief word about the title: it’s accurate, complete with that ‘lived-in’ feel, family production values), 'Handmade’ by Hindi Zahra.

‘CHAMBER MUSIC’ by Ballake’ Sissoko and Vincent Segal- Mind Over Music

It had to happen sooner or later… that world music would produce a successful collaboration of African classical with Western classical music. After all, there have been collaborations of world music with almost everything else western- rock, pop, folk, hiphop, you name it. But classical? Surely the two traditions are too disparate to merely ‘mash up’ in any meaningful way. I myself didn’t think it could be done. African artists, however masterful, just seemed too self-taught and out of the mainstream of Western music. This seemed painfully clear watching Vieux Toure’ in a jam with other world musicians on a workshop stage at Edmonton Folk Festival a few years ago. It just didn’t fit, so it didn’t work very well. Even if they play in the same keys and tune their instruments the same, the relationship between the people and the music is fundamentally different… isn’t it? Maybe not. Maybe it’s just a matter of combining the right musicians in the right situation.

If ‘Chamber Music’, the new album by Ballake’ Sissoko and Vincent Segal is any indication, then the possibilities are infinite. Ironically the concepts of ‘chamber music’ and ‘world music’ are about equally undefined and undefinable, chamber music being closely associated with ‘classical music’, though smaller- capable of being played in a chamber, or room- the string quarter maybe being the most obvious example of the concept. ‘World music’, on the other hand, can mean almost anything. My own garbled definition vaguely describes it as ‘music of other styles and other languages’ than the predominant Anglo-American established genres… which could be almost anything.

The concept of ‘African music’ is even more misleading, usually almost equally divided between Afro-pop and African roots music, a genre which usually includes the kind of griot/djeli kora-based music of the type that Sissoko plays, kora being the long necked string instrument played extending outward from the griot’s lap, something quite a bit different from Segal’s cello. Maybe it’s time to re-think the difference between roots music and Western art music, the broad category to which all Western classical music belongs. Perhaps, like language, all popular forms of music ultimately derive from more structured forms, from which they deviate and ultimately re-invent.

The opening title song sets the tone nicely, cajoling and teasing and soaring to uncertain heights, just begging you to surrender and let go of your preconceptions. The second song ‘Oscarine’ shows the other side of their collaboration, the slow moody side, which may just be what they share most in common, apart from the mastery of their instruments. All the songs are written either by Sissoko or Segal individually, but I’d challenge you to guess which without referring to the credits. The songwriter’s instrument may be more prominently featured on his own songs, but never overwhelms. That calculated moodiness in fact defines the overall tome of the album.

Both artists are comfortable and competent whether the song in question is solemn or upbeat. They’re all a bit dramatic and suspenseful regardless. One song, ‘Regret’, a tribute to Sissoko’s friend Kader Berry, even has words, supplied courtesy of Sissoko’s fellow compatriot Awa Sangho. Other than that they’re all purely instrumental, with instruments in addition to Sissok’s kora and Segal’s cello contributed to suit the mood and the music. All in all it’s one inspiring effort.

On second thought, I’m not sure whether I’m ready to admit that the two traditions are merely flip sides of one and the same thing. I’d be more ready to allow that these are two extraordinarily well-traveled and well-disciplined masters, who have found in each other’s music something to complement their own. They play as two hands from the same mind, a mind that they’ve cultivated in each other’s company along the banks of the Niger River in Bamako, and in concert halls in Paris. The fruit of their creativity is the music itself. It’s called simply ‘Chamber music’. Check it out.

‘LARU BEYA’ by Aurelio- Garifuna Music Lives!

The Garifuna people are one of the most unlikely success stories in the long sordid histories of both the African diaspora AND the Native American genocide. Remnants of an African group mixed in varying degress with local groups of Arawaks and Caribs in the Lesser Antilles, these refugees were long ago relocated to the Central American coasts centered around the not-so-golden triangle where Guatemala meets Honduras and Belize, formerly British Honduras. There these almost-black people speaking an Amerindian language encountered local Maya-descended groups- in addition to other Caribbean blacks and mixed-race Latinos- and have proceeded to extend themselves far and wide. They have also proceededed to establish their own identity and culture based primarily on farming and fishing… and poverty… and music. For most people the notion of Garifuna music starts and ends with one name- Andy Palacio, the musician from Belize who made world music history with the album ‘Watina’ and whose life ended tragically soon thereafter, before he even got to enjoy his newfound fame.

Enter Aurelio, aka Aurelio Martinez, from Honduras, another Garifuna musician and close friend of Andy Palacio. He is fully prepared to carry Andy’s torch, and his new album ‘Laru Beya’ (‘at the Beach’) intends to prove it. Gone are the Latino flourishes that graced Aurelio’s previous work, and gave him some connection to the resources and markets of that genre. Largely gone also are the Afro-Pop affectations that made him something of a cause célèbre within that genre. This album, in fact, could almost be seen as much as an extension of Andy’s work as his own. Instead of Latin ‘spiciness’ or African rhythms instead we have minor keys and soulful laments, punctuated by upbeat numbers of philosophic survival. But if you think that sounds like reggae, you’d be wrong.

The opening song ‘Lubara Wanwa’ is not untypical. This is the slow soulful tearful lament of a woman bemoaning the vicissitudes of love and the absence of her sailor lover long gone to sea. And if that sounds like Youssou N’Dour singing complementary vocals with Aurelio, there’s probably a good reason. The title song ‘Laru Beya’ lightens things up with more of a reggae-like feel, complete with full female chorus line and occasional brass. "In the stillness I sleep. I awake and find that I have dreamt of you. I love you. I love you. I'll be sitting at the beach waiting for you", same scenario but more upbeat feel. I guess it’s a ‘glass half-empty/glass half-full’ thing. The next song ‘Yange’ extends the theme, with the same almost fado-like mournfulness and lamentation, this time over a brother hurt at sea.

‘Wéibayua’ warns of the dangers of politicians and ‘Ineweyu’ warns of the dangers of sleeping around, all in lively percussion with occasional brass and appropriate mocking tone. This is music in its primordial function as a tool for social order and morality and transmission of culture, no small task considering that, like many dispersed tribal peoples of the world, the Garifuna are separated by national boundaries. Other songs deal with AIDS, immigration, and the price of cassava, but as always the most common theme here, as with almost any album any where any time, is the love between two humans, the spark that ignites larger fires.

The real theme of this album finally emerges on the tenth song, ‘Wamada’ (‘Our friend’) a soulful ballad featuring Youssou N’Dour that mourns the loss of Andy Palacio, and wishes him his rightful place amonst the ancestors in the afterlife.

‘Nuwaruguma’ (‘my star’)- extends the theme of loss and solidarity and the idea that such phenomena are merely part of a larger order exemplified by the heavens. Faith is always the last refuge of confusion and wonder. Thus the album comes full circle and a lament becomes a eulogy and a renewal of faith. And thus a native people decimated in the Caribbean find cultural survival in the physical bodies of unwilling immigrants who not only meet up again with their Mayan second cousins, but carry their spirit on to the North, in the language of a new paradigm… music. Between punta and paranda and so on and so forth, there’s a lotta’ music emanating from a tiny band of survivors with a base in the Caribbean and a past in the Grenadines… with much of their population now scattered in the immigrant communities of the US, all coasts considered.

This music has DNA from all over, just like the Garifuna people who it so proudly represents. Hybrid vigor rules. The new album is called ‘Laru Beya’ by Aurelio. It’s more than reggae. It’s also being released by Next Ambiance, an imprint of Sub Pop. Remember them? But that’s another story. Check it out.

MOUNQALIBA by NATACHA ATLAS- Classic Arab on Rai, a la Francaise s.v.p.

Though Frau Merkel may have unilaterally declared ‘multi-kulti’ to be dead, the reality at ground zero of world music would hardly agree. We’re just getting started. You ain’t seen nothing yet. If we ever run out of ex-pats and immigrants, then we can always go to remote foreign countries themselves. And if their particular home-grown genres don’t especially appeal to us, then we can just chop their music up into bite-size chunks for use by DJs and avant-garde producers. Natacha Atlas (نتاشا أطلس) can go either way, something of a perfect example of the macro- and micro-cosm of world music. Of mixed roots primarily combining English with Middle Eastern, she was born in Belgium and has lived in England, speaks five languages (while dreaming in two) and has worked variously as a belly dancer and lead singer of a salsa band, in addition to her main role as a proponent and agent provocateur for the musical sub-genres of ‘world fusion’ and ‘ethno-techno’. That’s about as ‘multi-kulti’ as you get. And oh yeah, her career includes major stints with UK-based Jah Wobble and Transglobal Underground.

Now like haze from a machine, Natacha Atlas emerges from the mists of buzz and rumors to finally arrive on the US stage… she’s long been on the world stage. Considering that we have no shortage of our own music, that’s not so easy, and usually involves at least a short-term sublet in LA (or NY). So her name pops up frequently on the entertainment ‘zines around here with gigs ranging from the Skirball summer series out in the hills to her most recent at the Conga Room downtown. She has a new album out, you see, and is anxious to claim some turf in our collective subconscious. It’s called Mounqaliba.

If her past and her palette seem something of a confusion of styles and sensibilities, then Mounqaliba is anything but. This is a newer more mature Natacha Atlas. Gone are any vestiges of her previous life as a dub/techno artist. When she’s not reconfirming her staus as one of the pre-eminent female Arabic-language pop singers, she’s leaning heavily toward the slower classical Arab songs, lush with strings but not so over-produced like much Arab music. Add to that some English laments and slow French-language jazz and there’s plenty of room for Natacha to spread her wings. And that’s just the beginning.

After a nice piano instrumental as introduction- the nice Zoe Rahman piano refrains weave in and out throughout- the album goes into the song ‘Makaan’, a nice slow Arab number infused with flute and strings. ‘Matrah Interlude’ is a spoken-word monologue on the subject of free will, while ‘Bada Al Fajr’ returns to the soft piano instrumentals that almost define the album. ‘Muwashah Ozkourini,’ a classic Arabic standard, with its piano AND lush strings, DOES define the album. For her one English pop interpretation, she makes a definite departure from previous takes of James Brown and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, instead opting for ‘Riverman’ by Nick Drake. The melancholy fits the mood perfectly.

‘Batkallim’ returns to the Arab theme, but a bit electronica in style, to deliver a heartfelt denunciation of hypocrisy. The title song is another lovely piano/flute soliloquy, the perfect lightweight counterpart to the album’s predominant classical Arab- sometimes heavy- feel. From there it goes into its other minor theme- French chansons, slow jazzy laments- with ‘Le Cor, Le Vent’, a theme echoed with ‘La Nuit Est Sur La Ville’. ‘Ghoroub’ is about as slow and mourning as an Arab song can be, while ‘Taalet’ is more like rai, quick and full of joy. ‘Nafourat El Anwar’ returns to the soft piano and dreamy vocals format to close the album, an overall highly pleasant range of songs.

What makes Mounqaliba stand out as a great album- for me at least-are all the intros and interludes that punctuate the album from start to finish, a full half-dozen of them scattered throughout. In an era when songs go for a buck a pop as often as not, this is significant. These include spoken word, sparse instrumentals, calls to prayers, and market and street sounds. They serve to set a tone for the songs to come. They serve to explain the songs that have just gone. They help to make an album more than just a collection of songs. They help to lift the album from the realm of the ordinary. That’s ‘Mounqaliba’ by Natacha Atlas. Check it out.

MIRA by JIENAT- Engineer as Auteur

One of my first philosophical proclamations- at the ripe old age of eight- was that all of the suitable themes for popular music had been exhausted. There simply was little left to write about. It had all been done. I’ve since revised that theory, in fact inverted it 180 degrees to assume that almost NOTHING has been done. We’ve just scratched the surface- written a few love songs, a few waltzes, a few instrumentals, a few laments, a few rants. Still these days it seems like we’re all on our seats, maybe even biting our nails, some even hedging their bets, as to what will be the ‘next big thing.’ That there will be we all agree; novelty sells, but WHAT?

It’s so bad now that the hottest things these days are slice-and-dice ‘mash-up’ versions of disparate artists from disparate genres sharing a three-inch screen with two or more songs when in fact that may be all they share- except maybe a mutual love of mustaches, or wine vintage, or loopy lyrics, or the key of C. DJ’s are increasingly the stars of musical events, turntablists by trade re-editing the music of others for their own profit, while ‘real musicians’ can barely find gigs and songwriters stand in food stamp lines. What’s going on? I’ve got more paradigm shifts than I have fingers to count them on.

Let’s call it the ‘auteur’ theory, by analogy with what happened in the film industry c. 1959, first in France, later even up here in the Hollys. Everyone’s heard of of the world’s best film directors today, they existing in the public’s imagination almost on a par with A-list actors, TMZ notwithstanding. Most telling is the fact that any actor- or producer or screenwriter- who wants to really ‘get serious’ about film will sooner or later have to try his luck on the other side of the camera. The same thing is happening in pop music. Producers are increasingly becoming directors as fast as DJ’s are becoming producers to move music into a potentially exciting new era where musical performance is more than four guys standing there in T-shirts, cigarettes and instruments dangling… or a troupe of singer-dancers doing choreographed movements, while the real music occurs somewhere in the background. Pop music is growing up. Who knew the name of any record producers forty years ago? Today many people know the names of Lanois, Burnett, Carmen Rizzo, Danger Mouse, and maybe even Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno… while many more DJ’s are stars outright.

Enter into this creative milieu JIENAT (‘voices’ in Sami/Lapp) and its (instru)mentalist/engineer/auteur Andreas Fliflet, with their new album ‘Mira’. Ostensibly a group doing Saami joik music, this is to joik what maybe the Beatles were to rock-and-roll. Not a local himself, the Norwegian Fliflet was able to see in the far northern music something that maybe they couldn’t see themselves. So it’s interesting that, while joik itself seems to be divided into traditionalist chanting styles and a more ‘modern’ ballad style, Fliflet’s style is distinctly closer to the traditional, albeit transformed by the ultra-modern sensibilities of its African/Brazilian-influenced auteur. This means a much heavier reliance on percussion than would otherwise be the case. More importantly, for me at least, it includes a willingness to use anything and everything as components of a total sound.

The song ‘Sissel’ opens the album with visceral vocals and American Indian-like chants, accented with percussion and bells. The similarities to Native American traditional chanting may seem surprising until you consider that these two broad groups may have at one time shared some hunting grounds in the Ural Mountains. ‘Andreas/André adds the female voice of Marit Haetta Overli to the mix, along with scat vocals augmented by percussion. ‘Radio Belgrano’ even incorporates horse hoofs and vendors’ sales pitches as an intrinsic component of the music. But the title song ‘Mira’ tops that with barking dogs that have been known to get cats hot and bothered around the world, no matter their native language. ‘Tudeer’ incorporates a musical saw that sacrifices nothing to a theremine in its creation of an eerie other-worldy sound. ‘August Samuel’ closes with what almost sounds like Gregorian chants. Thus with traditional Sami chanting, assorted percussion, and found objects, Fliflet and Jienat manage to make a musical statement well worth a second listen. Now if we could only get an auteur theory for music videos, then we’d have something… but I digress. That’s Mira by Jienat. Hardie K says check it out.

The Front Lines of World Music

"Today I wish to inform as many people as possible about the paranoid atmosphere of a so called modern country China. Our neighbour is a political activist from Beijing (and) close friend of the guy who just received the Nobel Peace Prize, who is in jail for 11 years... today our neighbour had a discussion with the secret services, (and) the first question was what's your relationship to the French s guy s wife, your neighbour ? He answered in a non controversial way and got away with it, (but) as u all know the government of this country is sick ! A country controlled by the propaganda department, who does not hesitate to even censor the Chinese president who in a CNN interview declared that democracy is needed in china and that message from the president cannot even go through in this sick country. Let me just express my feelings, how long can it go on like that ????????????????
best
Laurent

Such are the trials and tribulations of living and working in China. Laurent Jeanneau perseveres. He has to. It's nasty work, but somebody's gotta' do it. Did you ever in fact wonder where 'world music' comes from? As you sit in Starbuck's listening to the latest Putumayo compilation, you may not fully appreciate the circuitous routes such music has taken in arriving at your eardrums. Maybe you figured that deals are simply made at the executive level between record companies overseas and record companies in America? You're right. Or maybe immigrant musicians in London, Paris, New York and LA re-create the sounds of their homelands with fellow ex-patriates? You're right again. It even goes beyond that, immigrants from different countries creating hybrid sounds and styles, original music that never existed anywhere or any time before. But that only tells half the story.

You can follow any genre of music back to its source and the story is always very similar- village people making music for entertainment, for religion, for tradition. This music may be very simple in style and in execution, but it serves a higher purpose for the villagers themselves. It ties them to their place and their time. When those village people move to cities, they take their instruments with them. There it gets mixed and matched and transformed and exported... or not. Sometimes it never gets heard beyond its village of origin. Sometimes it simply dies out as the next generation might rather emulate hiphop or other foreign styles. What can be done to preserve the original music for the mutual enrichment of the entire human race? Does anyone care?

Laurent Jeanneau does. Since 1995 he has been involved in two complementary activities, firstly recording ethnic minority music mostly in South East Asia, and secondly composing electronic music that includes or transforms those recordings. It involves going to foreign places, often remote, in India, in Tanzania, in Cambodia, in Laos, in Vietnam and China, and finding and then recording the music, often in primitive conditions. Every country has a different context so the approach is different, depending on how much time is available, on how close he is with the people, on the degree of acculturation, on how easy it is to find musicians, on political situations, on who he is working with and which music simply interests him most. He invests time, money and energy on music that moves him, and in most cases is likely the first to record those musicians. He sells it himself and through the American niche label Sublime Frequencies.

"I have no academic background, never studied anthropology or ethnomusicology... (what's) essential is to find cultures which are being ignored by the record industry, which has no interest in totally uncommercial music... My goal is to find original music I love; I don t waste time on music I don t like."

If that sounds like an idyllic lifestyle, the opposite is often the case, especially in dealing with an idiosyncratic political entity like China, where he now lives with his wife and son. This is certainly obvious from the latest e-mail I received from him, as quoted above. Still he perseveres. He has to; it's his life's work. You can listen to music samples on MySpace at: www.myspace.com/kinkgong . If you like what you hear you may follow the links to contact him or to purchase. He'd appreciate it. So would many villagers in many villages scattered throughout the SE Asian region. Think of it as a genome project, unraveling and presenting the DNA of music. The old ways become the New Age, music for a new millennium. Enjoy.

HARDLY STRICTLY SAN FRAN… MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

What’s the greatest music festival in the world… that nobody’s ever heard of? WOMAD Canarias, maybe, or Sauti za Busara in Zanzibar? My vote would have to be for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco, CA. Founded by venture capitalist Warren Hellman and now celebrating its ten-year anniversary, HSB (not the bank) is the best kept secret this side of the International Date Line. While everybody here in LA gets all cummy reminiscing about their favorite Coachella desert encounter or waxing philosophical about the difficulties of maintaining the spirit of Burning Man, in a week when I heard KCRW dj’s exclaiming the unusual bounty of musical talent on display this week, not a word was mentioned about HSB, a short half-day’s drive to the north… likely the cause of much of the synchronous left coast bounty BTW. Down here there was not so much as a word of advertising, nor a blurb of news on the subject. We’re talking about a high six figures in attendance, mind you.

But bluegrass music is not exactly your thing, you say? That’s why it’s called ‘Hardly Strictly.’ In a show that features the likes of Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, and Steve Earle, they can call it a festival of wedding singers, for all I care. True it IS still heavily roots-oriented, including a heavy dose of alt-country as well as bluegrass proper, but anything that’s heartfelt and genuine seems welcome. Outside the narrow bluegrass genre, artists with lyric-based music seem to predominate. Other than that, the predominant feature seems to relate to the audience themselves, who seem to be… how do you you say it… of a certain age? Ahhh, so that explains the virtual anonymity, doesn’t it? Everybody’s so interested in what the dorky freckle-faced kid down the street is doing when his hands aren’t otherwise engaged, that they could care less about what’s become of the generation that created a revolution in the 60’s… musically at least, politics subject to reinterpretation. HSB featured fairly equal doses of local, Austin, and Nashville artists, with heavy doses of New York, LA and London thrown in for good measure. So there’s not much world music there, but just about everything else.

So the festival stays largely local… and an insider’s pilgrimage. Imagine a Rainbow Gathering or a Grateful Dead New Year’s show, and you’re getting the idea. Many attendees walk or take public transportation, but the best part is that it’s free, yes, FREE… zippo zilch nada nadita, all courtesy of Mr. Hellman. He probably figures ‘why choose the usual Gateways or blow it all in one giant Buffet’… when you can create the world’s greatest party? Thank you, Mr. Hellman. If we’re stuck with cowboy capitalism, we like your horse-riding style. With six stages going more or less simultaneously, everybody’s free to create their own individual show schedule, of course, aided by various real-estate schemes usually involving the creative placement of various tarp-like spreads and items of lawn furniture. It’s almost like Second Life.

My show went something like this: after leaving LA (in the broad daylight) as the sun rose over the Hollywood Hills, we hustled up the central corridor lickety-split so’s to try to make the 2pm Friday half-day opening. Allowing a few stops for corn and various fruit items from the roadside stands, we almost made it. We DID find the righteous parking spaces (Hell no I’m not telling you), so that helped a lot… all three days. So we missed Jerry Douglas with Omar Hakim and Viktor Krauss, but we still got to hear an excellent set by Patty Griffin- with help from special guest Emmylou Harris, and then another by Jenny & Johnny. Worried about losing my street-cred as a musical idiot savant by embracing J & J- after maybe one or two listens- I was relieved when Elvis Costello showed up to help them with a song. So now I feel vindicated. They’re going places. T-Bone Burnett then played MC for his own little revue of current producee clients, but we wandered over to see the Dukes of September, aka Fagen, Boz, and Michael McDonald, a 3-in-1 hitmaking juggernaut anxious to relive the golden days.

Saturday started off with credible performances by Austinites Kelly Willis and Band of Heathens, before moving on to Hot Tuna Electric and a small slice of Fountains of Wayne. Up next then were excellent performances by Joan Baez and David Grisman. It’s always fun to hear Joan going into Dylan-voice to get his songs spot-on, and suffice it to say that the spark never died. Grisman’s set was indeed one of the show’s best, reminding one what string bands might be like if Scruggs never picked, and the heights to which that format can be taken, almost like a string quintet. We then moved on back to the ‘Austin stage’ with a somewhat revived Jerry Jeff Walker and another awesome threesome in the guise of Ely and Gilmore and Butch Hancock’s Flatlanders, but by then the fog had moved in and the temperatures were Arctic. Shivering that much may qualify as a calisthenic work-out.

They save the best for last. Sunday got started with a Peter Rowan hoe-down, before bogging down a bit with the much-respected but hardly exciting Hazel Dickens. As someone commented, that’s ‘a little TOO traditional’. So my friends and I staked out our turf for Randy Newman’s excellent set, and then held our ground while Elvis Costello played over the speakers from the stage next door. He was showcasing a band called the ‘Sugarcanes’, featuring such luminaries as Jerry Douglas in addition to some familiar old Attractions. Hey, if Allison’s gonna play FTSE with Robert Plant, Jerry doesn’t have to sulk alone in the corner now, does he? So they did some Costello standards country style to really nice effect, and even came back for an encore.

But all of this, the entire three days, was only a warm-up for what came next… the closest thing I’ve ever had to a religious experience anywhere… much less a rock music concert. We’re talking about Patti Smith, high priestess of punk, and arguably the best poet since Allen Ginsberg. You had to be there. A third-person narrative would hardly do it justice, but suffice it to say that, yeah, she did ‘G-L-O-R-I-A… in Excelcis Deo’, ‘People Have the Power’… and much more, including quotes from St Francis of Assisi, San Fran’s patron saint. It was incredible. Remember that there would be as many concert stories as there are spectators. Consider it for next year, and bring a friend… but don’t steal my parking space.